12 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



' Sir Thomas took up a volume, presented by Sir 

 Walter Scott to Lady Lauder, and showed us Sir Walter's 

 holograph on the title-page. " This," said he, " I deem 

 a valuable volume ; and here is something I consider 

 as equally so." He opened a portfolio, and showed us 

 the original plan and elevation of Abbotsford, also a 

 present from Sir Walter to the lady. The conversation 

 then turned on Sir Walter. " I had some curious cor- 

 respondence with him," said Sir Thomas, " shortly before 

 his death. Contrary to the opinion he had formerly enter- 

 tained, he then held with Dr Jamieson that the Celts had 

 never inhabited the south of Scotland. I instanced 

 several Gaelic names of places in the south among the 

 rest that of his own Melrose, or the barren promontory 

 and he seemed reconvinced ; but half his mind was 

 gone at the time. Our Gaelic names," continued Sir 

 Thomas, "are strikingly characteristic of either the scenery 

 of the places which they designate, or of some incident 

 in their history, so very remote, perhaps, as to lie beyond 

 the reach of written records. I was led, after writing 

 my essay on the parallel roads of Glenroy, to examine 

 appearances on the course of the Findhorn, very similar to 

 those of the highland glens. Among the rest there is a 

 holm on the Relugas property, round the sides of which 

 I could trace very distinctly what seemed to have been 

 at one time the shores of a lake ; but what was my sur- 

 prise when, on asking a Gaelic scholar for the etymology 

 of the name of a field which occupies the upper part of 

 the holm, I was informed that it was composed of two 

 words which mean < head of the loch.' Now, at how 

 remote a period must not the name have been given ? " I 

 instanced some of our Cromarty names as apparently of 

 very remote antiquity ; stated that a moor in the upper 

 part of the parish had, as shown by its cairns and its 



