NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 277 



namely " Which of the two following charges should I most 

 fear being laid to my account the witnessing a curling-match 

 on a Sunday, or, had I weighed sixteen stone with my saddle, 

 which the worthy factor does, the having been all the morning 

 on the back of a horse with fox-hounds, and then putting him 

 into a gig, to draw me seven or eight miles to a good dinner, 

 and back again, at night, as the worthy factor did this day ?' I 

 think I should most funk lest the ghost of the old grey horse 

 might rise up and accuse me. " Funeris, lieu ! tibi causa fui ?" 

 was a question once put in the shades below. 



But whilst speaking of the gong, which is the summons to 

 dinner in most of the principal mansions in the north, I am re- 

 minded of an anecdote that Mr. John Grant, of Kilgraston, told 

 me of a scene which took place at his house. It happened that 

 two new female servants arrived on the same morning, and were 

 together in their chamber when the gong announced dinner. 

 Never before having heard such an outlandish sound and there 

 certainly is something striking, if not awful, in the long and deep 

 swelling notes of this gong while ascending from the bottom to 

 the top of a large house, and increasing as they ascend they 

 both mistook it for the " last trump/ 7 and were found in hysterics 

 on the floor. 



Sunday, March T. This being a dies non in a sportsman's 

 chronicle, I have very little to say of it. We passed an hour or 

 two in the kennel and stables ; visited the neat residence of John. 

 Arber ; and Abercairney comforted me by telling me the piper 

 never played on Sundays. I expressed no surprise at that after 

 what had been said of the curling-match ; and, moreover, from 

 the recollection of the fact that, in the days of the covenanters, 

 the sacrament was refused to a man who danced with his face 

 toward a woman, and also to a woman who pulled kail, or scraped 

 a potato on the sabbath ! 



Monday, March 2. Weather horribly bad ; hunting out of 

 the question. The laird and myself went to dine at Auchterader 

 House, the seat of Captain Hunter, about eight miles distant, 

 which had a curious appearance, from the fact of the mansion 

 having been built, and lately built, on an open and commanding 

 spot, previously to the formation of plantations, or other orna- 

 mental features, there being scarcely a tree about the place 

 thicker than a man's wrist, or a bush more than three feet high. 

 The inside of the house, however, was wanting in nothing to 

 make us comfortable ; and we cared nothing, as far as ourselves 

 were concerned, for the storm that was raging without. 



On our road to and from Auchterader, we crossed two rivers, 

 about each of which I have a word to say. We passed over that 

 fine stream, the Earn, rendered celebrated in ancient history for 



