324 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



must all pay. Willing to see something more of the town, as well as 

 unwilling to rise at five, the hour of the Defiance starting, I preferred 

 the mail at three, which would land me at Ury by dinner time, according 

 to an arrangement with " the Captain," as the celebrated Captain Bar- 

 clay is called, who was to meet me at Stonehaven to conduct me thither. 

 My fellow passenger was the Mr. Ramsay, then residing at Aberdeen, who 

 sold the celebrated Tilbury horse, a few years back, to Lord Rodney for 

 the previously unheard sum of seven hundred guineas ! and our guard 

 was Fairweather, who, I was told, scarcely ever puts on a great coat, let 

 the weather be what it may. I can only vouch for his having had none 

 on this day, which was intensely cold, with showers of snow and sleet. 



The sight of a cheerful friend, is like the sun breaking forth on a 

 cloudy day ; and the dulness of the inside of a coach, with persons 

 whom we never saw before, and are never likely to see again, is gratefully 

 exchanged for the welcome face of a being of the above description, 

 whom we have known many years, and who holds a place in our esteem. 

 My acquaintance with Captain Barclay is of more than thirty years stand- 

 ing, having commenced when he hunted in Oxfordshire ; and the 

 general celebrity of his character made me proud of the opportunity of 

 renewing it. I was delighted then, when I saw him standing at the inn 

 door to receive me, and we walked together to our dinner, at Ury, dis- 

 tant two miles. 



The domain of Ury is by far the finest that I saw in Scotland. It 

 consists of a thousand acres of excellent arable and old pasture land, — six 

 hundred of the former, and four hundred of the latter — admirably laid out 



