PLEASANT PLACES 11 



ings, and made their troubles and difficulties his own. 

 A mistake of his boy Arthur illustrates this. The 

 morning chapter of the Bible read by him at family 

 prayers contained the passage " He that exalteth 

 himself shall be abased." Arthur was heard after- 

 wards explaining to his brother : "So nice of father ! 

 If lie had said ' a beast ' none of the Scotch servants 

 ivould have understood him ! " 



I first visited Millden in 1869, when my father was 

 joint-tenant with Lord Cairns of the Lodge and moor. 

 Lady Cairns undertook the housekeeping, and the 

 two large families had a delightful time together, in 

 spite of the fact that it was not a great grouse season. 

 It was the year of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church Bill, 

 and the two friends had passed a strenuous Session in 

 the Houses of Lords and Commons as protagonists 

 among the opponents of the measure. They had 

 certainly earned their holiday, which they enjoyed like 

 released schoolboys. Among my father's papers I find 

 a letter of Lord Cairns, written to him in September of 

 that year, describing the sport in the adjoining forest 

 of Invermark, from which it appears that he had been 

 given a day's stalking there, and had been so unfor- 

 tunate as to wound a stag ! The letter gives a graphic 

 account of the sport, and concludes with a prophetic 



political allusion. 



" MILLDEN, 29 Sept. 1869. 



" MY DEAR HARDY, You will like to hear of the 

 doings in Invermark Forest since you left. Sir Thomas 

 Moncrieff came up the day after you went South, and 

 on the Monday killed two, and on the Tuesday four 

 stags. On the Monday one of his stags was the one 

 wounded about a week before by Captain Young, and 



