and after that always a
banquet: and there if I had not forsworn wine till I came to _Edinburgh_
I think I had there drunk my last.

The fifth day with much ado we gate from thence to _Tarnaway_, a goodly
house of the Earl of _Murrays_,[26] where that Right Honourable Lord and
his Lady did welcome us four days more. There was good cheer in all
variety, with somewhat more than plenty for advantage: for indeed the
County of _Murray_ is the most pleasantest and plentiful country in all
_Scotland_; being plain land, that a coach may be driven more than four
and thirty miles one way in it, alongst by the sea-coast.

From thence I went to _Elgin_ in _Murray_,[27] an ancient City, where
there stood a fair and beautiful church with three steeples, the walls
of it and the steeples all yet standing; but the roofs, windows, and
many marble monuments and tombs of honourable and worthy personages all
broken and defaced: this was done in the time when ruin bare rule, and
Knox knocked down churches.

From _Elgin_ we went to the Bishop of _Murray_ his house which is called
_Spiny_, or _Spinay_: a Reverend Gentleman he is, of the noble name of
_Douglas_, where we were very well welcomed, as befitted the honour of
himself and his guests.

From thence we departed to the Lord Marquess of _Huntlys_ to a sumptuous
house of his, named the _Bog of Geethe_, where our entertainment was
like himself, free, bountiful and honourable. There (after two days
stay) with much entreaty and earnest suit, I gate leave of the Lords to
depart towards _Edinburgh_: the Noble Marquess, the Earl of _Mar_,
_Murray_, _Enzie_, _Buchan_, and the Lord _Erskine_; all these, I thank
them, gave me gold to defray my charges in my journey.

So after five and thirty days hunting and travel I returning, past by
another stately mansion of the Lord Marquesses, called _Stroboggy_, and
so over _Carny_ mount to _Brechin_, where a wench that was born deaf and
dumb came into my chamber at midnight (I being asleep) and she opening
the bed, would feign have lodged with me: but had I been a
_Sardanapalus_, or a _Heliogabulus_, I think that either the great
travel over the mountains had tamed me; or if not, her beauty could
never have moved me. The best parts of her were, that her breath was as
sweet as sugar-candian,[28] being very well shouldered beneath the
waste; and as my hostess told me the next morning, that she had changed
her maiden-head for the price of a bastard not l