of his enthusiasm when
Lord Balmerino, the other victim, had cried in a loud voice, "Long
live the king!" and of the fascination he could not resist which led
his eyes from the shining axe and the draped block to the auburn locks
of the prisoner, and soon after to his bleeding head laid low in the
sawdust around the coffin. All this the old veteran told thrillingly,
the shadow of a boy's awed recollection mingling with his Scottish
exultation as a compatriot of the victim, and even with a touch of
humor as he recalled the domestic scolding which marked the truant's
return.

In the charter-room at Slains Castle, where the records, genealogies,
private journals, official deeds, etc. of the family are kept,
one might find ample material for curious investigation of our
forefathers' way of living. Among other papers is a kind of inventory
headed, "My Ladies Petition anent the Plenissing within Logg and
Slanis." The list of things wanted for Slains speaks chiefly of brass
pots, pewter pans and oil barrels, but, the "plenissing" of Logg
(another residence of the Errolls), "quhilk my Ladie desyris as eftir
followis, quhilk extendis skantlie (scantily) to the half," contains
an ample list of curtains of purple velvet, green serge, green-and-red
drugget and other stuffs hardly translatable to the modern
understanding, and shows that in those days women were not more
backward than now in plaguing their liege lords about upholstery and
millinery. But the most amusing and natural touch of all is in the
endorsement, hardly gallant, but _very_ conjugal, made by the fair
petitioner's husband: "To my Ladyes gredie (greedy) and vnressonable
(unreasonable) desyris it is answerit...." Here follows a distinct
admission that the furniture of both houses, put together, is too
little to furnish the half of each of them, and therefore nothing can
be spared from Logie to "pleniss" Slains.

The family coat-of-arms commemorates to this day the poetical
genealogy of the Hays. Its supporters are two tall, naked peasants
bearing plough-yokes on their shoulders: the crest is a falcon, while
the motto is also significant--"_Serva jugum._" Scottish tradition
tells us that in 980, when the Danes had shamefully routed the Scots
at Loncarty, a little village near Perth, and were pursuing the
fugitives, an old man and his two stalwart sons, who were ploughing in
a field close by, were seized with indignation, and, shouldering their
plough-yokes, placed