' in ruins, wi' whin bushes, an' broom and thistles
growin' ower the bonnie carved wark an' the cedar wa's, just like our ain
abbey. Noo, I judge that the Abbey o' Deer was just the marrow o 't, or
the minister wadna hae said that. But when it was biggit, Lord kens, for
I dinna. It was just as you see it, lang afore your honour was born, an'
aiblins, as the by-word says, may be sae after ye're hanged. But that's
neither here nor there. The Cummins o' Buchan were a dour and surly
race; and, for a fearfu' time, nane near han' nor far awa could ding
them, an' yet mony a ane tried it. The fouk on their ain lan' likit them
weel enough; but the Crawfords, an' the Grahames, an' the Mars, an' the
Lovats, were aye trying to comb them against the hair, an' mony a weary
kempin' had they wi' them. But some way or ither they could never ding
them; an' fouk said that they gaed and learned the black art frae the
Pope o' Room, wha, I myself heard the minister say, had aye a colleague
wi' the Auld Chiel. I dinna ken fou it was, in the tail o' the day, the
hale country raise up against them, an' besieged them in the Abbey o'
Deer. Ye'll see, my frien'" (by this time mine host considered me as one
of his cronies), "tho' we ca' it the abbey, it had naething to do wi'
papistry; na, na, no sae bad as a' that either, but just a noble's
castle, where they keepit sodgers gaun about in airn an' scarlet, wi'
their swords an' guns, an' begnets, an' sentry-boxes, like the local
militia in the barracks o' Aberdeen.

"Weel, ye see, they surrounded the castle, an' lang did they besiege it;
but there was a vast o' meat in the castle, an' the Buchan fouk fought
like the vera deil. They took their horse through a miscellaneous
passage, half a mile long, aneath the hill o' Saplinbrae, an' watered
them in the burn o' Pulmer. But a' wadna do; they took the castle at
last, and a terrible slaughter they made amo' them; but they were sair
disappointed in ae partic'ler, for Cummin's fouk sank a' their goud an'
siller in a draw-wall, an' syne filled it up wi' stanes. They got
naething in the way of spulzie to speak o'; sae out o' spite they dang
doon the castle, an' it's never been biggit to this day. But the Cummins
were no sae bad as the Lairds o' Federat, after a'."

"And who were these Federats?" I inquired.

"The Lairds o' Federat?" said he, moistening his mouth again as a
preamble to his oration. "Troth, frae their deeds ane would maist thin