x-hunters," known to us, after the southern sporting slang had
been brought among us by our neighbour Captain Barclay, as
"Pad-the-hoof" and "Flash-the-muzzle[7]" The fox-hunting was on foot,
but let no mounted hunter sneer. The haunts of the game were continuous
woods and bogs, hard to ride and from which no fox could be forced to
break. "Pad-the-hoof" looked no ignoble sportsman as he cheered his
great slow-hounds through the thicket, and his halloo rang from the
wood of Trustach to the craigs of Ashintillie. Both were armed, but
"Flash" took less charge of the hounds than seeing to death the fox, the
enemy of all, including the roe, which recent plantations had raised
into an enemy. I must say nothing on foot or wing came amiss to
Flash-the-muzzle's gun. Hares and rabbits, not then the pest of the
country, swelled our bag. We had a moderate number of black game, and
the fox-hunters were somewhat astonished to find that we of the gentry
set much store by woodcock, which bulked so little in the day's sport.
The fox-hunter brothers had the run of the servants' hall at Crathes,
and they were said to have consumed fabulous numbers of kitchen pokers,
which required to be heated red-hot to give the jugs of ale of their
evening draught the right temperature and flavour. That was a
free-living community. The gentlemen of the house were too much
gentlemen to stand upon their dignity, and all, from the baronet
downwards, had the thorough appreciation of Deeside humour. It was there
that the Dean learned his stories of "Boatie" and other worthies of the
river-side. Boatie himself was Abernethy, the ferryman of Dee below
Blackhall; he hauled his boat across the river by a rope made fast at
both ends. Once, in a heavy water, the rope gave way, and Boatie in his
little craft was whirled down the raging river and got ashore with much
difficulty. It was after this, when boasting of his valiant exertions,
that Mrs. Russell put him in mind of the gratitude he owed to Providence
for his escape, and was answered as the Dean himself tells us in his
_Reminiscences_. Another of the water-side worthies, "Saunders Paul,"
was nominally the keeper of the public-house at Invercannie, where the
water of Cannie falls into Dee. It was the alehouse of the country, but
frequented much more by the gentry than by the commons. It was there
that Mr. Maule in his young days, not yet Lord Panmure, led the riots
and drank his claret, while Saunders capped him