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When he was at length seated on the top of the coach running betwixt Aberdeen and Fochabers, which would set him down as near Scaurnose as coach could go, he began to be doubtful how Annie, formally retained on Malcolm's side by the message he had to give her, would judge in the question between them; for what did she know of theatres and such places? And the doubt strengthened as he neared home.
There was no bridge over the Tay at Dunkeld, or over the Spey at Fochabers, or over the Findhorn at Forres. Nothing but wretched pierless ferries, let to poor cottars, who rowed, or hauled, or pushed a crazy boat across, or more commonly got their wives to do it. There was no mail-coach north of Aberdeen till, I think, after the battle of Waterloo.
The last-named bridge is a remarkably elegant structure, thrown over the Spey at a point where the river, rushing obliquely against the lofty rock of Craig-Ellachie,* has formed for itself a deep channel not exceeding fifty yards in breadth. Only a few years before, there had not been any provision for crossing this river at its lower parts except the very dangerous ferry at Fochabers.
"Praesently me an' her leddyship startit for the 'Brig o' Fochabers' pool. She cud be vera affauble whan she likit, I'll say that muckle for the dowager; an' me an' her newsed quite couthie-like as we traivellt. I saftened tae her some, I frankly own; but than my hert hardent again whan I thoucht o' the duty I owed tae Spey an' tae Leddy Carline.
Of course two such Jacobites had to see Culloden Moor; then they came through Nairn and Elgin, crossed the Spey at Fochabers, and Burns dined at Gordon Castle, the seat of the lively Duchess of Gordon, whom he had met in Edinburgh.
Willis aggravated a temporary lameness by dancing at the ball that followed the Whig banquet, and was compelled to abandon a charming land-route north that he had mapped out, and allow himself to be taken 'this side up' on a steamer to Aberdeen. Here he took coach for Fochabers, and thence posted to Gordon Castle.
The use I wish to make of this is to tell you that, without education, a man is just like a block of rough, unpolished marble. Notice, in proof of this, how much Mr. Neill and Mr. On my way to Fochabers I passed through many thousand acres of Fir timber, and saw many deer running in these woods." "Inverness, July 21st.
They passed Gordon Castle at Fochabers, drove over the heath where Macbeth met the witches, 'classic ground to an Englishman, as the old editor of Shakespeare felt, and reached Nairn, where now they heard for the first time the Gælic tongue, 'one of the songs of Ossian, quoth the justly incredulous doctor, and saw peat fires. At Fort George they were welcomed by Sir Eyre Coote.
It is, however, a matter of tradition that Jamie was out in the '45; and that, cannily returning home when Charles Edward turned back at Derby, he earned the price of a croft by showing the Duke of Cumberland the ford across Spey near the present bridge of Fochabers, by which the "butcher duke" crossed the river on his march to fight the battle of Culloden.
There was a stoup of "Benrinnes" on the mantelpiece and a free-drawing pipe in Geordie's mouth. His subject was the one on which he can be most eloquent an incident of the salmon-fishing season, on which the worthy man delivered himself as follows: "Twa or three seasons back I was attendin' Leddy Carline whan she was fushin' that gran' pool at the brig o' Fochabers.
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