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 glass for glass with whisky and kept the company in a roar with Deeside stories.

Old Saunders--I remember him like yesterday--was not a mere drunken sot or a Boniface of the hostelry.

He had lived a long lifetime among men who did not care to be toadied, and there was a freedom and ready wit in the old man that pleased everybody who was worth pleasing.

Above all, there was the Deeside humour which made his stories popular, and brought them to the ear of our Dean.
That was the left side--the Crathes bank of Dee.

Across the river was the somewhat dilapidated fortalice of Tilquhillie, the seat of an ancient and decayed branch of the Douglases.