Forbes; and Blackhall, where, in the
time I have in my mind, lived his aunt, Mrs. Russell, the widow of my
uncle Francis Russell, a woman of many sorrows, but whose sweet voice
and silver laugh brought joy into the house even amidst sickness and
sorrow[8]. She had not the Deeside language, but she and her sister Lady
Ramsay, Yorkshire women, and educated in the city of York, helped to
give the Dean that curious northern English talk which he mixed
pleasantly with the language of Angus and Mearns that he loved so well;
and he inherited from the Bannermans the sweet voice, so valuable an
inheritance to a preacher.
I have gone over less than a dozen miles of the valley of the Dee, which
was the Dean's Deeside. I think the manners and popular thought, as well
as the language of that little district, were peculiar, and fitted to
catch the attention of an eager student of human nature and character.
Deeside, in its wider acceptance, of course includes the great city at
its mouth, and the picturesque mountains of Mar near the source of the
river, where the Queen has now set her mark of favour on the land. I beg
to distinguish Deeside--the Dean's Deeside--lying between these. The
city of Aberdeen, with its trade and manufacture and wealth, with its
University and schools, and some tradition of the antique metropolis,
has established, as she had good right, habits and language of her own,
not to be mistaken, but almost confined to her own walls.
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