On the other
hand, the mountains of Mar, where lie the springs of the Dee, where
tower Lochnagar and Benmacdhui, are inhabited by a race of shepherds and
hunters, speaking a different language, differing in manners from the
Dean's friends, who dwelt from the Hill of Fair to Ashintillie, where
hardly a Gaelic name occurs among the peasantry.
The little cluster of mansions which I have mentioned lies, I think,
wholly within the parish of Banchory-Ternan. Following the river down
from that parish, the next place of any importance is the old
manor-house of Durris, some half-dozen miles lower, and on the right
bank of the river. It is a place of some interest to lawyers for having
given rise to one of the leading cases on the law of entail, which
settled points that had formerly been doubtful, all in favour of the
strict entail. The victim in that case, ejected by the heir of entail,
was John Innes, who had sold his property in Moray to invest the produce
in the great barony of Durris. The new tenant, believing himself almost
proprietor, built a comfortable house under the walls of the old castle,
and in that house was born the writer of these notes. I do not feel
myself severed by any disgusts from the country of my youth where I
spent my best years, or at least the years of most enjoyment. It was
then a wild moor, with some natural beauty, a picturesque den leading
from the house to the noble river, wooded with native birch and scrubby
oak, with some tall larches and magnificent horse-chestnuts, and even a
few immemorial Spanish chestnuts planted by the old Peterboroughs, now
all gone.
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