" An amusing account is given of the cause of
Lord Gardenstone withdrawing this volume from the hotel, and of his
determination to submit it no more to the tender mercies of the passing
traveller. As Professor Stuart of Aberdeen was passing an evening at the
inn, the volume was handed to him, and he wrote in it the following
lines, in the style of the prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer:--
"Frae sma' beginnings Rome of auld
Became a great imperial city;
'Twas peopled first, as we are tauld,
By bankrupts, vagabonds, banditti.
Quoth Thamas, Then the day may come,
When Laurencekirk shall equal Rome."
These lines so nettled Lord Gardenstone, that the volume disappeared,
and was never seen afterwards in the inn of Laurencekirk. There is
another lingering reminiscence which I retain connected with the inn at
Laurencekirk. The landlord, Mr. Cream, was a man well known throughout
all the county, and was distinguished, in his later years, as one of the
few men who continued to wear a _pigtail_. On one occasion the late Lord
Dunmore (grandfather or great-grandfather of the present peer), who also
still wore his queue, halted for a night at Laurencekirk. On the host
leaving the room, where he had come to take orders for supper, Lord
Dunmore turned to his valet and said, "Johnstone, do I look as like a
fool in my pigtail as Billy Cream does?"--"Much about it, my lord," was
the valet's imperturbable answer.
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