My cordial gratitude is due to Mr. William Isbister—’best of smokers’—for allowing me (and that with so good a spirit) to quote from the Memoir of Norman Macleod. The present piece will not have been written in vain, as the saying is, if it sends readers to that entertaining quarry.

I have also to thank Mr. J. C. Erskine, Hope Street, Glasgow (’Be calm, Erskine’), for furnishing me with certain letters never before published, specimens of which will be found in the text.

The extracts from the Queen’s books are made with Her Majesty’s gracious permission.

J. W.

Manse of Drainie, April 1897.