like day, and
most emphatically and literally did he show himself a "_soldier_ of
the Lord."

The aisle of the old church of Slains contains the graves of Countess
Mary and her husband, with an epitaph in Latin, of which the following
is a translation: "Beneath this tombstone there are buried neither
gold nor silver, nor treasures of any kind, but the bodies of the most
chaste wedded pair, Mary, countess of Erroll, and Alexander Hay
of Dalgaty, who lived peaceably and lovingly in matrimony for
twenty-seven years. They wished to be buried here beside each other,
and pray that this stone may not be moved nor their remains disturbed,
but that these be allowed to rest in the Lord until He shall call
them to the happy resurrection of that life which they expect from the
mercy of God and the merits of the Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ."

The central figure, however, in the history of the Hays of Erroll,
and that which no one who bears the name of Hay can think of without a
thrill of pride, is the Lord Kilmarnock who fell, in 1746, a victim
to the last unsuccessful but heroic rising in favor of the Stuarts.
I have heard it whispered as an instance of "second sight" that some
years before he had any reason to anticipate such a death he was once
startled by the ghostly opening of a door in the apartment where
he was sitting alone, and by the apparition, horribly distinct and
realistic, of a bloody head rolling slowly toward him across the room;
till it rested at his feet. The glassy eyes were upturned to his,
and the bonny locks were clotted with blood: it was as if it had
just rolled from under the axe of the executioner; and the features,
plainly discerned, _were his own!_

His part in the rising of 1745 belongs to history, but his personal
demeanor concerns my narrative more closely. All the contemporary
accounts are loud in praise of his beauty and elegance of person, his
refinement of manner, his variety of accomplishments; and Scott,
in his _Tales of a Grandfather_, relates a curious circumstance
concerning his fine presence at the moment of his execution. A lady of
fashion who had never seen him before, and who was herself, I
believe, the wife of one who had much to do with Lord Kilmarnock's
death-warrant, seeing him pass on his way to the block, formed a most
violent attachment for his person, "which in a less serious affair
would have, been little less than a ludicrous frenzy."

The grace and dignity of his appeara