rpose.

Many were the long rides, the late nights, and early mornings that Thom
and I had together in the North buying drove cattle. In the end of
October and beginning of November the nights get very dark. At Skippy
Fair of New Deer we nearly came to grief two or three years in
succession; it is held in the end of October. There was a decent man,
Abel, and his wife, who lived in Inverurie, and attended all the fairs.
Their conveyance was a cart. They were honest hard-working people, and
good judges of cows. They knew very well what they were about; and they
required to do so, for Mrs Abel brought up, I believe, nineteen of a
family: she was a very stout, "motherly" woman. They drove home
likewise in the cart, always buying two cows, which they led with ropes
behind the cart. A cart with a cow attached by a rope at each side will
take up the greater part of a narrow road. It was very dark, and near
the old Castle of Barra. Thom rode a very fast horse he had hired from
Richard Cruickshank, a celebrated judge of horses, who was at that time
a horse-hirer in Aberdeen. I rode an old steady pony of my own which
had been sixteen years in our family. Thom was going before at a
dashing pace, I considerably in the rear, when bang he came against the
ropes attaching the cows to the cart. His horse was thrown into the
ditch; he recovered himself, but fell again, coming down heavily upon
Thom, who was very much hurt, and had to go home instead of going to
Potarch Market next day. I escaped, Thom's mishap warning me of the
danger. At the same fair next year we had bought, as we found on
comparing our books, ninety-nine cattle, mostly stirks. It was dark
before we got the animals settled for, and we had to watch them on the
market-stance. While crossing the lonely moor between New Deer and
Methlick, Thom was as usual a little in advance, I following on the
same old pony the best way I could close at his heels, when all at once
a man took hold of his horse by the reins and asked him the road to New
Deer. I observed another man and a box or two lying on the road, such
as are used by travelling hawkers. Thom struck at the man's head with
his stick with all his might, saying at the same time, "_Cattle of
your description cannot be far out of your road anywhere_." The man
let go his hold, and Thom galloped off, calling to me to follow, which
I was nothing loath to do. Thom's horse was white, and mine was a bay.
The vagabonds might have s