Perthshire in bygone days

FOE LACK OF GOLD SHE HAS LEFT ME. 625
He was too clever a pharmacologist to attempt curing
disappointed love by drugs ; and too good a judge to
expatriate himself for a crime that was not his own.
Amongst the families he had been associated with at
Megginch and Kilspindie there arose a certain fascinating
Annie Sempill, who came to the Doctor like a healing
angel. But he had renounced the sex, and could only
be civil to the fair Annie. She proved irresistible, how-
ever, and on reflection, he failed to see that his having
prayed for Jeanie Drummond should be any barrier in the
way of his courting Annie Sempill. She did not lack gold,
and, curiously enough, he really thought that, after all, she
was quite as handsome as his former fickle affiancee. So
the prosperous Edinburgh physician wooed and won Lord
Sempill's daughter, and they had twenty years of happy
married life. She bore him a large family; and, although
he died comparatively a young man, the prosperous career
he had as a physician in Brown Square, Edinburgh, plus
his fine wife and children, must have entirely alleviated
the woe which he predicted would be endless.
The Duke of Athole died in 1764, and the Duchess
married, in 1767, Lord Adam Gordon, son of Alexander,
second Duke of Gordon. He was Commander of the
Forces in Scotland, and resided principally in Edinburgh.
His lady, Jeanie Drummond, died in Holyrood House in
1795, and was buried at Southesk. I have heard her
coevals speak with enthusiam of her beauty even in
advanced life.
The Drummonds of Megginch are descended from the
Concraig family, before it was broken up by the estate
being sold to John, first Lord Drummond. They resided
many years at Lennoch, in Western Strathearn. Their
house is now razed to its foundation, and their estates
absorbed in the properties of Strowan and Dunira. In
the reign of Charles the Second they became proprietors,
by purchase, of the Castle and estate of Megginch, in the
Carse of Gowrie. The old portion of the Castle dates from
the time of James the Fourth, but it has been greatly
enlarged, and the surrounding grounds improved in a
princely way by subsequent proprietors. Jeanie, the heroine
of the song, was the paternal aunt of the late Sir Adam
Drummond. She had no children by the Duke of Athole,
but his first Duchess had a daughter, who succeeded as
Baroness Strange. She married her cousin, the third
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