History and traditions of the land of the Lindsays in Angus and Mearns

EDZELL — MAJOR WOOD. 15
der one fellow-creature the cherished friend of another. Indeed,
the factorship has been emphatically characterised as being more
his pleasure, and the horrid vices of debauchery and seduction,
the business of his every day life. It is needless to say that he
was famed in the district, and looked upon as nothing short of
a demon in human form, and the fine ford in the immediate
neighbourhood of his house was only taken advantage of during
his absence, or the hours of his repose. One sweet and guileless
maiden, who unwarily crossed here when inviting some friends
to her approaching marriage, was pounced upon by him in a
lone dreary part of the muir, and after a severe struggle, suc-
ceeded in extricating herself from his grasp. Running towards
the river, she sprung in her confusion from the high banks into
a deep pool, and falling a victim to the rolling waters, was
swept for ever from the earthly presence of her betrothed, and
her sorrowing relatives.
Such are some of the current stories relative to the Major,
who, like other mortals, came to his end ; but not rashly. Had
he done so, romance and popular story would have been deprived
of a favourite and fertile subject of sympathy and hatred, and
the reputed awfulness of his deathbed, which is now pro-
verbial, would not have been witnessed, the common belief, in the
sad nature of which, may be gathered from the following, and
only remembered stanza of a large poem composed on the occa-
sion, by an almost unlettered local bard, who lived towards the
close of last century : —
" An' when the Major was a-decin',
The de'il cam like a corbie fleein' ;
An' o'er his bed head he did lour,
Speeriu's news, ye may be sure !*'
In fact, it is popularly believed that the Major did not die, as
implied by the common sense of the term, but was literally suf-
focated by having a quantity of daich, or dough, stuffed in his
mouth to check his blasphemous ravings ! He was buried close
to the north-west corner of the Lindsay vault, under a huge flag
stone, on which a blank shield, and the illegible remains of an
inscription still exist.
An incident equally characteristic of the credulity of the
period is related . concerning the translation of his body to the