Memorials of John Geddes

Cenor and Incidents of Cile.
the remote parish of Glass that appendage survived to
about 1840 in the case of some very old folks coming in
high dress to church. In process of time, Hardhaugh, which
is a spot beautiful indeed but small, became too narrow for
him, and, leaving a son in its possession, he removed, as we
said, to the large and stately farm of Keithmore.
To this Keithmore, on the banks of the Fiddich, and
within sight of the gaunt ruin of Auchindown Castle, our
most notable and enjoyable excursions in our younger days
were wont to be made. The bairns from Bodylair were always
welcome to the hospitality of the kind old grand-parents,
and if anything had been lacking, it would have been amply
made up by the kindness of Aunt Jessie, or Jeanzie, as she
was called, who, as a younger sister of my mother, was
bounteous in cream and other rural delights beyond what
wintry Bodylair could always bestow.* Life was altogether
under more stately surroundings at Keithmore, where there
were traces of old manor-house gentility still surviving — a
breast-seat in the loft at the church, belonging properly to
* This aunt, the last of the Hardhaugh Maconachies, still survives at
Minneapolis, in America, where, a widow, she sojourns with a son, and is (at
this date, 1899) hale and hearty, though nearing ninety years. Green in the
West be the place of her rest, for she was always kind, and would teach us the
flowers in their season. I never see the Scabious blue flower without being
reminded of her, for she told us it was "the hindmost flowrie that blows in
the season," and such it is, bringing up — as she herself does in her generation
— the last of the long procession of the year.
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