Frasers of Philorth > Volume 2

THE ABERNETHIES OF SALTOUN, LORDS SALTOUN. 69
the promise of money, from them ; but, on the whole, it is probable that they
were aware of the loss of the missing leaves, and ready to take advantage of
it, though ignorant of the cause of their disappearance, and that Alexander
Abernethy found the secret a dangerous weapon, which he could not wield
effectually without hurting himself more than others.
The Gordons, who had obtained Eothiemay, Park, Corncairne, and other
lands, do not appear to have been ever deprived of the possession of those
properties, although disquieted in their tenure of them, to the extent of
having been obliged to enter into an agreement to give Lord Saltoun the power
of redeeming the estates for eleven years' purchase, at the instance of Sir Archi-
bald Stewart, upon his obtaining the reduction of the disposition of 1 6 1 2.
To make an end of the story. Long after the decease of the ninth Lord
Saltoun, Alexander Abernethy of Auchincloich and Mayen died in 1683, and
left the secret of the stolen leaves to his kinsman, James Ogilvie, informing
him that they were built into the wall of the house of Mayen ; and the follow-
ing deposition by John Eeid, in the course of an action subsequently raised
by Sir John Gordon of Park, relates how they were found there. 1 Eeid says
that " James Ogilvie, after Mayen's death, came to the deponent's house, and
brought him to the house of Mayen, after all the family were in bed, except
James Ogilvie and the lady, who, with him, came to the north side of the
house of Mayen with a light candle, and there fell a searching, but found
nothing for a long time, whereupon James Ogilvie and the Mrs. of Mayen
removed to their beds ; and at last, about half-an-hour thereafter, he found
enclosed in the wall certain papers, which were a little spoiled, but within
the spoiled papers there was about one half ... of any spoiling, and that,
when he found them, he offered them to the Lady of Mayen, who refused
them, but she went along to James Ogilvie's chamber, and said to the
deponent, ' God be betwixt me and you ! if ye have got a good poss, make
the better use of it :' and that the deponent left these papers and went home,
and that James Ogilvie desired him to conceal the matter from the rest of
the servants and neighbours."
James Ogilvie, on his deathbed, before 1691, made a declaration revealing
the secret, but it had been intrusted to too many persons not to have leaked
1 Mayen Charters, penes Edward Dunbar Dunbar, Esq.