uarrelled about the good graces of a milkmaid; drank himself daily drunk with brimming healths to the king council and bishops,fake vans; held orgies with the Laird of Lagg Theophilus Oglethorpe and Sir James Turner; and lastly took his grey gelding and joined Clavers at Killiecrankie,vans shoes. At the skirmish of Dunkeld 1689 he was shot dead by a Cameronian with a silver button being supposed to have proof from the Evil One against lead and steel and his grave is still called the Wicked Laird s Lair.His son Lewis had more prudence than seems usually to have belonged to the family. He nursed what property was yet left to him; for Donohoe s excesses as well as fines and forfeitures had made another inroad upon the estate. And although even he did not escape the fatality which induced the Lairds of Ellangowan to interfere with politics he had yet the prudence ere he went out with Lord Kenmore in 1715 to convey his estate to trustees in order to parry pains and penalties in case the Earl of Mar could not put down the Protestant succession. But Scylla and Charybdis a word to the wise he only saved his estate at expense of a lawsuit which again subdivided the family property. He was however a man of resolution. He sold part of the lands evacuated the old cattle where the family lived in their decadence as a mouse said an old farmer lives under a firlot,black vans. Pulling down part of these venerable ruins he built with the stones a narrow house of three stories high with a front like a grenadier s cap having in the very centre a round window like the single eye of a Cyclops two windows on each side and a door in the middle leading to a parlour and withdrawing-room full of all manner of cross lights.This was the New Place of Ellangowan in which we left our hero better amused perhaps than our readers and to this Lewis Bertram retreated full of projects for re-establishing the prosperity of his family. He took some land into his own hand rented some from neighbouring proprietors bought and sold Highland cattle and Cheviot sheep rode to fairs and trysts fought hard bargains and held necessity at the staff s end as well as he might. But what he gained in purse he lost in honour for such agricultural and commercial negotiations were very ill looked upon by his brother lairds who minded nothing but cock-fighting hunting coursing and horse-racing with now and then the alternative of a desperate duel. The occupations which he followed encroached in their opinion upon the article of Ellangowan s gentry and he found it necessary gradually to estrange himself from their society and sink into what was then a very ambiguous character a gentleman farmer. In the midst of his schemes death claimed his tribute and the scanty remains of a large property descended upon Godfrey Bertram the present possessor his only son.The danger of the father s speculations was soon seen. Deprived of Laird Lewis s personal and active superintendence all his undertakings miscarried and became either abortive or perilous. Without a single spark of energy to meet or repel these misfortune Related articles:

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