The rude abundance shewn in these two establishments, taken in connection with the account presently to be given of the outward state of the Marquis of Huntly,[179] the reports afforded by the Water Poet of the hospitalities he experienced in the braes of Aberdeenshire and Morayshire,[180] and other particulars involved in our chronicle, ought somewhat to modify the prevalent notions as to the poverty of the Celtic part of Scotland in this age. There was, indeed, no manufacturing industry worth speaking of; but the natural wealth of the country, the cattle, the wild animals, and the grain, seem to have furnished the people with no inconsiderable share of the comforts of life. It will be found, too, that the mansions of Glenurchy and Huntly, a few years after this date, exhibited elegant architecture and decoration. * * * * * [Sidenote: 1590. OCT.] The rich temporalities of the Abbey of Deir, in Aberdeenshire, had been held since the Reformation by one who was no friend to the Reformed clergy--Robert Keith, second son of William, fourth Earl Marischal. In 1587, they had been erected into a temporal lordship, under the name of the Lordship of Altrie, in their possessor’s favour, to descend, after his death, to his nephew, George Earl Marischal. There was one malcontent with this arrangement--Robert Keith of Benholm, brother of the earl--probably because he had concluded in his own mind that the abbey-lands formed a more appropriate estate for a cadet than for the chief of the family, the latter being already a rich man. It would appear, however, that the earl was understood to have requited the king for the gift by the splendid style in which he conducted his ambassage to Denmark, when negotiating the royal marriage. At the present date, Robert Keith made an attempt to take forcible possession of the abbey--an act which would have been rash and dangerous at any ordinary time, but might look feasible enough in an age so full of violences of all kinds as the present. We learn that he kept the abbey for six weeks, at the end of which he was driven out by an armed company brought against him by the Earl Marischal. Then retiring to the castle of Fedderat, he stood a siege of three days, which ended in his coming to a truce with his brother, upon what terms does not appear.