Andrew Gemmels was remarkable for being perhaps the best player at draughts in Scotland; and in that amusement, which, we may here observe, is remarkably well adapted for bringing out and employing the cool, calculating, and shrewd genius of the Scottish nation, he frequently spent the long winter nights. Many persons still exist who were taught the mysteries of the _dambrod_[19] by him, and who were accustomed to hold a serious contention with him every time he passed the night in their houses. He was the preceptor of the gudewife of Newby in Peebles-shire, the grandmother of the present narrator, whose hospitable mansion was one of his chief resorts. In teaching her, as he said, he had only “cut a stick to break his ain head”; for she soon became equally expert with himself, and in the regular _set-to’s_ which took place between them, did not show either the deference to his master-skill, or the fear of his resentment, with which he was usually treated by more timorous competitors. He could never be brought, however, to acknowledge heartily her rival pretensions, nor would he, upon any account, come to such a trial as might have decided the palm of merit either in his favour or hers. Whenever he saw the tide of success running on her side, he got dreadfully exasperated, and ordinarily, before the stigma of defeat could be decidedly inflicted upon him, rose up, seized _the brod_, and threw _the men_ into the fire,—accompanying the action with some of his most terrific and blasphemous imprecations. The late Lord Elibank, while living at Darnhall, once ordered one of his cast-off suits to be given to Andrew—the which Andrew thankfully accepted, and then took his departure. Through the course of the same day, his lordship, in taking a ride a few miles from home, came up with Andrew, and was not a little surprised to see him dragging the clothes behind him along the road, “through dub and mire.” On being asked his reason for such strange conduct, he replied that he would have “to trail the duds that way for twa days, to mak them _fit for use_!” In one circumstance Andrew coincides with his supposed archetype: Andrew had been at Fontenoy, and made frequent allusions to that disastrous field. Andrew died in 1793, at Roxburgh-Newton, near Kelso, being, according to his own account, 105 years of age. His wealth was the means of enriching a nephew in Ayrshire, who is now a considerable landholder there, and belongs to a respectable class of society. FOOTNOTES: [17] From the _Edinburgh Magazine_, 1817. [18] His expression was, that “begging was a worse trade by twenty pounds a year than when he knew it first.” [19] This word is of Danish origin. CHAPTER IV. =Rob Roy.= ANECDOTES OF ROBERT MACGREGOR. (_Rob Roy._) We derive the following interesting narrative from Colonel Stewart’s admirable work on the Highlands.