Rob Roy had said he would come back and fetch the child when he was older and stronger, but likely enough when the cousins met again the chieftain could not advise any man to become his follower. Once again we see them, Rob Roy walking arm in arm with his kinsman the Professor of Medicine, down the Castle Street in Aberdeen, when suddenly the drums beat to arms, and the soldiers begin to issue from the barracks. ‘If these lads are turning out, it is time for me to look after my safety,’ said Rob Roy, as he slowly shook hands, and turning down one of the neighbouring closes was seen no more. After telling this story, Sir Walter Scott added: ‘The first of these anecdotes which brings the highest pitch of civilization so closely in contact with the half savage state of society, I have heard told by the late distinguished Dr Gregory (James Gregory, Professor of Practice of Physic in Edinburgh), and the members of his family have had the kindness to collate the story with recollections and family documents, and furnish the authentic particulars. The second rests on the recollection of an old man, who was present when Rob Roy took French leave of his literary cousin on hearing the drums beat, and communicated the circumstance to Mr Alexander Forbes, a connection of Dr Gregory by marriage.’ There is also a gossiping paragraph about this Dr Gregorie, or rather about his house, in Orem’s description of Old Aberdeen, written after he was made Mediciner in King’s College, a post to which he was appointed in 1725. ‘Dr Gregorie hath repaired his lodging belonging to the college anno 1727; and hath built to it a toofall, for giving it a better entry to the rooms than it had formerly, in which toofall he hath a little room for a study, and a little room below it beside the staircase. He hath also repaired the garden dyke and hath begun to enclose his glebe, a part wherof he hath enclosed with a stone dyke, and planted it within the aforsaid year, and hath enclosed the rest of his forsaid glebe this year 1728.’ The scene rises before us of the physician taking his interested friend, the town clerk, over his house and grounds. It sounds most attractive, both the front-hall and the study, and certainly the visitor appreciated everything when he took the trouble to write it down in his book. Gregorie also improved the salmon-fishing in the Don by building a stone rampart across the river which was called ‘Gregorie’s Dyke’ and can still be seen from the Bridge of Don. In return for this, ‘a half-net’s fishing’ was granted to him and his heirs for ever, and this has now devolved upon a descendant of Dr James Gregorie.