The Grahams, Viscounts of Aberfeldie and Barons of Dundargue in the peerage of Scotland, had the barony bestowed on them in 1600, in consequence of the bravery of the then laird at the battle of Benrinnes, six years before, and the viscounty in 1648, for doughty deeds done in the wars of the Covenant; but they had been lairds of Dundargue in days that were remote indeed--the days of that Graham who, when expiring of a mortal wound on the field of Dunbar, gave his sword--the same weapon now preserved in the house of Montrose--to his son, 'the Graham' of future battles, 'the Richt Hand of Wallace,' in whose arms he expired of a wound, after the battle of Falkirk, leaving the patronymic of 'gallant' to all his descendants. In one apartment hung with Gobelin tapestry stood a bed wherein Charles II. had reposed before his coronation at Scone; and another had been occupied by his nephew, James VIII., of the Scottish Jacobites, before he went to visit Castle Lyon, the guest of John, Lord Aberfeldie, who declined to sit in the Union Parliament, and who, to the end of his days, even when George III. was king, was wont to assert 'that green peas and the other edibles were always a month later, after that vile and degrading incorporation,' and that many a sweet flower never blossomed again after the White Rose was destroyed at Culloden. In right of gift to an ancestor, the present peer was Hereditary Keeper of the Royal Palace of Falkland, and as such wore a key and chain of silver at his neck on collar days at Windsor and elsewhere. It was a September afternoon--almost evening--when the pastures had become parched, the foliage shrivelled and of various tints, and high-piled wains came rocking over the furrowed fields and through green lanes as the harvest was led home, that a horseman 'might have been seen' (to use the phraseology of Mr. G. P. R. James)--nay, was seen--to ride leisurely down the Carse and take a flying leap over a hedge into the great lawn of Dundargue, and then, after trotting his horse between belts of trees, he drew his bridle for a few minutes, while he lingered and regarded fondly and admiringly the old structure, which he had not seen for well-nigh seven years; and Allan, the Master of Aberfeldie--for he the rider was--thought there was not in all the Carse of Gowrie another residence to compare with Dundargue for the many stories and characteristics that circle about a house which has been for ages the home of one family, with all its historic memories, its traditions and patriotism.