"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," and the probability is that she went after all. At any rate, the picture is perfect. You almost see the peasant girl mincing her words, biting her finger, with a blush on her young face. And what has become of this song, then? Why, Burns laid violent hands on the birks, and transferred them to Aberfeldy; which, thenceforth, was glorified with a most shady grove; in poetry, that is, for in fact there was not a single birk in the place for long afterwards, if, indeed, there is one even now; and, as far as my recollection goes, there is not. But we have still something to relate regarding those famous birks. It seems that the juice of the trees is carefully extracted, and the skilled natives, "by a curious process, ferment the same and make wine of it--which wine is very pleasant to taste, and thought by some to be little inferior to the wine of Champagne and other outlandish countries." So far the local chronicler. We can only toss off a goblet (in imagination) of this extraordinary _vin du pays_ to the prosperity of the birks ere the bend of the Dee hides them from our view. Ballater is the next important place we come to. It is the terminus of the Deeside Extension Railway, and what is for us at present much more important, the centre of the most interesting part of Deeside. One mile south of it is an almost vanished ruin, the scene of a terrible tragedy, the memory of which--though it happened three centuries ago--is still preserved by a poem of a very different sort from the simple peasant idyll just quoted. One of the old tragic ballads which with such profound yet unconscious insight deal with the stormier human passions, tells the story of how Farquharson of Inverey slew, in shameful fashion, Gordon, Baron of Brackley. With what pithy expression the first two lines place you in the very heart of the subject! "Inverey came down Deeside whistlin' and playin', He was at brave Brackley's yetts ere it was dawin'." And then comes the proud, insolent challenge of the murderer-- "Are ye sleepin', Baronne, or are ye waukin'? There's sharp swords at your yett will gar your blood spin." Gordon is brave, but he will not go forth almost alone against so many to meet certain death till his fair, but false, young wife taunts him bitterly with his cowardice. Then he gets ready, though he knows how certain is his doom. "An' he stooped low, and said, as he kissed his proud dame, 'There's a Gordon rides out that will never ride hame.'" There is a narrow glen near by which popular tradition still points out as the spot where they "pierced bonny Brackley wi' mony a woun'." The ballad closes in darkness and sadness, but one is glad to learn from contemporary history that the Earl of Huntly made a foray and avenged the death of his kinsman.