On the other side of the Dee is Lunphanan parish, in the "wood" of which Macbeth--according to Wyntoun, though not according to Shakespeare--met his death. His "cairn" is still to be seen on a bare hill in this district, though another tradition tells us that his dust mingles with the dust of "gracious Duncan" in the sacred soil of Iona. The Dee, now leaving its native county, flows for a few miles through the Mearns or Kincardineshire. It returns to Aberdeenshire in the parish of Drumoak, forming for the remaining fourteen miles of its course the boundary between the two counties. [Illustration: ABERDEEN.] It is here we come across the most interesting historical memory connected with Deeside, for it is a memory of Queen Mary. On the south side of the Hill of Fare there is a hollow, where the battle of Corrichie was fought in 1562. I do not wish to enter into the history of that troubled time. Suffice it to say that the Earl of Huntly, chief of the Gordons, and head of the Catholics, was intriguing to secure the power which Murray was determined he should not have. The Queen was with Murray, though her heart, they said, was with the Gordons. Anyhow, she dashed northward gaily enough on a horse that would have thrown an ordinary rider. Murray's diplomacy forced the Gordons into a position of open hostility, and his superior generalship easily secured him the victory at Corrichie. The old Earl of Huntly was taken, it seemed, unhurt, but he suddenly fell down dead--heart-broken at the ruin of himself and his house, said some; crushed by the weight of his armour, said others. They took the body to the Tolbooth in Aberdeen. Knox tells us that the Countess had consulted a witch before the fight, and was comforted by the assurance that her husband would lie _unwounded_ that night in the Tolbooth. The remains, embalmed in some rude fashion, were carried to Edinburgh; for a strange ceremony yet remained ere the Gordon lands were divided among the victors. A Parliament in due time met in Holyrood, and the dead man was brought before his peers to answer for his treasons. A mere formality, perhaps, but an awfully gruesome one. His attainder, and that of his family, together with the forfeiture of his lands, was then pronounced. The battle was a great triumph for the Protestant lords; even the sneering, sceptical Maitland, says Knox, with one of those direct, forcible touches of his, "remembered that there was a God in heaven." There was one who looked on the matter with other eyes. "The Queen took no pleasure in the victory, and gloomed at the messenger who told of it." Indeed, there was a tragedy within this tragedy. Among the prisoners taken at Corrichie was Sir John Gordon, Huntly's second son, "a comely young gentleman," wild and daring, and, though then an outlaw, one who had ventured to hope for the Queen's hand. It was whispered that she was not unfavourable to him; some ventured to say "she loved him