The Hall, which had been erected on his estate of thirteen hundred acres, midway between the banks of the Rideau and the Ottawa, was a large cut-stone building with semi-tower front. The building itself, the well-kept grounds, the imposing avenues with their porters' lodges, the conservatories, excelled anything in Canada at that time. It was spring. In the tall trees of the avenues, which seemed to shut out the sky, the birds were awaking to life and love. A little brook gurgled over mossy stones in the quiet glen by the wayside, on the banks of which, soft with moss and pine needles, the trilliums grew so thickly that they appeared like a bank of snow which had escaped the rays of the April sun. There was great diversity of color and form in the trees. The pines stood erect, flinging their rough limbs above the young leaves of the deciduous trees below. The white birch and trembling poplar adorned the glen with pale gray or light green leaves, whose delicacy of tint contrasted finely with the dark masses of the fir trees and the lively green of maple and wild cherry. Such was the home over which presided the noble Laird and his gracious wife, and which, even in those early days, was a centre of hospitality. Among the guests were Chief McNab, who had left the Highlands of Scotland with a numerous clan, and taken up his abode with them in a township which had been granted to him on the banks of Lake de Chats, about thirty miles from Bytown. The guests scanned him with a peculiarly keen interest as he entered the room preceded by his piper playing, "The Hacks o' Cromdale." He was dressed in full Highland costume, with kilts and scarf of red and green tartan, and wore a queue neatly tied with a knot of ribbon. Captain Andrew Wilson, of Ossian Hall, on the banks of the Rideau, was another guest. He had retired from the Navy and posed as lawyer, judge, farmer, and author, his title to the latter consisting in three volumes on naval history. He held weekly courts at Bytown, and was regarded by the people of the town as a man of great importance. To see the Captain on the bench with his anchor-buttoned coat and his old-fashioned spectacles, attending gravely to the examination of witnesses, was ludicrous. Of this he was perfectly sensible, but it was an amusement to him. He was one of those men who would have liked to have the whole world following after him. Rev. Mr. Cruikshanks, pastor of St. Andrews church, the first church in Bytown, and Rev. S. H. Stone, rector of Christ church, completed the list of invited guests. McTaggart, or "Mac," as he was familiarly called, the guest of the evening and the hero of the hour, related many amusing incidents which had come under his notice while Clerk of the Public Works.