THE HARBOUR AT LOW WATER.

The Dee, issuing through the Craiglug narrow, spreads away northwards, skirting the Ferryhill and Clayhills, spreading over the shingle, where now stands the Station, and then eastwards among the mud-flats that line the north shore. When the tide was full a broad firth stretched from Torry to this north shore, with a few green islands, called the Inches, appearing above the water, the larger of which were occupied by the huts of the salmon fishers, and grazed by cattle. At ebb tide a network of narrow channels among sandy shoals and mud-banks lay between Torry and the City. How different the scene to-day, with the water confined into definite channels—the docks, Albert basin, and the river. The old mud-flats are reclaimed from the tide, the main stream of the river is diverted into a new channel, and where once the fluke and the saith swarmed in the shallows and the crabs squattered in the mud, we have to-day busy thoroughfares, bustling factories, and deep-sheltered docks crowded with all the various craft the sea carries.

TORRY OF OLD.

Where saw those dwellers by the shore
The Norsemen sail across the bar,
And later heard the cannon roar
From thundering English men-of-war.

UCH was the broad firth into which the fisher folk of Torry saw the Norwegian Sea King Eystein enter with his fleet over 700 years ago. Shouting the songs of a thousand sea fights, these wolves of the wave pulled for the north shore. There was little to tempt them in the fisher huts of Torry, but the City of Apardion, as Aberdeen is called by the Northern poet who commemorates the event, was already of such repute, in wealth and importance, as to attract the avaricious and ruthless Norsemen. The Torry fisherman, safe in his poverty, could hear, across the firth, the clash of arms and the shriek of victims, for the Vikings spared none who opposed, and when the struggle was over, and the glutted pirates sailed from the mouth of Dee, the trembling fisher folk saw the flame, and heard the roar and crackle of a burning town.

"I heard the overthrow of people -
The clash of broken arms was loud,
The King destroyed the peace
Of the dwellers in Apardion."

So sings Einarr Skulason, the Norwegian bard.

Eighty-nine years after Eystein the Viking sailed past the doors of Torry, we hear of an event of great importance on the south side of the river. In 1242 the Church of St. Fittick by the bay was dedicated by Bishop David of St. Andrews, and there is reason to believe that part of the walls now standing are the very stone and lime blessed by this holy man over 600 years ago. For nearly two centuries after this event the local annals are almost vacant. Out of the meagre vestiges of vanished records we learn that about 1430 a greedy clergyman, the Vicar of Nigg, was excommunicated by the Bishop of Aberdeen for exacting the tithe of fish within his Vicarage. Greedy Vicar! Blessed Bishop!

For half a century after the dedication of The Church of Nigg, more especially during the reign of Alexander III., the fortune of Scotland was brilliant and steadfast, but King Alexander died without heir, and jealous factions wasted the country's strength and gave the masterful King of England his long wished for opportunity to push his ambitious schemes for the subjugation of the northern kingdom. Baliol, his puppet, on his first attempt to oppose his master, was swept aside, and Edward of England rapidly advancing northwards, crossed the Dee and came to the Castle of Aberdeen where he tarried five days and then returned to the South, leaving a garrison at Aberdeen. It was then that William Wallace rallied the Scots and marched over the ground Edward had taken, retaking the strong places, among others Dunnottar, and then North by Torry to Aberdeen, where the Castle was garrisoned by English troops, and by the Torry shore lay many English ships, with men and supplies. The English set the town ablaze and fled to their ships, but the water could not save them from the indomitable Wallace. Manning every boat by the Torry, Futty and Aberdeen shores, he attacked the English in their ships, sweeping some of them clear of every living thing, while others, crippled and terror-struck, stood out to sea, and so once more the clash of arms, the shout of conflict, and a blazing town is witnessed from the Torry shore. By-and-by, in nine short years, Torry witnessed another passing of Wallace, not, alas, in martial panoply and flushed with victory over the invader, but a mangled limb hurried from a London scaffold to rot on the Justice Port of Aberdeen — but that could not be — when night fell on the city the limb was taken by patriots from the town gate and carried across the river to the old churchyard by the bay, and tradition points to its S.E. corner as the spot where the dust is, in part, that of Scotland's Hero.

The 11th December, 1495. was a red-letter day in the history of Torry, for on that day King James the Fourth of Scotland granted a charter constituting Torry a Burgh of Barony, for, among other reasons, the great devotion in which he held St. Fotin (another of St. Fittick's aliases), the Patron of the Town of Torry, and for the convenience and support of wayfarers, whether foreigners or the King's lieges, lodging in Torry, who, crossing the mount (Grampian Hills) towards Aberdeen, might be unable to pass by reason of storms or tempests. The privileges conferred by this Charter on our village were great in those days of fettered trade. They were the power to sell and buy wines, wax, various cloths, and other kind of merchandise ; liberty to have bakers, brewers, and fleshers; power to appoint Burgesses in the Burgh ; and power to elect Baillies and all other necessary officers ; and, lastly, license to have a cross, a weekly market on Friday, and a yearly fair on St. Fittick's Day, the 30th of August, and the four following days. This Charter carries us back to times long before the Reformation, when the Church owned vast tracts of land, and Churchmen were mighty rulers in things temporal. At this time Torry, with all the lands of Nigg, belonged to the Abbey of Arbroath, that powerful ecclesiastical seat on the east coast, the Abbot of which had "a seat here with a dovecote near the Church of Nigg." In that interesting map of the lands of Torry, made in 1777 by George Brown, and preserved in the Town House, we find fields adjacent to the old Church named the upper and lower dovecote fields.

These lands were granted to the Abbey by one of our Alexanders, and were held by the Abbots up to the Reformation. Before this event, however, a portion of the Torry lands had been feued to Menzies of Pitfoddels. After the Reformation the whole of the Nigg lands passed to Forbes of Monymusk, who, however, had to observe the rights conferred on Menzies by his feu. In 1704 the Town Council of Aberdeen purchased part of the land from Forbes of Monymusk, so that from the beginning of the eighteenth century, the town of Aberdeen and Menzies of Pitfoddels were joint proprietors of the lands of Torry. There was at this time an extraordinary system of holding land, called "runrig," under which the various proprietors possessed their land, not in one compact or continuous area, as at present, but rig and rig about with each other, the alternate ridges of the fields belonging to different proprietors, and farmed by different tenants. From 1704 till 1785 the Town and Menzies ran rig for rig, but the increasing inconvenience of this barbarous system called forth an Act of Parliament, under which it was possible for an owner to claim to have the lands divided in a more reasonable fashion by an arbitrator. In 1785, therefore, such a division took place between Pitfoddels and the Town, and the Town got all the land lying east of the line, from about the Mansfield Road to the Bay of Nigg, whilst Menzies got all the lands of Nigg. west of this line, a much greater area, and to-day of great agricultural and feuing value, but it is necessary to remember that at the date of division most of this western portion consisted of unreclaimed bog and moor.

Westward from Torry, near the old Bridge of Dee, stands the farm of Abbotswalls, the name of which carries down to us a reminiscence of the old ownership of the Abbots of Aberbrothock. Near Abbotswalls there was a chapel and burial-place, the ruins of which are recorded as visible towards the end of the 17th century, while the old name of the burn, which enters the Dee opposite Duthie Park, "the Spital Burn," suggests the hospital or lodging for pilgrims, which once stood on its banks.

EARLIEST VIEW OF THE HARBOUR, DRAWN IN 1661.

Returning to the granting of the Torry Charter—Those were the days when men wandered to distant shrines and holy-places for their soul's sake, and un-bridged rivers were obstacles to their journey of which now-a-days we little dream. Pilgrims passing northwards, ere they reached the Dee, had to traverse long tracts of dangerous bog and moorland stretching away down through Kincardineshire and Forfarshire, with roads only a little less dangerous than the bogs, and when at last the terrors of this route were overcome and they had reached the brow of the Tollohill—for then the south road lay further to the west than at present—and they saw, like a promised land, the city on its three hills; at the same time they often beheld a flooded river and a storm-swept estuary which no boat dare cross, and on the southern bank, scattered near the chapel of those days, the huts of Torry offering but scant accommodation to the wearied pilgrims. Hence the privileges granted by King James at the intercession of the good Abbot of Aberbrothock. But from the day the Charter was signed we hear no more of the glories destined for Torry. Its Baillies await election; its market days and annual fair are in the future; and its cross has yet to be raised. But when we remember that a few years after the granting of this Charter Bishop Elphinstone began to build the great bridge across the river now known to us as the Bridge of Dee, completed in 1525 by his successor, Bishop Dunbar, and that over it passed the highway between the Tay and Aberdeen, we can see that pilgrims needed no longer to go to Torry for the passage of the river, but fair weather or foul they might trudge dry shod into the City over the Bishop's Bridge—and so, as yet, we have heard no more of the independent glories of Torry.

But if Torry never got its Baillies, it was at one time the residence of the Provost of Aberdeen, as witness this extract from the Council register, of 30th September, 1594 :—" The said day, the Council having consideration that John Collysone, quha is elected provost of this burght for the year to cum, hes his present dwelling in Torrie, and that for his diligent avating on the said office, he may transport himself, wyff, bairnis, and famelie to this burgh, and dwell therein during the time of his office," provision of a house, at the expense of the town, is made for Provost John Collysone.

For over a hundred years, from 1590 to 1660, looking across the water to the Heading Hill, the folks of Torry often saw a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. The Aberdonians were in arms against the Devil, and were burning, in mad zeal, poor, frail, human wretches, more wretched, more ugly, and more helpless than their fellows, or, in some cases, possessed of an insight and wisdom that their station in life did not seem to warrant. Swept to the stake by the fury of a frightened superstition, this poor human rubbish — witches, they called them ! — was burned up or tortured, and dragged through the streets, under the commission of the King and the superintendence of the Magistrates. Professor Masson, with reason, calls the Aberdeen of this period the witch burningest place in the world ; but for the sake of variety they sometimes drowned the unfortunate old women ; and at the foot of the Shore Brae they erected a crane, by which they lowered the struggling victims into the tide to wash away their sins with their unhappy lives.

THE RIVER MOUTH

Though Canute's voice was to the sea
Far less than idle, whistling wind,
Great Smeaton's thought had potency,
The reckless, storm-stirred wave to bind.

HREE hundred and fift years ago there was much ferrying to and fro between Futty, as it was then called, and Torry. There was no north pier in those days, and the point from which the north pier now starts was a low, wind-swept sand dune, called the Sandness, and the houses of Futty stood further west by the waterside, near by where to-day we see St. Clement's Church. On the Sandness, at this time (1513—1542), a fort, called the Blockhouse, was built, which stood there till a few years ago, its purpose being to protect the harbour from " Pirats and Algarads," as Parson Gordon puts it in 1661. (It was furnished with ten cannon, 12-pounders, which were removed to the Torry fort after the erection of the north pier.) The mouth of the Dee was locked by a boom, made of chains of iron and masts of ships, stretched across the river mouth. On the Torry shore, on the braehead opposite the Blockhouse, there was also a little watch-tower, with a bell and a sentinel, whose duty was to ring the bell on the approach of any ship, while a watch of four men was set "at Sanct Fathatk's, beyond the water, to have ready fyre and stuff to mak blaise," and other four at the "Cunnynger Hills, for resisting of our auld inemeis of Ingland."

It was at Torry, in the very channel of the river, that men-of-war and great merchant vessels lay in those days, for the shallow harbour, where are now our great docks, was useless for big craft. Smaller vessels got the length of Futty, and only at high water, and with the help of the tide could they pass up to Aberdeen, where they lay high and dry in the ebb.

About a hundred years later, the interest of Torry was excited by a new undertaking on their side of the water. Nothing of consequence, until this time, had been done to improve the condition of the river mouth, which was narrow, shoaly, and dangerous. "During the usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, a mound was formed in the harbour basin, which contracted it considerably on the side of the town," but in 1607 a long pier or bulwark was erected on the Torry shore opposite the Sandness of Futty. The inhabitants lent a willing hand to this undertaking, and a great bulwark of uncemented stones and timber was built up. This work was no humdrum task, but a festival of labour, for the town pipers and drummers marched by the shore, and cheered the toiling crowd, and for once, at least, in those fierce old days, the drum beat and the war-pipe shrilled an advance along the paths of peace. From time to time this bulwark, ravaged by storms, needed repair, and we read that on one occasion, in 1707, part of the timber of a Dutch boat, wrecked at the " Black Dog," was employd to renew it. This pier stood by the Torry shore till about 1810, when it was entirely taken down. Baillie Skene, writing in 1685, says,-"that considerable bulwark the Magistrates of late years caused erect at the mouth of the southside of the river ; extending up the shore such a great length ; so that very great ships may enter and be safely preserved when they are in without hazard." Torry was more than a mere fishing village then, when the great vessels lay by its shore, and much loading and unloading was done on its bulwark or pier. However, when Smeaton, the great engineer, examined the river mouth, with a view to the improvement of the harbour, he condemned the "bulwark," as not only affording no protection, but being mischievous in abruptly meeting the storm-sweep from the north-east, and causing a recoil and disturbance along the harbour basin, while Rennie, the Harbour Engineer of that day, considered that the Torry bulwark led to increased disturbance in the harbour waters, and that its only advantage was to support capstans to pull in ships in westerly winds, and by narrowing the channel, to increase the sea-going river current, and thus aid in scouring the bar.

THE TORRY BULWARK (1607-1810).
From Plate in Slezer's Theatrum Scotiæ, 1693.

Early in the seventeenth century, about the time the bulwark was completed, another undertaking, of great importance to navigation, was completed. The harbour mouth had been long blocked by a huge stone, called "Knock Maitland " or " Craig Matellan," which had been the stumbling block and despair of harbour improvers. But there arose in those days a genius to whom difficulties were joys, and the impossibilities of other men as the breath of his nostrils, and the people acclaimed the advent of this great man, and, in the fulness of their admiration of his wonderful powers, they named him "Davie do a'thing," but his prose name was David Anderson of Finzheuch. David gathered together a lot of empty barrels, and fixed them securely, at low water, to the base of the obstructing rock, then, planting a flag on its summit, and seating himself as on a throne, he waited for his servant, the tide, which, in its due time came, and lifting Davie and the rock, buoyed on the bowies, carried them westwards, amid the acclamations of the citizens.

Twenty-seven years after the removal of this obstruction, the good folks of Torry witnessed another period of excitement, but with consternation in place of rejoicing. The bar was at all times shallow and dangerous, for at the period we speak of there were only two feet of water on it at low water, and no more than ten feet at neep tides. In 1637 "a great bed of sand was casten over it, mixed with marl, and clay, and stones, so that no ship could go out or come in, and at low water a man might have passed over, dry-footed, from the north shore to the bulwark. It amazed the haill people of Aberdeen, burgh and land ; they fell to with fasting, praying, mourning, weeping, all day and night "—this didn't shift it." Then they went out with spades and shovels, in great numbers, young and old, to cast down this frightful bar, but all in vain, for as fast as they threw down at low water, it gathered again at full sea. Then the people gave it over, and became heartless, thinking our sea trade and salmon fishing was like to be gone, and noble Aberdeen brought to destruction, and hastily advertised the haill coast-side, south and north, of this accident, that none of their ships should approach the harbour. But while they are at the point of despair, the Lord, of his great mercy removed clean away the bar, and the water did keep its own course as before."

It seems curious now-a-days to have our sea trade and salmon fishing mentioned as of equal importance, but the shipping in those days was insignificant compared with its present state, while the salmon of Aberdeen were abundant, and were accounted in France the best in Scotland, and France was then our great market for this prince of fishes. About 200 years ago the Dee and Don fishing's supplied about 1500 barrels of salmon, each barrel containing about 250 lbs. of fish; about the year 1782 we are told that the supply had increased. At this date, in the first six months of the year, the salmon were boiled and kitted for the London market, and sent off every week by swift sloops retained for the purpose; those caught throughout the summer were salted for exportation to Holland, France, and Spain. A century ago, in the fore-end of the fishing season, if any of the inhabitants wanted salmon for their own table, the preservers were bound to supply them at threepence the pound. That our salmon were estemed at home we may gather from an entry in the Burgh Accounts of 1581, from which it seems they had a more homely way of " providing " a " deputation " than by granting a blank cheque- " The secund day of January, boycht at the command quhilk was sent to the Clerk of Register for his travell in the tounes efferis, payt for the same £18." From these accounts we also learn that the shipping of these salmon was from "Torry—" tem payt to the boy of the boitt to bring the barrell to the boitt frae Torrie schoir."

The great obstacle to the safe and easy navigation of the harbour entrance was " The liar"—a bank of sand and mud extending across the mouth of the river, accumulated by northerly and easterly winds, and the tides, and by the denudation debris brought down by the river. At low water there was formerly only two feet on the bar, and, besides this main bar, there were many sandy shoals of so shifting a character, that navigators complained that, on returning from Aberdeen, they could never find the harbour mouth as they left it. The end of the eighteenth and greater part of the nineteenth centuries, witnessed a continuous and resolute endeavour to enlarge and deepen the harbour, and render its entrance easier and safer, for the prosperity of the city depends on the condition of its harbour. To see what success these efforts have achieved, we have only to compare our deep and crowded docks to-day with the shallow pool in the estuary of the Dee, which small craft entered with difficulty two hundred years ago.

In 1780, after two years' work, the first stretch of the North Pier was built, with the object of protecting the harbour mouth from the wash of north-east winds, and tides, and the consequent banking-up of the bar, and with the object also of narrowing the stream, so that the increased current would carry the deposits seawards. This first step immediately gave five feet of water on the bar at low tide. This plan was the idea of Smeaton, the famous engineer, whose reports on the subject are models of conciseness and lucidity. In a report, dated 1770, he says—"I cannot but lament that the course of the river is distracted by so many channels, and covers so great a breadth of ground at high water." In 1789 the jetty at the base of the North Pier was erected to break the run of the sea along the pier. In 1870 the pier was extended nine hundred feet seawards, and at that date the Torry bulwark was taken down. In 1874 the final addition was made to the length of the North Pier, which then reached its present length. The old South Breakwater was completed in 1815, and curtailed in 1874, when the new South Breakwater was completed, built of great concrete blocks made at Greyhope, the stones for which were largely taken from the Bay of Nigg, and the removal of which so greatly altered the character of its shore.

TORRY FARM ABOUT 1850.

And so century by century the Torrians marked the changes which the energy of their neighbours, across the river, was effecting on the face of Nature. The thatched huts disappearing, the great white stone buildings gradually covering the hills that rise from the North shore, steeple and tower shooting up—the efflorescence of the growing city —a fine span cast from height to height across the Denburn Valley, the slimy tide-washed mud flats and shingle reclaimed from the ebb and flo and the waters walled in by massive quays to form deep and spacious docks, whereby the great ships might reach the city and lie scatheless of sea-storm or river flood. The fishing village benefited by the prosperity of its great neighbour, but, itself, changed little during the centuries. Conservative in habits, and mingling little with the world beyond their village and shore, except for purposes of barter, the fisher folk lived on from generation to generation, simple in their lives, unvarying in their habits, rejoicing when the boats returned low in the water, wailing in ever recurring sorrow when they came back wrack-torn with some son or father missing.

THE FISHER FOLKS

In vain for him the colours gleam
On lifting wave and shredded spray,
As wearily against the stream
The night-spent fisher pulls his way.

HE old village of Torry, from its proximity to a city active in the making of history, has a more vicissitudinous story to tell than the other fishing village along the east coast. Of a distinct race, unchanging in their habits, mixing little with the landward people, except for purposes of trade; yet the neighbouring port, with its foreign-going ships, drew many a fine lad from home, and many a fisher-girl became the wife of a city worker. The village, thus drained, had many ups and downs in its population. At one time crowded with white-fishers, and another the race of fishermen almost gone, and, in their place, a considerable population of working people from the shipbuilding yards and other city industries. In the days when the famous Aberdeen clippers were being built, two ferry-boat loads of carpenters passed, morning and night, across the harbour mouth, to the yards, from Torry, which was the home of the carpenters. These men were clothed in characteristic white suits, and their coming and going was one of the sights of the harbour mouth. By-and-by came an influx from the villages, north and south, Slains and Colliston, Cove, Skateraw, and Portlethen, and the fishing population again reached its old limits; but to-day the descendents of families who have lived in Torry for three generations may be counted on the fingers of a man's hand. Two hundred years ago we find Torry looked upon as a considerable fisher-town, having six boats for great fish, besides lesser ones. Later, when Dr. Cruden of St. Fittick's wrote his account of the parish in 1793, there were 36 men in 6 great boats, besides the old men and boys in numerous yawls—Cove at that time having 24 men in 4 boats, and 14 young and old in yawls.

In 1839 Joseph Robertson, the historian, describes Torry as a "small village, inhabited by a few families of white-fishers," While the Rev, Mr. Thorn, the last Minister of St. Fittick's Church, and the first in the present Church of Nigg, tells us that, in 1843, the population of Torry was 370, at which period the fisher population had dwindled, having only 3 large boats, with 6 men a-piece, the majority of the people being workmen from the city. There was a considerable ship-building industry in Torry about this time. The yards were situated where Wood Street now stands, and it was here that the first hoppers were built in connection with the dredging of the harbour.

The fisher folks are a serious-minded race, living perpetually in an atmosphere of anxiety. All through the season of storm their women folks live in a state of high mental tension, and the effect of such an ever- ecurring strain permeates and dominates the character of the race. To the landward man "the wind bloweth where it listeth," but to the fisher folks whose bread winners in their little boats are at the mercy of the capricious breeze, the wind has a fateful language, at times helpful and cheering, at other times threatening and ominous. They are a thoughtful people, slow to acquire new ideas, but tenacious of those acquired by experience and tradition. Thoughtful, they are necessarily a religious people. The great lonely sea, as they know it in the night and at dawn, kindles that primitive feeling of awe and reverence which is the basis of the religious feeling. The sea, winter by winter, brings them face to face with danger and death, and, winter by winter, some father, or son, or brother comes back from the sea no more. So the idea of the world beyond, where there is no sea and no storm, is ever present with the fisher folks.

What a life of unceasing toil and anxiety was theirs before the days of railways and other facilities. In a description of the east coast, written about 120 years ago, it is remarked that "the town's people complain that their fishers do not go far enough out to sea, where they would find larger fish ; but the truth is the poor men go so far, that they too frequently never return." The same writer remarks that the town is only partly supplied by Torry and Futty, and that large supplies reach it from the villages north and south. " They are even brought from the Newburgh, ten Scotch miles distant, upon women's backs, in baskets. One cannot, without pain, think of a poor woman travelling fifteen English miles before breakfast, with a heavy load upon her back, and yet, were you to express your feelings to her, she would smile, and tell you that she wished she had only fish enough to carry! Such is the force of habit, that they would think it a punishment to be obliged to return home with an empty basket. If they have neither goods nor provisions to take home, they generally put stones in their baskets, about a third of the weight they take in."

Lately the writer heard old Mrs.______ reproving a young lass for complaining of some little duty to be done—"Lassie, ye dinna ken fat it is to be livin'. When I wis your age I had tae start fae Finnan, wi' a birn that took twa tae lift on my back, at three o'clock on winter mornin's, wi' the blin' drift i' my face, an' tramp in tae Aberdeen by the Brig o' Dee road, which wisna sae steep nor slippy as the Suspension Bridge road; then a' foreneen i' the Market; syne we filled oor creels wi' groceries or mussels, an' startit hame in the aiferneen, and eh, sirs, it wis a stiff road hame. On the frosty nichts we ees'd tae pick the middle o' the road, where the horse feet had chippit the ice, but files the hill wis sae slippy we had tae tak the ditches, an mony a nicht the tangles on oor frozen petticoats wad hae oor legs cut an' bleedin' an' frozen again, afore we wan hame. Then there wis the fish to carry up the lang steep Finnan braes, the mussels tae shell, an' the line to bait, the fish to clean an' smoke, syne the hoose tae tidy up, an' the bairns tae look aifter, an' awa tae Aberdeen again. Eh lassie! lassie! mony a week oor een never steekit on a pillow ; an' in the simmer time, besides the ither wark, awa tae the moss, three weary miles, tae cast peats, an' when they were dry an' ready, to carry them hame again, Lassie, dinna complain o' your bit wark bein' a fash."

But the old order changes, the steam which brings tons and tons of rich food every morning from the deep sea, is breaking down the old seclusion of the fisher folks. A process of centralisation goes on apace—the villages are pouring their peoples to the great fishing port, and although some folks cling to the old boat and the old home, a generation or two hence and the peculiar race of our North-East Coast Fishermen will be merged in that new race in the process of evolution on the Torry braes, where the glib tongues of Englishmen and Englishwomen mingle with the broad Doric of Aberdeen and Kincardine, and many a young Scotch man is choosing his mate from among the English "incomers," and many a young Englishman marries a Scotch lassie; and in the houses a dialect new and strange is developing, where words peculiarly Scotch are tripping from English tongues, which give a special flavour and piquancy to the language they find so expressive; and under the shadow of the Baron's Cairn, where once was set the watch for "oor auld enemies, the English," these erstwhile enemies mingle in the common industry, and crowd with a new race the streets that daily are stretching across the fields of St. Fittick.

TORRY, 1870.

—But let us pray that our rulers remember that the world is a temple as well as a market, and that in their efforts to build up the new town and develop a great industry, the sweet retreats by hill and shore be guarded with jealous care. With wisdom and foresight the Girdleness plateau has been secured for the people, but this is only a first step. The Greyhope road, with its magnificent prospects of distant hill and neighbouring harbour, of city and sea, must stretch out through the new Torry Park, down the braes to the Bay of Nigg, and thence, skirting the Tullos Hill, join the south road to Aberdeen. Then, with the old well restored, and Tullos Hill secured as a "commonty," the ancient pilgimages, freed from the superstitions of the past, may be resumed, and the blessing of the Saint will rest upon the people.

When the sea winds blow, and finger the boughs like the strings of a lute,
Then anger will sleep—lulled deep, by the song of a bird;
And hate will be chastened to love by the West Wind's flute;
And greed will be led by sweet Charity's hand that will guide him and gird;
And the power of a peace upon the earth will charm the harsh tongues mute,
When the sea winds blow.

The Rhymes of St. Fittick.

SAINT FITTICK'S WELL :
A LAMENT AND APPEAL

FORSAKEN, sighing o'er her crumbling bank,
The withering sea-pinks spangled in her hair,
Her sorrows crooning to the sea-winds dank,
The Nymph of Downie sits in lone despair.

The wan moon lit at times the lifting bay,
And bridged with light the sea, from land to sky,
While from the verge the voices stilled by day,
Incessant wrangling-murmured fretfully.

Sails gleam and go as swings the lighthouse flash,
But flash or fade no hopes for her relume ;
The grinding waters o'er the boulders dash,
And gnaw the land and ruthless shout her doom.

Forsaken, sighing o'er her broken well,
She, unavailing, weeps the years of yore,
When in the hollow rang yon silent bell,
And stricken pilgrims gathered by the shore.

Tho' proud Damascus claimed a peerless flood,
The haughty leper was compelled to roam,
But Jordan's stream where awful Prophets stood,
Or waters rising in the still Siloam,

Were blessed with powers no mightier than the pool
That, tireless, trickles to the insatiate sea,
O Sea, O Death, she moans, impatient, cruel,
Like Dragon, hissing, coils to ravish me.

O, Sister Wells, that flow behind the hill,
Sweet Sisters, trickling safely in the town,
Thy rulers guard each old historic rill
And poets dip in thee the laurel crown.

To thee, old Spa, no threatening ocean creeps,
No sea-storms spatter thee with brackish spray,
Safe, though thy great protector, Jameson, sleeps,
And Anderson, thy hard, has passed away.

Thy wrangling singers, Callirhoe, are gone,
Save one whose swan song softly lingers still
Long years since " Flights of Fancy " laurels won,
The tuneful champion of our Old Firhill.

And Corbie, comes there from the Bay of Nigg,
The roar of breakers to thy cosy bield,
Thy neighbour's doom is mine-the Auld Bow Brig—
I also perish-is there none to shield ?

Oh, Ancient " Mannie," still dost thou preside
Above the truck and chaffer of the "Green,"
Have pity on thy sister, for the tide
Is at her lips, and she must perish e'en.

Dear Sister Wells, that flow behind the hill,
Help, or I perish—swallowed by the sea ;
The loathsome crab will squatter in my rill,
And limpets spawn upon the walls of me.

Build up my banks, pile boulder-buttress high,
Beat back the gnawing, grinding, greedy bay,
And I will heal, for in me virtues lie,
And I will cleanse thee lepers every day.

Do business burdens weight the jaded brain,
Does "shop" encompass like a prison wall,
Do dinsome streets distract thee with their pain,
Or dark intrigues and plots municipal?

Come where my well in limpid stillnes lies,
For here no passion rages, save the sea ;
Here cares are lifted up and passion dies,
Sung into slumber by a lullaby

Of Summer Seas that softly kiss my brink,
When thou hast walled me from the North Wind's sweep,
And rolling pebbles musically clink
Where murmuring shallows whisper to the deep.

Then will I heal the pilgrims as of yore,
My virtues linger—all unspent my balm ;
And tossing troubles, loitering by my shore,
Like seas subsiding, settles into calm.

Then build my banks, pile boulder-buttress high,
Beat back the gnawing, grinding, greedy bay,
That I may yield the powers that in me lie,
That I may heal my lepers every day.

DEUX.

AT ST. FITTICK'S.

WILLIAM CARNIE.

UNCEASINGLY the bright swift waves
Come rushing to the shore,
And echo to the lonely graves
Of those long gone before ;
I stand beside St. Fittick's Well,—
I linger on the beach,
And listen to the full-tide swell
And think what it may teach.

Unceasingly the Ocean speaks
Of friends and days gone by ;
And ever waning memory seeks
Relief in silent sigh ;
The toil, the trials of youth's fair day,
The fears, the joys of life,
Are mirrored in yon restless bay
Its power, calm, and strife.

Unceasingly the billows move
Heaven's purpose to perform ;
In each soft gale there's peace and love-
Courage in fiercest storm:
My lengthened day is well nigh spent,
Earth's proud ambitions o'er ;
Once more I stray with sweet Content
By old St. Fittick's shore.

SEASIDE MUSINGS.

W. CADENHEAD.

THE sky's o'ercast with thin grey clouds
Nor smiling sunbeam seen ;
Save o'er the sea's horizon shed
A belt of golden sheen,
Which cheers the distant billows
As they smiling roll to land,
And gilds the sails that stud their breasts,
By gentle breezes fann'd.

I see the plaided shepherd,
And hear his bLeating flock,
As on their wanderings they pick
The herbage from the rock ;
Up the ravines the billows roll
With awe-inspiring sigh,
And 'mid their crevices to perch
The sea-fowl screaming fly.

Yon cloud that rides above the wave,
And greets the evening's smile,
Seems, as the radiance on its falls,
Some lovely distant isle ;
And yonder is a rent in it
That seems a haven fair,
And longing looks yon distant barque
To cast its anchor there.

O ! who has not some sunny isle
Where he would wish at last,
When comes the evening of his days
His anchor their to cast,

Some haven, where life's troubled waves
Were calmed down to the play
Of gentle lappings on the beach
Of Nigg's sequestered bay?
And though the over-circling clouds
Were dimming down to-night,
With pleasant memories and hope
The horizon still was bright.

ST. FITTICK'S CHURCHYARD

DEATH and the final mould -- Death where was life
And all its means of action, strength and hope,
Men, women, age and youth, voices and eyes,
Thoughts, passions, loves, sorrows and merriments,
Aims shared-in, histories entwined -- but now
Names on a mossgrown tablet; underneath,
Death and the final mould.

Only the brave old belfry, faithful yet,
Stands sentinel by these poor vestiges,
And when the sun is high protects their place
With kindly shadow; or throughout the night
Takes from the busy wind a secret speech
And, in each cranny, whispers of the hands
That raised it long ago and cherished it;
While from the rock near by the dirging sea
Eternally condoles.

W. G. S.

THE SILLER MARRIAGE

BY WILLIAM ANDERSON
Author of "Jean Findlater's Loon," etc.

[Married at Torry, on Tuesday last, James Shepherd, barber and field preacher, aged twenty, to Miss Nelly Auld, Nigg, aged seventy-seven, three feet high, and deformed to the last degree of distortion. Though the day was very stormy and rough, yet so great was the public curiosity, that not only the ferry-boat but the whale-boats were employed the greater part of the day in conveying people across the river to witness so very extraordinary nuptials.—From Aberdeen Journal, 1797.]

IN a Country weel scatter'd wi' hillocks and cairns,
Where the chain o' the Grampians slopes to the sea—
An' the fowk are renowned as the men o' the Mearns—
Stan's the parish o' Nigg, near the mou' o' the Dee.
There lived an auld wifie o' seventy an' twa—
A couthie wee body, tho' stoopin' twa fauld—
Half a century sinsyne, as tradition can shaw,
Kent weel through the country as blythe Nelly Auld.

She joket wi' youngsters, an' played wi' the weans,
Though wrinkled an' yellow wi' age was her face.
For she was as wanton's a quean in her teens,
An' the wifie was come o' the white-fisher race.
She min't upon Cumberland troops gaen south,
Wi' their braw cocket hats, an' demeanour sae bauld,
An' liket to crack o' the scenes o' her youth,
Yet a maiden unmarried was gay Nelly Auld.

The toun's-fowk o' Mayday gaed crowdin' in flocks—
Lads an' lasses in hunners, 'twas just like a fair—
Seekin' fun o'er at Torry or dulse at the rocks,
Climbin' through at the Needle or Brig o' ae Hair.
They gather'd the badderlock, buckie, an' wilk,
Syne away o'er the rocks an' the hillocks they crawl'd.
For partans at Burnbanks, an' whisky an' milk,
Or a drap o' Geneva frae kin' Nelly Auld.

The feck o' our gentry frequentit her house,
For brawly they kent wi' the canty auld body,
Though Provost or Pauper they wad get a house,
As she had quite a talent at mixin' o' toddy.
A set o' droll chiels, on a fine afternoon,
Wad fuddle an' drink till they a' were keelhaul'd,
Nor yet dream, nor think, o' returnin' to toun,'
But sleep i' the barn o' clean Nelly Auld.

Smuggl't gin was in fashion, an', what wad ye think,
The auld gill was tippence, an' Alister Robb
A hale winter nicht on a sixpence could drink,
An' said he wad drink himself rich by the job.
Ae nicht that a core o' our nabobs were there,
They proposed i' their fun, as the story is tauld,
To Alister, tho' he was threescore an' mair,
A marriage between him' an' auld Nelly Auld.

Nelly giggi'd an' leuch like a lassie o' twenty—
Next week was agreed on to finish the rig ;
An' Alister blin'-fu' said he wis content aye,
Sae they bookit them baith in the Kirktown o' Nigg.
Siller marriages fifty years syne war in vogue ;
Ilka guest brought an offerin', with which they install'd
The pair-wha provided the meat an' the grog—
An' sic was the wedding o' wee Nelly Auld.

Croods cam' frae the country, an' croods frae the toon ;
My mither heard lang Lizzie Wobster declare
That some gaed a shillin', an' ithers a croun,
An' countit owre four hunner couples an' mair.
An anker o' gin in a tub was made punch—
They drank helter-skelter to keep out the cauld ;
A hail rostit stirkie there was for a lunch,
To adorn the marriage o' braw Nelly Auld.

Clinchie Blake, wi' his fiddle, was in frae Whitestripes—
Frae the lord to the beggar a' classes were seen;
Robbie Jack an' his son frae Dalmaick wi' their pipes—
Sic a weddin' in Mearnshire never had been.
A' distinction an' difference were lost at the feast—
Sic dancin' an' drinkin' had never been pall'd,
And they daff'd till the sun was far up in the east,
Then they beddet the bridegroom an' dear Nelly Auld.

But Nellie car'd little for blessin' or ban—
It was generally thocht that the body was rich—
An' happy, at last, she had gotten a man,
Her braw siller marriage had gaen her a hitch.
Be that as it may, it is plain to be seen,
Wi' horses, an' cattle, an' sheep in their fauld,
Her nephews are a' muckle fairmers at Skene,
An' may weel bless the marriage o' auld Nelly Auld.

THE DUEL.

BY ALEXANDER ROBB
Poems and Songs. 1852.

Torry has witnessed many a deadly struggle, but the warlike encounter commemorated in the following verses by Deacon Robb was happier in its termination than most others. The event happened about 1812. A Count and a Baron, well-known men in the Aberdeen of those days, quarrelled in a ballroom in town. The Baron tweaked the Count's nose, when,

LIKE ony roarin' lion stout
The Baron swore aloud,
" For this insult upon my snout
O Count, I'll have your blood !

" Then name your arms and time to yok',
An' name the field of glory.
Pistols-the morn, at five o'clock,
Upon the hills o' Torry.

Now frae the east red rose the sun
Like ony copper kettle,
And o'er the Cove portentous shone
Upon the field of battle.

His beams had scarce begun to lick
The dew frae aff the heather,
When baith the lads, to time exact,
Were on the field together.

A doctor in the howe appeared
To wait the grand attack,
Wi' a' his instruments prepared
The bullets to extract.

The grun' was paced, and pistols, tee,
Waur loaded, prim'd, and cocket,
And seconds stood aside, to see
Wha first su'd kick the bucket.

The birds and beasts gaed daft for fear
As soon's they heard the pistols;
And fisher wives cried, Lord be here !
As they were gatherin' mussels.

The gu's and kittyweakes screamed
To hear the dire commotion ;
An' skate an' haddocks quicker swimm'd
Out through the German Ocean.

As fly the waves against a rock,
So flew the balls o' lead ;
As meets a rock the dashing waves,
So firm the heroes steed.

Shot after shot came aff like stoure
Frae these redoubted champions,
An' crack for crack for half-an-hour
Resounded through the Grampians.

At length the Baron cried, " Hallo !
I'm curst if I can wound ye."
" I'm sorry I'm the same with you,"
Replied the Count, "confound ye."

" Then," says the Baron, " gie's your ban',
I'll ne'er say Count in future ;
" The Count said, " That's a gentleman,
I'm wae I twin'd your coutar. "

THE WRECK OF THE "OSCAR."

BY WILLIAM CADENHEAD.

IT was Nigg's lonely churchyard, beside the murmuring ocean,
The roofless church was old and grey, for since its ancient walls
In years gone past resounded with the fervours of devotion,
They long had bleached in summer suns, or dripped in winter squalls.

Among the graves a sailor sat, his locks were long and hoary,
All weather-beaten was his cheek by many a salt sea-breeze,
No doubt of calms and tempests wild he well could tell the story,
'Mid doldrums at the sultry Line, or blasts on Arctic Seas.

I asked the ancient mariner about his meditation
Among the mouldering monuments, among the grassy graves
Of that lone seaside churchyard, and this was his narration
Of strange and fortunate escapes from out the seething waves—

" It was the good ship ' Oscar,' bound for the Arctic Ocean,
Upon the first of April, in the year of grace thirteen,
And loving hearts were thrilled that day by many a wild emotion,
For a whole whaling fleet had sailed from the Port of Aberdeen.

" I was on board the ' Oscar,' a young and ardent dreamer,
Between her masts a garland hung with ribbons fluttering free,
For every sailor's sweetheart contributed a streamer
For luck to the good ' Oscar ' upon the frozen sea.

" The hawser was loosed cheerily that moored her to the jetty,
The sails were set and off we sped beside the long stone pier,
The good ship, everyone declared, looked trim and taut and pretty
As she curtsied o'er the heaving bar amid a ringing cheer.

" Sometimes we tacked about the bay with very little offing,
To wait a boat that was to bring some laggards of the crew,
For, heedless of the danger, some men will still keep loafing,
And this delay brought wild dismay, as soon they sadly knew.

" The day was, like most April days, made up of shine and glooming
At times upon the heaving seas the sunlight glittered clear,
But all the while to eastward some heavy clouds were looming,
Which boded in the seamen's eyes some dirty weather near.

" It lulled, and on a heavy swell we drifted to the leeward,
The vessel had no steering way ; the tide set in with stress ;
There was no wind to fill the sails to tack her to the seaward ;—
Let go the anchors !—or she strikes upon the Girdleness !

" Then from the east a hurricane sprang up with furious rattle,
Driving the showers of blinding snow in fearful gusts and shocks ;
And the great breakers ran like steeds urged on to maddening battle;
The anchor drags-she's driving fast upon the fatal rocks !

" Cut down the main-mast ! it may bridge the fierce and angry chasm
The carpenters and coopers all their saws and axes plied,
It did not fall athwart-ships ! and each heart was smote with spasm,
For it huddled down a useless log along the vessel's side.

" Then 'mid the din of breakers, and the great chain-cable's clanking,
You heard the skipper's husky cry above the roaring squall,
Above the cracking timbers, and the crunching of the planking,
'Twas every man now for himself, and God be for us all !

" Of a brave crew of fourty-four that mann'd that gallant whaler,
But only two, my mate and I, came living through the surf :—
That fatal Greyhope Bay has been the grave of many a sailor,
Whose loved ones cannot shed their tears uoon their grassy turf !

" 'Twas a sad scene this lone churchyard beside the moaning billows
After the storm, the cast-ashores among the graves were laid,
Their sailor garbs their winding sheets, the wet green graves their pillows,
That lovers and relations might claim their hapless dead.

" There was the skipper, brave and bluff, no more his anchor dragging ;
The harpooner, shot down by shaft more subtle still than his;
The lover in his sweetheart's arms no more departure lagging;
The husband where the widow stands in speechless helplessness.

" Since then I've sailed in many a clime, by continents and islands,
By icy bergs, or where the airs are balm and spicery,
Amid the roaring hurricane, or the calm's awful silence,
But now I've coiled my lanyards up- I go no more to sea.

" But oft I take a tack about, a thankful grey old sailor,
And often sit a lonely hour among these grassy graves,
Musing upon the gallant crew of the ' Oscar,' luckless whaler,
And how my mate and I escaped from out the seething waves."

TORRY IN 1860.

St. Fittick's Church, Torry.

AN APPEAL.

SO far back as September, 1894, the religious needs of Torry, as a growing district, had been under the consideration of the Kirk Session of Nigg, but it was not until early in the year 1896 that the Kirk Session resolved to proceed in the matter, and a public meeting of the inhabitants of Torry was called for the18th of March in that year.

At that meeting a Local Committee was appointed to collect Subscriptions, and to act along with the Church Extension Association of Aberdeen in taking the necessary steps for the erection of a place of worship.

On 19th November, 1898. the foundation-stone of the new Church was laid by Lauchlan M'Kinnon, Jun., Esq., Convener of the Church Extension Committee, and on 24th November, 1899, St. Fittick's Church was dedicated to the public worship of God.

Steps were then taken towards securing a minister for the Church, and on 11th April, 1900, t