street below, and upon the restless darkness of the sea! This happy and undistracted period of Sir Thomas's life soon however came to an end.
The fortunes of the house of Urquhart experienced evil days. For the old man his father, the courteous Grangousier of Cromartie, in that he considered it "derogatory to the nobility of his house to look too closely into his own purse," fell into debt.
It was in vain that his two sons, Thomas and Alexander, endeavoured to right the tottering fortunes of the castle. In spite of the fact that their zeal actually led them on one occasion to imprison the spendthrift old gentleman from a Monday to a Friday "within an upper chalmer called the inner Dortour" things continued to go from bad to worse.
The very civil war, we are told, was welcomed by the distressed family, bringing as it did relief from "hornings" and "apprisings" and "huddling up the terms of Whitsuntide and Martimas which in Scotland are for the payment of debts."
In 1641 having taken sides against the Presbyters Thomas went to England, where in one of the galleries of Whitehall he received a knighthood from King Charles.
His father died in the following year bequeathing to him "in wordly goods twelve or thirteen thousand pounds sterling of debt, five brethren all men and two sisters almost marriageable."
From this time Sir Thomas suffered nothing but torments at the hands of his creditors who seemed to derive a peculiarly malignant satisfaction from aggravating their whimsical bankrupt. Robert Lesly of Findrassie actually had audacity enough to take possession of one of his outlying farms "to which," as the indignant Lord of the Manor assures us "he had no more right than to the town of Jericho mentioned in the scriptures." Others, and these Sir Thomas seems especially to have resented, would "pluck him away from his studies by their importunity," even going so far as to lay hold on his beloved books.
Always a stout royalist, he marched with Prince Charles into England and fought at the battle of Worcester. It was here that the greatest of all calamities overtook him, for not only were the King's troops routed and himself taken prisoner, but his much cherished manuscripts, the very quintessence of his work in the library of Cromartie Castle, were lost. He had left them packed in "three port-
