THE LEGEND O THE OGILVIE CLAN GHOST

Who heard the ghostly drummer of Cortachy castle beat the death roll of the late earl or Airlie? His special tattoo is ever the herald of death to the heads of the Ogilvys.
In bygone times there was a drummer who drummed for the “Bonny house of Airly.” The wretched player offended the earl of those days and was tied up in his own drum and flung from a high tower. After vainly pleading for his life the poor little drummer threatened that his ghost should haunt the family for ever and ever.
Legend has it that generation after generation the dead drummer has sounded the last post for earl and countess of Airlie, and the roll of his drum has through the long centuries blanched the faces of many inmates of Cortachy castle.
In 1845 a visitor at Cortachy was dressing for dinner. A tatooo was beaten beneath her window. The lady listened in surprise, for as far as she knew there were no bandsmen at the castle. Going down to dinner she said to her host:
“Who is is that plays the drum so skilfully outside the castle?”
The earl turned pale and shivered. The countess could not hide her fear. The face of every Ogilvy at the table was deadly white. Within a week the countess lay in her shroud.
A few years later a young Englishman who was to shoot with Lord Ogilvy, the eldest son, at the Tulchan, a shooting lodge at the head of Glenshee, missed his way. The night was wild and darkness had long set in before he saw the lights of the shooting lodge.
Then up the glen came the long roll of the drum. Who could be playing out of doors on such a night? he asked Lord Ogilvy. “Silence,” was his only answer. The earl of Airlie died in London within less than a week.
When the father of the earl of Airlie, who fell in South Africa last monday, died, it is said that the drummer did not sound his drum. But the countryside will not be denied their ghost, and it may be that we shall soon hear that the spectral drum was heard at Cortachy the day before the gallant cavalryman fell in South Africa