THE COVENANTER'S BAN.

In the upper ward of Nithsdale, near where meet the sister counties of Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire, there stretches for several miles on the south of the Nith the district known as The Cairn." It is a bleak upland quarter, but one which commands a prospect of great extent; the rising ground behind culminating in the mountain known as M'Cririck's Cairn, having a height of 1824 feet above sea level. Directly opposite, on the north of the Nith, is the more prominent though less exalted Corsoncone (1547 feet), the two mountains standing sentinels, as it were, over the entrance to Nithsdale. For generations the Cairn was in the possession of the M'Criricks, one of the few families in Upper Nithsdale who remained staunch to the Stuarts in the troubles that preceded and distressed the days of the Commonwealth. When the Protector's power was established, a not uncommon result of loyalist devotion soon befel Homer M'Cririck, the laird of Cairn, viz., a regiment of Cromwell's troops was quartered at the old tower of Cairn and at the cottar's houses adjoining, a proceeding which speedily drained the Laird's resources. A worse consequence of the oppression was the wanton conduct of the officer in charge, an exercise of which led to his death, as the Laird, in revenge for some insult, dashed

out his brains with the keys of the tower, and fled to Argyle, an act followed by the forfeiture of his property in 1654. The exact particulars of the event will never be known, but it seems that Homer M'Cririck felt remorse, as he ever afterwards kept the anniversary of the deed as a fast. At the Restoration Homer returned to the Cairn, of which he again obtained possession. Finding the tower a ruin and his lands utterly laid waste, the Laird and his son James, who succeeded him, lived quietly afterwards endeavouring to repair their fallen fortunes. From the register of deeds it seems the former in 1664 borrowed money from a Biggar merchant, doubtless to help him to tide over his ruinous misfortune.

A strange event, however, was to befal, that appears to have hung like a cloud over the fortunes of the family, and which may be classed among coincidences or relegated to the domain of psychology as the mind may be disposed. James M'Cririck, the son of the abovementioned Homer, had succeeded in bringing back the estate to something like its former prosperity, and, doubtless with a wholesome remembrance of the past, he kept aloof from all public matters. Though an Episcopalian he had, with a view, perhaps, of strengthening his financial position, married his son John to Agnes Campbell, daughter of Campbell of Wellwood, a cadet of the Loudon family. Agnes Campbell, like the rest of her family, was a devoted Covenanter, and on one occasion rode from Cumnock to Edinburgh with a view to release by stratagem her brother, who was confined for the sake of his principles in the Tolbooth.

In the parish of Kirkconnel at this time there were two men- Corson and Hair-whose lives were sought by the dragoons, who under the command of Dalzell, were

scouring the country in search of the hiding Covenanters. These men, owing to the influence of Agnes, had found a refuge at the Cairn, contrary to the wishes of the Laird, whose principles and sympathies were averse to them. He, however, was loath to send them adrift, till hearing that their whereabouts had been discovered, and that information had been lodged against himself, he determined upon their removal. But before this could be safely effected the troopers were seen approaching the tower in order to search it, when Corson and Hair were turned out without ceremony, to make their escape if possible over the Cairn Hill. They were quickly espied by the dragoons and both shot, and an obelisk recording the deed is still to be seen on the hillside.

Corson before dying uttered one of those strange predictions, several of which have been handed down from his times, with the story of their after fulfilment :Turning towards the old house, he foretold that in the fourth generation the race of him who refused shelter should die out in the parish, and that the last should be a man of unsound reason. However it may really be accounted for, it is certain that in the next generation the position, possessions, and influence of the family began to wane till John M'Cririck came to the Cairn in 1741. With him prosperity seemed for a time to revive. But the evil prediction was in pursuit. Of a large family of sons only one, named Homer, survived, and he was to represent the fourth generation which the prophecy so fatally concerned. This son, when a child, was one day seated upon his nurse's knee, when a terrible thunderstorm came on, during which the nurse was killed, and the child, though its life was spared, was left with a feeble frame and an "unsound mind." Tradition says that a presentment of coming death,

either of the boy, to whom she was greatly attached, or of herself, was felt by the nurse for some time before this sad event, and that her constant prayer was that God would "spare the green and take the dry." Homer M'Cririck, who was of weak intellect, the result no doubt of the shock, died in 1826, when a cousin William M'Cririck became the representative of the family. It is a remarkable fact that Homer Wilson who, when a boy, was a servant to the last M'Cririck of the Cairn, died at the advanced age of 103 years at Wanlockhead in 1880.

BRYCE'S LOUP.

AN INCIDENT OF THE '45.

When in 1745 Prince Charlie raised aloft the standard of his fathers and commenced his ill-fated attempt to wrest the crown from George of Hanover, he got but small support from Upper Nithsdale. This is little to be wondered at. The district had suffered severely during the troublous reigns of Charles II. and his brother, James VII.; and, in fact, it is questionable whether any other quarter in Scotland had as much reason to remember the tyrannical reigns of these two despots as had the upper ward of Nithsdale, whose bosky glens, heathy moors, and lonely hillsides were for years the retreats and hiding-places of the persecuted Covenanters. The martyrs' graves, scattered here and there in the district, are silent but impressive witnesses of the part it shared in what has appropriately been called "The Killing Time." The Sanquhar Declarations of 1680 and 1685, commemorated by the monument in Sanquhar High Street, are generally allowed to have sounded the death knell of the Stuart dynasty. The town of Sanquhar was a favourite rallying point for the Covenanters, and, indeed, has been aptly named the "Scottish Canterbury." The townsfolk and nearly all the inhabitants of the adjoining parishes were fast