78 Field Meetings. 



The " King's Quari-y" — whence the name we know not — was 

 inspected by some geologists in the party, as the conveyances were 

 being dragged empty and slowly up a " stey brae ;" but there was 

 nothing of any consequence reported by them regarding it. 



At Dui'isdeer Village the horses were stabled, and the church 

 and churchyard visited. The former is a composite structure of 

 two periods. A stumpy tower surmounts the more ancient por- 

 tion, which is now unused, and the windows of which are sealed 

 with stone and lime ; the more modern portion is cruciform ; the 

 whole presenting a singulai^ly rugged aspect. It is conjectured 

 that the foundation of Durisdeer Church was due to the Stewarts, 

 near the obliterated site of whose castle it still stands. It was 

 originally a rectory belonging to the see of Galloway, served by a 

 vicar ; and in the fourteenth century it was constituted a prebend 

 of Glasgow. As to the present church, the writer of the some- 

 what bald and meagre " Statistical Account " of 1841, probably 

 the then incumbent, Rev. George Wallace, says : " It is incon- 

 veniently situated, being in the very east side of the parish. It 

 was built in 1720, and is not at present in a good state of repair. 

 It affords accommodation for 350 persons, and all the sittings are 

 free." 



The most gorgeous, and perhaps for most folk the most interest- 

 ing, object at Durisdeer is the mausoleum of the Queensberry 

 family. It is under the same roof with the church ; and an 

 arched doorway from the church to the tomb is filled with thick 

 glass, through which the gaudy tomb can be seen by the worship- 

 pers in their pews. The building is vault-roofed and floored with 

 marble cubes, black and white. Against the wall opposite to the 

 church, the monument is built. It represents the Union Duke of 

 Queensberry reclining on a couch beside the lifeless form of his 

 wife. They are dressed to the last detail in the heavy finery of 

 the court of Queen Anne. The Duchess wears her coronet ; the 

 Duke, resting his head on one hand, gazes down upon her face 

 from the curtained recesses of a highly curled wig. There is no 

 intimation here of humility, no lurking suggestion of a conscious 

 sense of the levelling decrees of Fate ; but haughty parade and 

 pomp on the edge of the grave, and over the decaying bits of 

 humanity beneath. The same vain spirit is expressed in the 

 panegyric that forms the epitaph. It would be difficult to imagine 

 anything finer than the drapery of the figures or the accuracy 

 with which the fabric in delicate ease, has been imitated, 



