Field Meetings. 87 



James Lidderdale, to which they were kindly invited by Mrs 

 Lidderdale, the party directed their steps towards Threave Castle. 

 The site of this venerable pile is an island formed by the river 

 Dee, formerly occupied by a fortalice belonging to Alan, the last 

 native Prince of Galloway; and the building material is said to have 

 been brought from the old Abbey of Glenlochar, which was about 

 a mile and a half distant. The precise date of its erection is 

 unknown, but it is supposed to have been in the fourteenth 

 century, and Archibald Douglas the Grim is its reputed founder. 

 The castle, which has been of three storeys, consists of a tall oblong 

 square tower, the walls of which are about 70 feet high and 8 feet 

 thick, and surrounded by the remains of a barbican flanked 

 with a circular tower at each corner, one of which is still almost 

 complete. The entrance is on the east side, the doorway, which is 

 on the level of the second storey, being approachable at one time 

 by means of a drawbridge which spanned a deep fosse. Over the 

 entrance a small granite block projects from the wall. This is called 

 the "Gallows Knob" or "hanging stone," where the unhappy vassal, 

 who had ofFended his lord, was "tucked up" to pay the penalty 

 with his life ; and near to Carlingwark Loch was a charnel, known 

 as the " Gallows Slot," into which the lifeless Ijodies were after- 

 wards unceremoniously thrown. William, eighth Earl of Douglas, 

 kept a retinue at Threave of about 1000 armed men, and con- 

 ducted his household with regal splendour. When the Act of 

 Forfeiture was passed against the King's enemies in 1455, Threave 

 was the last stronghold that held out, and King James conducted 

 the siege himself. It was for this, it is said, that the ponderous 

 piece of ordnance known as " Mons Meg" was forged by a black- 

 smith named M'Kim, who with his seven sons carried on his trade 

 at Buchan's Croft, a hamlet in the neighbourhood. The " gun- 

 stanes o' the granite grey" with which the cannon was charged 

 were disastrously effective ; and the garrison soon surrendered. 

 For his ]jart in the victory M'Kim, says tradition, received the 

 lands of Mollance, and it is to a contraction of this word and the 

 familiarised Christian name of his wife, that some attribute the 

 name "Mons Meg." The gun, which now occupies a position on 

 the bastion of Edinburgh Castle, bears by an inscription on the 

 carriage to have been forged at Mons, Flanders, which shews that 

 the traditionary tale is discredited; but there is still a general 

 belief in its Galloway origin, which is strengthened by the fact 



