Field Meetings. 91 



Corsock House, though not of yesterday, is the modern repre- 

 sentative of a much older structure — the Castle of Corsock, 

 crumbling vestiges of which still remain on the farm of Hallcroft, 

 and an armorial stone from which, with the initials " J. N." and 

 and "M. G." (John Nelson, namely, and his wife Margaret G ordon), 

 is built into one of the walls of Corsock House. The Nelsons of 

 Corsock, like their relatives the Gordons, were devoted adherents 

 to the cause of the Covenant, and suffered much and long for their 

 fidelity to the Presbyterian Church of the Reformation. When 

 the Rev. Gabriel Semple was ejected from Kirkpatrick-Durham, 

 he found a refuge in Corsock Castle, where he preached regulai-ly 

 to increasing congregations of eager hearers. Mr Nelson became 

 a marked and obnoxious man for this, and for other conduct of 

 his, and was made to suffer severely in his means. He was con- 

 cerned in the rising which occurred after the affair at Dairy, and 

 ended disastrously at Rullion Green; and he and John Gordon of 

 Irongray were tried in Edinburgh, and condemned to be hung, 

 a sentence which would have been averted probably by Sir James 

 Turner, whose life had been saved by the intercession of Nelson 

 when Sir James was seized by the Covenanters in Dumfries, but 

 for the steni counter-plotting of the Rev. Mr Dalgliesh, the 

 Episcopalian curate of his parish, who represented him to the 

 bishops as the very ringleader of the disaffected, and urged the 

 necessity of his execution, " for the sake of example and the 

 establishment of peace." On the l-ith of December, 1666, after 

 having been tortured by the " boot," Mr Nelson was hanged 

 accordingly at the Cross of Edinburgh. 



On a green hill top near Corsock House there stands a chaste 

 granite obelisk, erected to the memory of the late Mr Murray 

 Dunlop, who was for many years an influential member of Parlia- 

 ment for Greenock, who espoused the cause of the Non-Intrusion 

 party, who was afterwards the trusted legal adviser of the Free 

 Church, who was respected by opponents and revered by friends, 

 and of whom the late Lord Cockbiirn said — " Calm, wise, pure, 

 and resolute, no one ever combined more gracefully the zeal of a 

 partizaii and the honour of a gentleman." The monument on the 

 height was erected by his sorrowing tenantry. 



The party were received at Corsock House by Mrs Murray 

 Dunlop, and shewn a number of interesting articles recently 

 brought from Egypt by her son, including three large and hand- 



