88 FiKLD Meetings. 



because it was in part the handiwork of his parent ; and it was 

 interesting to learn that on the last occasion when he crossed it, 

 with tottering- feet that needed aid, he Hngered to draw his hand 

 loving'ly along- the parapet walls. Closeburn had its reminiscence 

 of Burns in Brownhill farm, which was in his time an inn kept by- 

 landlord Bacon of the bard's epigram ; and of the Buchanites in the 

 wayside cottage beyond the village, which was for a time the 

 home of the curious sect who persevered, notwithstanding repeated 

 disappointments, in the hope of a bodily translation to heaven. A 

 halt of fully an hour was made at Thornhill, and the excursionists 

 paid a visit to the museum associated with the name of Dr 

 Grierson, a former president of the Societj^ It continues to grow 

 in bulk and interest, and its contents are arranged in an orderly 

 and systematic manner. Among the latest additions pointed out 

 by Mr Kerr, the curator, were a collection of butterflies and 

 beetles presented by Mr W, Imrie, Auldgirth ; a fox sent by Mr 

 Kerr, farmer, Newbridge ; a finely-shaped stone axe from Mr Brown, 

 Bennan. The garden was in a state of luxuriance that would 

 have delighted the founder's heart. Resuming the drive, and 

 crossing Nith Bridge, which conuects the parishes of Morton and 

 Penpont, Mr J. R. Wilson, Sanquhar, mentioned that the minutes 

 of the read trustees, to whom he is clerk, shew that its original 

 name was Orossford Bridge, derived, no doubt, from the ancient 

 cross that stands in an adjacent field, enclosed by a protect- 

 ing railing. The sculpture which adorned this monolith has been 

 defaced by the hand of time ; but there is no doubt that in pre- 

 Reformation times it stood by the side of the ferry or ford as an 

 invitation to the traveller to engage in an act of devotion before 

 committing himself to the peril of the water, or to offer up the 

 incense of gratitude when the short voyage had been safely 

 accomplished. The erection of the bridge followed upon a 

 melancholy catastrophe, the upsetting of a ferryboat crowded with 

 passengers. A grim tradition has it that as they pushed out from 

 the bank the occupants of the ill-fated boat liad their number 

 augmented by a m3'sterious personage, who came no one knew 

 whence and vanished no one saw whither, but left behind him a 

 strong whiff of brimstone. The foundation stone of the bridge 

 was laid in 1733 by a now defunct Masonic Lodge, St Paul's, of 

 Moniaive. A few yards further Virginhall Free Churcli recalled 

 the story of Jenny Fraser, the rustic hymn-writer and uncom- 



