Autobiographical Notes. 167 



passage when within a fortnight's sail of Sydney, November, 

 1826, aged 22. 



My eldest sister, Anne, was married to Samuel Reid, 

 Minnihive, Dumfriesshire, but died in 1824, aged 35, leaving 

 four daughters behind her. 



My youngest sister, Mary, was married in 1810 to Samuel 

 Kelly, now tenant of the farm of Townhead of Culloch, parish 

 of Urr, and is still living, having a family of nine children. 



There was always in the parish of Girthon a vague but, I 

 believe, an unfounded opinion that the obscure family to which 

 I belong was related to the Murrays of Broughton. Certain it 

 is, however, that at my mother's death, in 1798, the mother of 

 the late Alexander Murray of Broughton, then a minor, and 

 who died in July, 1845 — the last of one of the oldest families 

 in Scotland — took my youngest brother, William, to Cally 

 House, and my sister, Mary, to take charge of him. Neither 

 of them returned to their father's roof, but received their 

 education and were altogether supported by the kind and 

 generous lady to whom I have referred. This lady was Grace 

 Johnston, sister of Peter Johnston of Carnsalloch. James ' 

 Murray of Broughton, who had married Lady Catherine Stewart, 

 of the noble house of Galloway, separated from that lady, and co- 

 habited with Miss Johnston, by whom he had three daughters 

 and two sons, all now dead without leaving issue. Mrs John- 

 ston, for she assumed that designation after the death of James 

 Murray, lived much at Cally, which was bequeathed to her 

 during the minority of her son. She was extremely kind and 

 beneficent, and was as much an object of respect and regard 

 as if she had been the widow of the late proprietor. The people 

 in the parish and throughout the Broughton estate called her 

 Mrs Murray, but among her dependants and in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cally she went by the name of "The Lady." She 

 visited even the lowest hovels, was kind to children as well as 

 to all others, and was in all respects a blessing to the place. 

 My brother might have chosen any profession, however high, 

 that attracted his taste, but being much in the company of 

 servants and much about the stables, he preferred the trade of 

 a saddler. When Mr Murray came of age he adopted his 

 mother's protege as his own; at least so far as my brother was 

 concerned, my sister having previously left Cally and gone to 



