Field Meetings. 22o 



vicinity the well-marked j\Ioat of Dairy. What were formerly 

 two of the most interesting objects in the village are no longer to 

 be seen. One is the cottage in which originated, in a reprisal 

 provoked by military outrage, the " Whig rising " by which the 

 persecuted Covenanters sought, with insufficient force, to ante- 

 date the Revolution. This was demolished .some two-and-twenty 

 years ago. The other is "St. John's chair," a lumpish stone, 

 roughly circular in shape, flat on top, and with a splinter of stone 

 upstanding that suggested a chair back. Legend had it that the 

 Apostle John made it his seat when he blessed the inhabitants, 

 whom he had con\erted to Christianity. It long stood in front 

 of one of the houses at the lower end of the village ; but disputed 

 ownership led to a midnight disappearance, and the mystery has 

 not yet been explained. " St. John's Clachan " was a name com- 

 monly applied to Dairy in the last generation. Besides the 

 mythical association with the apostle, for belief in whose presence 

 in any part of these islands there is only the most conjectural 

 foundation, two explanations have been suggested : one, that the 

 land on which it is built was the property of the Knights Templar 

 of St. John; the other — and the more probable of the two — that 

 it was simply so called because its pre-Reformation church was 

 dedicated to St. John. The Ken is now crossed by Allangibbon 

 Bridge, a substantial structure built at an acute angle of roads 

 leading to New-Galloway and Carsphairn. In remote days it had 

 to be passed by a ferry, and the court accounts of the reign of the 

 fourth James include pontage charges at Dairy when on his pen- 

 ance pilgrimages to St. Ninian's shrine at Whithorn. Stepping 

 stones a little distance south of the village still save pedestrians a 

 considerable round when the waters are moderate ; l)ut these were 

 not practicable on Saturday. A number of the visitors, proceed- 

 ing up the river-side beyond Allangibbon, had a fine view of the 

 Ken in spate roaring over its rocky bed. The drive to Xew- 

 Galloway was made by way of Allangibbon, \\'aterside, and Glen- 

 lee, a route which affords excellent view points of the three 

 centres of population in the lower Glenkens — Dairy, Balma- 

 clellan, and New-Galloway. On reaching the royal burgh they 

 paid a visit to the Town Hall, admired the beautiful picture of 

 Kenmure Castle and Loch Ken with which Mr James Faed, jun., 

 Edinburgh, has enriched its wall; and had the capacious burgh 



