118 Transactions. 



old extent, of CJibbinstone alia-t Macolvistoun, within the barony of Holy- 

 wood, dated the 6th of May, 1678." 



Ill the year 1685 there is the service of a Mary Welsh as 

 heir to her father in the 20s land of Collistoun, the merk land of 

 Larg, the 20s land of old extent of Nether AVhiteside, and the 40s 

 land of old extent of Craigenputtock. In the local records of the 

 town and county of Dumfries towards the middle and close of the 

 sixteenth century there are numerous fragmentary incidental 

 notices of the actual existence of the family of Collistoun and other 

 Welshes, which owe any interest they possess rather to their 

 historic associations than to any intrinsic merits of their own. At 

 the era of the Reformation the very antique royal burgh of Dum- 

 fries, then still the one great "piovisioned town " of the marches, 

 its Provost M'Brair, when called to Edinburgh by the authorities, 

 in his evidence characterised the bux'gh, in its then past history of 

 at least three centuries, as " a town aft brunt and harriet." This 

 statement history fully corroborates, even in such details as have 

 survived. At this period the native inhabitants of Dumfries, as 

 you may discern, had been a vehemently daring race of men, 

 actuated by the old chivalric spirit of the Borderer, with tempers 

 and swords almost equally sharp and shrill, on suj^posed just 

 occasion, and seemingly altogether without fear in some of their 

 undertakings. The periodical meetings of the " Justices of the 

 Peace of the Shire " seem to have been the known " gala days " 

 for the settlement of old grudges and feuds, wherein they jjricked 

 at each other in the true old Border fashion, this popular institu- 

 tion and usage lasting in one form or other until after the period 

 of the Union of 1707. Under such conditions it is the less 

 surprising to find war-gear of all kinds still figuring so largely in 

 the necessary requirements and furniture of existence as it was 

 here as elsewhere in the Marchlands. In the interior of the 

 burgher household you may discern bows and arrows, steilbonnets. 

 laut-staves, guns, " pistolets," swords, long and small, in consider- 

 able variety ; coats of mail, big and little, known generically as 

 " Jacks ;" grey-gowns, " riding-tippats," or hoods, for warmth and 

 protection, while the staigs, or " Galloway Nags," are covered over 

 with certain trappings and war-gear, the rider blowing his own 

 '• slogan " upon his " blowing-horn " in tones that if not sweet were 

 terrific and loud enough. Froissart gives an amusing account of the 

 infernal echoes of the hollow and middle of the night as raised in 

 the Scottish camp in repose by such " blowing of horns " as was in 



