Transactions. 13 



fully carried out the rescue of the Covenanters at the pass of 

 Enterkin so gi-aphically described by Defoe in his " Memoirs of 

 the Church of Scotland." He long outlived the Revolution, and 

 died December 6^ 1723, in his seventy -second year. 



At Alan's Cairn, at a spot where the parishes of Penpont and 

 Tynron in Dumfriesshire and Carsphairn in Kirkcudbrightshire 

 meet together, a stone that in time became a cairn has long 

 marked the spot where rest the mortal remains of George Alan 

 and Margaret Gracie. John Semple, the outed minister of 

 Carsphairn, had been holding a conventicle in what has come to 

 be called tlie Whig's Hole, a deep hollow that seems as if it had 

 been formed for a meeting place for the persecuted in troublous 

 times. It suddenly sinks down on the Altry hill, not far from 

 the water of Ken, and cannot be seen until its edge is reached 

 Here a large congregation was gathered, and Semple was in the 

 midst of his sermon when the watcher gave the signal that the 

 dragoons were approaching. The assembly at once broke up. 

 Semple and a few of the older people were taken to a deep moss 

 hag near at hand, wliile the younger folks fled in an opposite 

 direction to reach another moss hag through whicli the dragoons 

 could not pass. But they were too late. The dragoons inter- 

 cepted them before they accomplished tlieir purpose, and fired. 

 Several were wounded, and George ^Vlan and Margaret Gracie 

 were shot dead. On the evening of the following day friends 

 stole under the covert of night to the spot and buried the dead, 

 where they now lie. In 1857 a pillar with an inscription was 

 erected over the grave. 



In Kirkmichael parish, on the higli grounds that rise up on the 

 west of Glenkilt Burn to the height of eleven hundred feet, and 

 form a table land, the Ordnance Map has marked " Gibb's corse. 

 Martyr's stone." The stone is of some size, and makes one 

 wonder how it got there. It is easily come upon in the moor. 

 Who Gibb was, or how he came to be reckoned a martyr, I have 

 not met any one able to tell me. 



IV. ^otes on the Dumfriesshire Flora, ivith new Localities 

 received fro7n correspondents. By George F. Scott-Elliot 

 F.L.S. 



I was enabled this summer to pay a short visit to some of the 

 outlying districts of Dumfriesshire, and though my time was very 



