n 8 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



requesting, at the same time, that I would never allow it to go out 

 of the family keeping. ' It was used,' said he, ' against Oliver 

 Cromwell, when he attacked our house/ My father then gave me 

 the following account : ' At that period the old gateway was three 

 stones high, and on the top of it was placed an iron swivel-gun, to 

 carry balls the size of that which you now hold in your hand. Our 

 pepple, who were defending the place against the attack of the 

 marauder, having observed one of his men going up the footpath, 

 through an adjacent wood, with a keg on his shoulder, for a supply 

 of ale from the village, imagined that he would return by the same 

 route. Under this supposition, the swivel-gun was pointed to bear 

 on the path. When the returning soldier came in sight, the gun 

 was discharged at him with so just an aim, that the ball fractured 

 his leg. Tradition from father to son pointed out the spot where 

 the ball had entered the ground. Long before you were born/ added 

 my father, ' curiosity caused me to dig for the ball at the place 

 which had been pointed out ; and there I found it, nine inches deep 

 under the sod/ So far my father. 



" The year before last (1855), perceiving that the drift mud had 

 accumulated vastly in the lake, I determined to cut a channel three- 

 and-twenty feet deep, through the intervening rock to the level 

 below, in order to effect a drainage for the water, which hitherto 

 had discharged itself from a sluice, merely acting as a by-wash. On 

 the 1 2th of March 1857, being at sludging-work close to the old 

 gateway, and in front of it, we found an iron swivel cannon, eight 

 feet deep in the mud, and resting on the remains of the ancient 

 bridge. The little iron ball, mentioned above, seems to have been 

 cast to fit this gun. I have no doubt, in my own mind, but that 

 this is the gun and this the ball which were used at the period of 

 the defence. We have since found several musket bullets, a sword 

 blade, a battle spear, two daggers, the heads of a hammer and an 

 axe, many coins, three or four keys of very ancient shape, a silver 

 spur, and two silver plates, all deep in the mud, and within the 

 woodwork of the former bridge. Up to the time of this discovery, 

 nothing whatever had been known of these articles. But my father 

 often said, that our plate was put under water when Charley Stuart's 

 father made his appearance from abroad. The following historical 



