French Prisoners. 247 



home, the distance of J of a mile south-west, and in his 

 affright darted through the gavel window of the house (a 

 small window of four panes of glass) and uttered loud yells 

 below his mistress's bed, who, starting from her sleep, ran 

 with the man-servant to the fauld, thinking evil had befallen 

 her husband. So far James Thompson's story. Peace to 

 his ashes ! Many stories had he. Searching for his horses 

 in the Kirkhill, he stumbled on an ugly black sow in the 

 Kirkhill bog, and there was no sow kind in all that quarter ! 

 He has often heard his grandfather tell of the fairies letting 

 on the water on the Mill after a hard, tiresome day's labour, 

 and particularly one night he was obliged to gang doun in his 

 breeks and sark to turn it off, and the third time ganging 

 into bed, he was seized by the shoulders from behind and 

 held by a powerful grasp for a short time ! The cauld sweat 

 hailed ower him." 



11th April, 1913. 



Chairman — Dr J, W. Martin, Hon. V.P. 



French Prisoners on Parole at Dumfries, Sanquhar, 

 Lockerbie, and Lochmaben. 



By the late Mr J. Macbeth Forbes. 



[Mr J. Macbeth Forbes died suddenly in Edinburgh on 14t]i 

 January, 1913, to the deep regret of those who knew him and his 

 work. For many years he had been gathering material on the 

 French Prisoners in Scotland. Mr J. J. Vernon, Hon. Secretary 

 of the Hawick Archaeological Society, suggested that Mr Forbes 

 might favour our Society with a paper similar to that on the French 

 Prisoners in Hawick, Selkirk, and Jedburgh, which he had con- 

 tributed to his Society. Mr Forbes agreed to do so, but never 

 accomplished his purpose. Unwilling to lose such an interesting 

 contribution, I approached Mrs Forbes, who kindly sent me Mr 

 Forbes' MS., with letters on which it was based and lists of 

 prisoners. The MS. consisted of two extended papers, written 

 some years ago, on the prisoners at Dumfries and Sanquhar, which 

 Mr Forbes had intended to serve as a first draft. These papers 

 I have retained as written, adding only, at what seemed appropriate 

 places, such additional matter as I was fortunate enough to find. 



