220 FIELD MEETINGS. 
1785, and what was a more lasting title to remembrance be- 
came the benevolent landlord of Robert Burns in May, 1788; 
the term before the 14th October, on which the first steam- 
boat gasped and clicked upon the loch at five miles per hour. 
Miller, unfortunately, gave up steam for the cultivation of 
fiorin grass, and the tower which he erected in 1810 in honour 
of the Rev. Dr William Richardson of Clonfeacle parish, 
Ireland, is only known by the title, ‘‘ Miller’s Maggot,’’ and 
the farmers pursue fiorin as a weed to be exterminated. It 
has been said that the greatest lawyers sometimes fail to draw 
their wills clearly. It is nothing to be surprised at that the 
banker should make a mess of his financial affairs. Being 
himself a younger son, he had always rebelled against the 
favour shown to eldest sons. In his endeavour to deal equally 
with his children he based the money burdens on a war valua- 
tion of the estate. The result was a case of multiple-poinding 
which lasted at least 30 years after his death in 1815, and 
when last called in the courts all the original litigants were 
dead. It must have been a by-word in the courts at the time 
when Scott was writing ‘“‘ Redgauntlet,’’ and doubtless sug- 
gested the by-play made with the multiple-poinding case of 
Poor Peter Peebles. 
Long before the case was ended the tenants of Dalswin- 
ton were meeting at Dalswinton village to celebrate the 
marriage of a handsome and gallant Lieutenant of the name 
of Macalpine, who had added the name of Leny, in accordance 
with the will of his mother’s brother, Robert Leny of Glyns, 
Stirlingshire. The date was 1829, and the bride Miss Marion 
Agatha Downie, 3rd dr. of Robt. Downie, Esqr., of Appin, 
M.P. for Stirling Burghs at that time. This gracious lady’s 
praises may be read in the verses of Allan Cunningham and 
Hannah Johnstone. The dinner was at 4 o’clock, and there 
were 23 toasts detailed in the report, though the reporter ad- 
mits at the end that some of the toasts he did not remember 
clearly and others may be out of order. Some of the toasts 
were of a general nature, as for instance, ‘‘ May the unmarried 
be soon married, and the married be happy,’’ proposed by Mr 
Lawrie, farmer at Shaws. ‘Allan Cunningham was not for- 
