HALLDYKES AND THE HERRIES FaMILy. 123 
was waylaid and murdered at Hurkell-burn by Hugh, who, 
after announcing to another brother, Charles Herries, that he 
had just made him a laird, disappeared for ever from Annan- 
dale. The ghost of Herbert is still supposed to haunt the place 
of his murder. So much for rhyme, but the prosaic Sasine 
Registers know of no Herbert or Charles Herries as owners 
of Halldykes, and only record one succession (except by pur- 
chase in 1751) of brother to brother, when Robert was infefted 
in the lands in succession to William Herries in 1704. As has 
been stated already, Robert Herries, the last of the name to 
own the place, wrote down a few notes about the family con- 
nection with Halldykes, and these are silent about this 
tragedy. Though he never lived at Halldykes after his child- 
hood, yet he says that he had heard his father speak of his 
father and his manner of life there, and in later life he was 
often in the neighbourhood on visits to his mother’s relation, 
General Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom Castle. It seems, 
therefore, incredible that he should not have heard the story 
if it was current in his time, and still more incredible that if 
he knew of it he should not think it worth mentioning. Pro- 
bably the tale was the invention of the anonymous rhymster 
of the Edinburgh Magazine. 
A more pleasing legend relates that in 1745 a company 
of the Highland followers of Prince Charles Edward on their 
march southward by Lockerbie visited Halldykes, but only 
found there the lady of the house, Katherine Henderson, the 
wife of William Herries, who is said to have been on the 
Hanoverian side. She, by her agreeable manners, so won their 
goodwill that in compliment to her they forebore from all acts 
of rapine or violence, only exacting in return a promise that 
the child she was expecting should, if a boy, be named Charles 
in honour of their Prince. About this story, too, the notes of 
Robert Herries are silent, and it can only be said that Mrs 
Herries’s second son, born about this time, certainly was called 
Charles (see Footnote to). 
