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four corners. The cottages of the chief's retainers clustered 
about it, and these were enclosed within a strong outer wall, 
whose great gate, with lofty circular arch only recently destroyed, 
faced the north. In 1532 the tower suffered from fire, but it 
was restored, and continued to be inhabited for another century 
and a half. 
Lag was the ancestral home of the Griersons, a family that 
occupied a distinguished position in Nithsdale for many genera- 
tions. They come into authentic history in the fifteenth century. 
At Sauchieburn, where in 1488 the unfortunate King James ITI. 
was defeated, and later in the day treacherously murdered, 
Roger Grierson, who fought on the rebel side, was wounded. 
Another Roger after him fell at Flodden, 1513. About the 
same time John Grierson was principal of King’s College, 
Aberdeen, and head of the Dominican Order of Friars in this 
country. In 1593 fifty-four horsemen under Grierson of Lag 
took the side of Lord Maxwell, as Warden of the Western 
Marches, in the encounter with the Johnstones of Annandale at 
Dryfe Sands. 
But the most noted of the race was Sir Robert Grierson, who 
was born at Dalskairth, Troqueer, in 1655, succeeded to the 
estates of Lag and Rockhall in 1669, was made a Baronet in 
1685, and died in Dumfries in 1733. 1n the persecutions he was 
more feared than even Claverhouse himself. He was responsible 
for the drowning of Margaret M‘Lachlan and Margaret Wilson 
in the rising tide where the Bladenoch falls into Wigtown Bay, 
and for the execution of Edward Gordon and Alexander 
M‘Cubbin at Haugh Hill, near the church of Irongray. The 
memory of Lag, the persecutor, continued to be held in such 
odium that when his great-grand-daughter wished to place a 
monument over his grave in the old churchyard of Dunscore, 
she was compelled to abandon her intention by the strong 
expression of popular feeling against it. 
This Laird of Lag was the prototype of Sir Robert Red- 
gauntlet in the weird episode, ‘‘Wandering Willie’s Tale,” in 
Sir Walter Scott’s novel. Redgauntlet Castle stands for the old 
Tower of Lag itself. The Wood of Pitmurkie, “ that is a’ fou 0’ 
black firs,’ where Steenie the Piper met the mysterious horse- 
man, was in the Glen of Laggan. It is now called Crolo Wood, 
and its reputation as an uncanny place still survives in the fear » 
that the rustics have to pass that way after dark, And “the 
