Two Irongray Traditions. 219 



graduated M.A. in luiinbur^'-h Unhcrsity on June 28th, 1690, 

 at 15; and he was oriiaincd minister of Irongray on Septem- 

 ber 13th, 1694, ^^ '9- ^ think vScott must ha\c understated 

 his ag'e by a few years. Ir\ing's story, however, disregards 

 time utterly. If Guthrie came back to Scotland at the Revo- 

 lution, he must ha\e taken at least fi\e years to make up his 

 mind to lea\ e the land of such sorrowful memories ; for he 

 was not the first minister of Irongray after the Revolution 

 settlement, but the second. Jolin Sinclair, formerly minister 

 of Delft, was minister here from 1691 till 1693. More than 

 a year after his death Guthrie was appointed. 



4. There are other minor improbabilities in the story. 

 How did it happen (uithrie had no word of what was happen- 

 ing in Scotland during his exile? Other exiles found no 

 difficulty. Without any \ ery great contrivance he might have 

 heard on the continent of the marriage of the Lord Provost's 

 daughter to a scion of a noble house, and of her untimely 

 death, without waiting till he returned to his native land. 

 And, again, how could the lady leave her child to be brought 

 up by an exile and a stranger? What about her husband? 

 Did a girl who a year before had given up, at her father's 

 command, her plighted lover and married another on her 

 death-bed defy her husband? Parental authority was strong 

 in the seventeenth century ; was marital authority less 

 strong? I can hardly believe the lady was less virtuous than 

 the heroine of " Auld Robin Gray " : 



" I dnuniao think o' Jaraio, for tliat would be a sin." 



The whole story is a mass of improbabilities, and yet it 

 is so romantic one wishes it to be true, and so well vouched 

 for that it oug-ht to be true. There may be a grain of truth 

 in it, but I am unable to find any trace of it, except that there 

 was a minister of Irongrav in the end of tlie se\enteenth cen- 

 tury called (iuthrie, who had a daughter who married a 

 minister of Kirkmahoe, and this daughter told Edward 

 Irving an exceedingly pathetic but utterl\ improbable story 

 about her father. "A lame and impotent conclusion," but 

 though " 1 am Irving's friend, I am a greater friend of 

 truth." 



