Twcj Ironurav Traditions. 221 



for their attachment to the principles of the Covenanter 

 Reformation. It was thoug^ht that the sight of the execution 

 would overawe the Fergusons. It had quite the opposite 

 effect. A young daughter of the family came to the martyrs 

 when they were brought to the place of execution, and tied 

 a handkerchief over their eyes. For this she was banished 

 and went to Lisbon, where she married a carpenter and lived 

 to a ripe old age. It is said that seventy years after the 

 execution, on ist November, 1755, the day of the great 

 earthquake, when the city was all but destroyed, and when 

 from thirty to sixty thousand people lost their lives, she was 

 sitting on a plank by the riverside when the sea came up, 

 rising like a mountain. Multitudes of people were swept 

 back to a watery grave when it retired, but it carried her 

 on before it and left her high and dry on the land."t 



This tradition is not quite so hard to believe as the 

 other, but there are several things about it which make me 

 as incredulous of it as of the Guthrie story. Both Messrs 

 Thomson and Morton feel that the earthquake of Lisbon 

 and the Irongray martyrdom are separated by a great 

 interval of time, 70 years. The lady in the story must have 

 been in a \ery ripe old age when the wave washed her to 

 safety. Again, Lisbon is a strange place to find a daughter 

 of the Covenant. 



But was she a daughter of the Covenant? Mr Morton 

 says the Fergusons' attachment to the principles of the Cove- 

 nanted Reformation was well known, and the execution at 

 Hallhill failed to overawe them. The Kirk-Session records 

 of Irongray tell a different story : — 



1693, Feb. 16. Thomas Fergison of Halhil, younger, 

 befor his chyld was baptized was rebouked before the coii- 

 gregan for his taking the test and promised to mak further 

 satisfaction if requyred." 



There are only two instances of a person being rebuked 

 for taking the Test (i.e., the Test Act of 1681), and one of 

 a person taking the Oath of Abjuration, in Irongra\ . It 

 does not argue very strongl}- for the attachment of the 



t Morton, (julloinnj and the Covenanters, pp. 332-333. 



