218 Extracts from the Session-Book of Hutton Parish. 



Mr. Daniel Douglas was a famous man in the Merse in the 

 days of our fathers. It is said that he was descended from 

 the Douglasses of Edrington, and was related to a respectable 

 family of that name in Hutton. There used to be many 

 anecdotes afloat regarding his eccentricities. His open re- 

 bukes gave rise to the saying " You are like Daniel Douglas, 

 more plain than pleasant." In the years of his old age, he 

 sometimes fell off his discourse, and on one of those occasions 

 he commenced to speak of his private affairs, and looking 

 over to Mr. Johnston, the laird of Hilton, addressed him thus 

 — " You'll be thinking, no doubt, that you'll get my bit land 

 at my death, but if I keep my wits to my hinder end, there 

 shall nobody get it but that decent honest man, Adam 

 Douglas of Hutton." On going to visit some relations at 

 Hutton, he sometimes bogged his horse in a marsh near the 

 village, and his wife, who usually accompanied him on these 

 occasions, used to slip off the pillion behind him and go 

 quietly to the place of destination, leaving honest Daniel to 

 make the best of his way to their friend's house ; and on 

 his arrival he was wont to address his wife thus — " When 

 did you come, mistress ? "* That sarcastic book, " Scotch 

 Presbyterian Eloquence Display'd," gives a characteristic 

 specimen of one of his episodes. " One Mr. Douglas, an old 

 Presbyterian preacher in the Mers, a simple man as to the 

 world, yet of more learning, ingenuity, and good nature than 

 most of them ; he was not long ago preaching before the 

 meeting of his brethren, and analysing a text logically and 

 and very remote from vulgar capacities, yet so powerful and 

 melting was his tone and actions, that in the congregation 

 he spies a woman weeping, and pointing towards her he 

 cries out, " Wife, what makes you weep ? I am sure thou 

 understandest not what I- am saying ; my discourse is 

 directed to the brethren, and not to the like of you : nay, I 

 question whether the brethren themselves understand this 

 that I am speaking."-f- 



1650, March 17. "This day a Declaration ffromthe Commission 

 of the Kirk in answere to a Declaratioun of James Grhame 

 was read." 



,, May 30. "This day was a thanksgiving for the season- 

 able victorie and defeate of the excomunicat traytour James 

 Grhame and his adherents." 



* Dr. Henderson's MS. 



f Keprint, p. 13. See more about Daniel Douglas in Dr. Stuart's paper 

 on Huttonhall, " Hist, of the Club," iv., p. 189. 



