Notices concerning Oxnam Parish. By J. Hardy. 109 



schools.' Her ladyship died at Edinburgh 15th March, and ten days there- 

 after was interred in the church she had erected in her life time." "A 

 stone was placed over her remains, which is now built into the west wall 

 of the lobby of the present Lady Yester's church. It bears a Latin in- 

 scription, setting forth her birth, parentage, marriages, the building of tho 

 church, and the date of her death. Over against the grave, built into the 

 walk, was a stone bearing the following very quaint inscription : — 

 ' It's neidles to erect a marble tombe. 



The daylie bread that for the hungry wombe, 



And bread of lyf thy bountie hath provyded 



For hungrie souls, all tymes to be divyded, 



Woidd lasting monuments shall reare, 



That shall endure til Christ himself appeare. 

 ' Pos'd was thy lyf prepair'd thy happie end 



Nothing in either was without commend. 



Let it be the cair of all that live herefter 



To live and die like Margaret Lady Yester, 



Who died 15 March 1617, her age 75.' " 



(5). Extracts from an old Lease of a Farm of the Marquis 

 of Lothian in Oxnam Water in 1747. 



Mr David Jerdan, Dalkeith, has favoured me with copies of 

 two Leases of one of his ancestors in the parish of Oxnam, one 

 of which contains several curious provisions in the farming, and 

 speaking now-a-days, most extraordinary covenants, of the period 

 to which they belong, which are worthy of preservation as 

 records of the condition of agriculture in the early part of last 

 century, before the tenant obtained relaxation from feudal 

 restrictions, very few of which subsist now. 



Mr Jordan's memorandum of his ancestor states that " Robert 

 Hunter, tenant first of Pierslaws and Ferneyside and afterwards 

 of Hardenmains, and ultimately of Millheugh, Oxnam Mains, 

 and Oxnam Park, farmed the first of these places near the com- 

 mencement of the last century. In 1747 he took the farms of 

 Millheugh, Oxnam Mains, and Oxnam Park from the Marquis 

 of Lothian. He appears to have lost Pierslaws, etc., in 1747, 

 and Hardenmains in 1763." 



The contract is dated at Mounteviot Lodge, 7th October 1747. betwixt 

 the Most Hon. William Henry Marquess of Lothian, and Robert Hunter 

 late tenant in Pearslaws, for " All and haill the Room and Lands of Oxnam 

 Mains, Milnheugh, Oxnam Park and pertinents with houses, biggings, and 

 others" as "presently possesst by Thomas Turnbull and Richard Christie 

 tenants thereof," " for all tho days, years, and space of nineteen yoars." 



