160 NOTES ON CHURCH AND BARONY OF LINTON 



and the old usage of the "exercise" seems to have died with 

 him. His first wife, Rebekah, being a daughter of Andrew 

 Ker Read, portioner of Hoselaw, his name may be found 

 upon their tombstone, against the church porch, but the 

 Latin inscription is now hardly legible. 



ANDREW OGILVIE (1781-1805), his successor, came from 

 Newcastle. The maiden name of his wife, whom he married 

 in November 1767, was Alice Lomax. He has left a quaint 

 memorial of his incumbency in the round wrought in 

 white slate upon the roof of the manse. Until Mr Ogilvie's 

 day both church and manse had been thatched, and slates 

 were then a novelty, worthy of being commemorated. 



The list ends with WILLIAM FAICHNEY (1805-1854), a 

 native of Muthill, in Perthshire. Old people still remember 

 him as "a little fair man with a ruddy countenance," He 

 died here at the ripe age of ninety-one, and was immediately 

 succeeded by the present senior incumbent of this living, 

 the Very Rev. THOMAS LEISHMAN, D.D. 



Leaving the Church one notes, resting against the south 

 wall, two oblong stones, evidently the broken halves of the 

 cover of an ancient stone coffin. This cover was unearthed 

 at the chancel end of the Church, in the earlier part of 

 last century. It was then unbroken, and is supposed to be 

 a piece of 15th century work, from the character of the 

 filleting. 



Last, not least, there is the Somerville Stone, set in the 

 tympanum of the Church porch, and reproduced in Plate XXI. 

 So much has been said and written about this famous sculpture, 

 and it has proved such a bone of contention among antiquaries, 

 one dare not dogmatise upon the subject; only, in view of 

 the familiar explanatory legend, embalmed in the " Memorie 

 of the Somervilles," this at least may safely be said, that it 

 is highly improbable the sculpture represents the combat of 

 St. George and the Dragon. An attempt*' has been made 

 to claim the Linton stone for St. George, on the strength of 



* Ant. Proc, Vol. xvii., p. 332. 



