Report of Meetings for 1890. By Dr J. Hardy. 65 



his farm at a nominal rent. Sir William's successor, on acquir- 

 ing the estate, broke the bargain, and turned Mr Pott out of it. 



The old Elliots of Stobs kept a stand of arms in the house, 

 which probably dated from 1685, as the then Sir William Elliot 

 was Lieutenant in a troop raised by the Earl of Lothian for 

 hunting down the Whigs of the district. But in ' Marr's Year,' 

 in 1715, while a company of Highlanders crossed the Borders by 

 Hawick, they got intelligence of the circumstance, and marched 

 to Stobs (which was then in the possession of Sir Gilbert Elliot) 

 and plundered and carried off the whole armoury." 



The most memorable event, however, connected with Stobs is 

 that from it emanated the gallant Lord Heathfield, the defender 

 of Gibraltar. 



There is the foundation of an old miracle-working Chapel 

 dedicated to St. Cuthbert, above Cog's Mill. It was a chapel 

 under the parish church of Cavers. Of this there is an account 

 in Jeffrey's Hist, of Roxburghshire, vol. iv., pp. 336-9. The 

 historian rashly asserts that this was one of the places where the 

 bearers of the saint's body rested on their flight from Lindisfarne 

 to escape the Danes. It is more likely to have been one of the 

 centres of his early missionary labours, and according to 

 Reginald's narrative was endowed by the ancient residenters 

 ("attavis progenitoribus.") There is no room here for the ori- 

 ginal details contained in one of the Surtees' Society Publications 

 ("Reginaldi Monachi Dunelmensis Libellus de Admirandis 

 Beati Ciithberti Virtutibus,") which was written by a monk of 

 Durham in the latter half of the 12th century (see pp. 284-92.) 

 One of the legends relating to this chapel (not to that at Pi-iest- 

 haugh as suggested on the authority of Wilson's Hist, of 

 Hawick) is translated in my " History of the Wolf in Scotland," 

 Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, v., pp. 273-4. 



Adders occur at Cog's Mill, as might be expected from the 

 adaptability of the grassy sunburnt glittery slopes on the eastern 

 sides of the Slitrig, to their habits. 



The inhabitors of Earlside, Langside, and tlie neighbourhood 

 were staimch adherents of the Covenant. Lady Cavers, the land- 

 lady, was an ardent Presbyterian in the persecuting time of 

 Charles II., when people were not permitted by the ruling powers 

 openly to manifest their religious convictions. William Laing, 

 farmer in Earlside, and another were fined 500 marks each for 

 attending meetings of outed ministers. A list of the Covenanters 



