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Updated: June 26, 2025
About this time a meeting, or conventicle, of considerable importance was appointed to be held among the secluded hills in the neighbourhood of Irongray; and Andrew Black, the farmer, was chosen to select the particular spot, and make the preliminary arrangements. Now this man Black is not easily described, for his was a curiously compound character.
There is no moorsman shot in a snow shower beside Irongray or Co'monell; there is not one of the two hundred who were drowned off the Orkneys; nor so much as a poor, over-driven, Covenanting slave in the American plantations; but can lay claim to a share in that memorial, and, if such things interest just men among the shades, can boast he has a monument on earth as well as Julius Caesar or the Pharaohs.
Shouldst thou be found worthy again to labour in the vineyard, thou wilt at all times hear of my in-comings and out-goings, by enquiring after Quintin Mackell of Irongray, at the house of that singular Christian woman, Bessie Maclure, near to the place called the Howff, where Niel Blane entertaineth guests.
It has been also said, though we do not vouch for the accuracy of the statement, that in the Kirk-session books of the neighbouring kirk of Irongray there may be found among the baptisms such names as Andrew Wallace and Will Black, Quentin Dick Black, and Jock Bruce Wallace; also an Aggie, a Marion, and an Isabel Peter, besides several Jeans scattered among the three families.
"We come, honoured sir, frae Irongray, an' we're gaun to Ed'nbury t' buy cattle," answered Quentin with downcast eyes. "Indeed, oho! then you must needs have the cash wherewith to buy the cattle. Where is it?" "In ma pooch," said the shepherd with a deprecating glance at his pocket. "Hand it over, then, my good fellow. Fanatics are not allowed to have money or to purchase cattle nowadays."
It is said that the minister of Irongray at that time was suspected of favourable leanings toward the Covenanters, and that the proprietor of the neighbouring farm of Hallhill betrayed similar symptoms; hence the selection of the particular spot between the two places, in order to intimidate both the minister and the farmer.
On the 18th October Sir Walter sent Mr. Burn the following inscription for the monument he had commissioned, and which now stands in the churchyard of Irongray: "This stone was erected by the Author of Waverley to the memory of Helen Walker, who died in the year of God 1791.
This may well have been the case, for history shows that a very strong and indomitable covenanting spirit prevailed among the parishioners of Irongray as well as among the people of the South and West of Scotland generally. Indeed Wodrow, the historian, says that the people of Irongray were the first to offer strenuous opposition to the settlement of the curates.
On a brilliant summer morning in the last quarter of the seventeenth century a small troop of horsemen crossed the ford of the river Cairn, in Dumfriesshire, not far from the spot where stands the little church of Irongray, and, gaining the road on the western bank of the stream, wended their way towards the moors and uplands which lie in the neighbourhood of Skeoch Hill.
Several of the most eminent ministers, who had been expelled from their charges, were present on this occasion. Besides John Welsh of Irongray, there were Arnot of Tongland, Blackadder of Troqueer, and Dickson of Rutherglen godly men who had for many years suffered persecution and imprisonment, and were ready to lay down their lives in defence of religious liberty.
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