J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

RHYMES ON PLACES. 33
which, being thus rendered the kirk-town, has taken
away and appropriated all the prosperity of the former
kirk-town of Dryfesdale. The stream of Dryfe is, there-
fore, left to work out the purpose of the prophecy at its
leisure ; and I was some time ago informed that it seems on
the point of accomplishing its will, part of the walls of the
ruined church actually overhanging the water. The sepul-
chral vault of the ancient family of Johnston of Lockerbie,
which contains some old monuments, must thus also be
destroyed ; and as for the churchyard, against which the
wrath of the Dryfe seems to have been as fully directed as
it was at the church, only a small portion is now left.
There is a saying in this district of Dumfriesshire, that
* a Dryfesdale man once buried a wife and married a wife
in ae day.' However strange this may appear, it is
perfectly true; but the whole wonder is to be attributed
to the incalculable Dryfe. In its advances towards the
church, the stream has of course made away with all
the intervening part of the burying-ground. At every
flood a portion has been carried off, together with the
relics of mortality contained therein, as well as the grave-
stones, some of which lie in the channel of the stream a
good way down. On account of the attachment of the
peasantry to their respective places of sepulture, the aggres-
sions of the Dryfe, however threatening, have scarcely
ever deterred the people from depositing their dead even
close by the bank, and where there could be no probability
of their being permitted to remain till decayed. A man
having once buried his wife under these circumstances, the
Dryfe soon succeeded in detaching the coffin; but expe-
ditious as it was in this feat, no less expeditious was the
widower in wooing a new bride ; and it so happened, that
on the very day when he was leading the new lady to
church in order to marry her, the stream, being at flood,
carried off" the coffin of his former spouse. In going along
the water-side, the bridal company were met, full in the
face, by the coflin, which, as the country people tell the
story, ' came houdin' down the water in great haste.' The
poor bride took a hysteric, as became her, while the alarmed
bridegroom and his friends proceeded to re-inter her pre-
decessor ; and after hastily concluding this ceremony, they
went on with the more blithesome aflPair of the bridal !