Biggar and the House of Fleming

THE COVENANTERS OF THE BIGGAR DISTRICT. 255
tedious matter to deal with so many offenders, and it was on
this account, perhaps, that they appointed the Earls of Lin-
lithgow, Murray, and Dumfries, a sub-commission, to examine
the others, and to imprison such of them as would not become
informers and give satisfactory answers, and to impose fines on
those who were less resolute, and promised to attend no more
conventicles in future. Fourteen of them, whose names de-
serve to be held in remembrance, — viz., James Crichton and
John Dalziel, Biggar ; James Paterson, Carwood ; William
Cleghorn, Malcolm Brown, and James Forrest, Edmonston ;
Peter Gillies, Skirling Waukmill ; Thomas Crichton, Wolf-
clyde ; James Glasgow, Whitcastle ; James Lindsay, Nether-
warnhill ; James Thomson, Muirhouse ; John Newbigging,
Carstairs ; John Hutchison, Harelaw ; and Malcolm Gibson, —
were then examined before the Committee, and as they reso-
lutely refused to give the satisfaction required, they were con-
demned to suffer imprisonment. What the ultimate fate of
these individuals was, and of the others who were arraigned on
the same indictment, we have not been able to ascertain.
Some of them were, no doubt, subjected to as heavy fines as
they could bear, and others may have endured a long captivity
on the Bass, or in the dungeons of Dunottar, or even may have
been banished to the plantations of America. The Countess
of Wigton was fined in the sum of 4000 merks, which she
was ordered to pay to Sir William Sharp, his Majesty's Trea-
surer.
One of those persons, who attended the conventicles at Bog-
hall, was Peter Gillies of the Waukmill of Skirling. His sub-
sequent fate is well known to those who are conversant with
the history of the Covenanting struggles. He had given refuge
to some of the hard-hunted and oppressed preachers of the Cove-
nant, sheltered them for a night under his roof, and supplied
them with such victuals as his humble cottage afforded. This
act of humanity had been reported to James Buchan, the curate
of Skirling, and this professed servant of Christ was never at rest
till he got Sir James Murray, the proprietor of Gillies's little
tenement, to throw him and his family adrift on the world.
After wandering about for some time, he settled at length in the
parish of Muiravonside, in the county of Stirling. Gillies was
none of those faithless and faint-hearted individuals that could