Agnews of Lochnaw

256 THE EIGHTH HEREDITARY SHERIFF. [1628.
" canld iron might be his hinner en' quhaever took it." He
became much excited, and later in the evening rudely called upon
Hay to pay for the shoeing of a horse he owed him, and irritated
the young man so much by his insulting manner, that at last he
drew his sword and ran Mm through the body. As those present
raised the corpse, the missing article fell from the dead man's
pocket ; and their indignation at his murder was momentarily
stayed by the feeling that the smith had impiously drawn upon
himself the doom which providence had thus meted out to him.
Hence Hay was able to retire unquestioned, though afterwards
obliged to fly the country.
A long while after he returned to Glenluce, disguised as an
idiot pauper ; and, blowing a long horn, he begged from house to
house, repeating a string of doggerel verses. He was known as
Jock 0' the Horn, and visited all his old haunts, even venturing
to the House of Park. Here he clamoured for alms, as else-
where, in jingling couplets. He never, however, doffed his
strange disguise, though it was whispered in the neighbourhood
of Park that, when the family were quite alone, the servants
were sometimes kept out of the way, and that then poor " Jock
o' the Horn" again took his proper place in the parlour, and
shared the family meal.
In the year 1616, the fifth Earl of Cassilis, the hero of the
siege of Inch, died childless. He was succeeded by his nephew,
John, a son of the earl's brother, by Margaret, daughter of
Uchtred and sister of Sir John M'Dowall of Garthland. This
earl took a leading part in the eventful period which followed ;
the Sheriff and himself generally agreed in politics, and their
relations on the whole were friendly ; yet the old feud from
time to time broke out again ; and though the records of their
quarrels now only provoke a smile, they were doubtless any-
thing but laughing matters to themselves. Lord Cassilis resisted
Sir Patrick's service in the old family office of baillie of Leswalt,
and revived the traditionary claims of his own house as to the
baron-courts there. In 1628, accompanied by a well-armed band
of retainers, both horse and foot, he took forcible possession of