John Howie of Lochgoin

JOHN HOWIE OF LOCHGOIN 9
feet. He had indeed seen James Howie, but, before he
saw him, James had cast off his coat, which was black, and
also his shoes and hose, and was running bare-footed.
Isabel Howie, James' wife, was a brave woman. On one
occasion, when five of the sufferers had spent the whole
night with her haaband in prayer and conversation, they A*b/
were surprised in the morning. The night had been very /
stormy, and, on that account, they felt the more secure.
Suddenly the door was opened, and a sergeant, who had
left his men outside, stepped in. Isabel Howie at once
rushed up to him, and, exerting all her strength, pushed him
backwards towards the door. In the struggle he fell, and
the gun dropped out of his hand. The Covenanters ran into
the byre, which communicated with the house, and emerged
in two parties, James Howie and his son John leaving the
byre by one of its two doors, and the rest leaving it by the
other. The larger party had to run four or five miles in
order to escape. From that day, Isabel Howie was a
marked woman ; and many a cold night she had to spend in
a moss-hag with a young child at her breast. Before the
Revolution came, the house of Lochgoin had been plundered
twelve times.
All these incidents and many more concerning the hard-
ships and dangers to which his ancestors and their friends
had been subjected, must have been known to the author of
The Scots Worthies from his childhood. As already men-
tioned, James Howie died in November, 1691. His son
John, who was born in the year before Pentland Rising,
lived to the great age of 90 and died in the summer of
1755. By that time his grandson, John, who was destined
to achieve literary fame, was already in his twentieth year,
having been born in November, 1735 ; and, although brought
up at Black's Hill, in the adjoining parish of Kilmarnock,
he must have learned much from his venerable grandsire in
Lochgoin.
Although there are many interesting details in the
Memoirs, published in 1796, the little volume may be