Memorial of the Clan of the Bells

30
£♦
" Blackethouse always allied with best families of the South."
The only trace of these alliances of Blackethouse which has been found is of
that with the Grahames of Esk, hereinafter noted (see V). The manner of
stating it here, and subsequently, seems to indicate the composite nature of the
manuscript as now given.
" John Bell, Governor of Carlisle. Blackethouse burnt."
Nowhere m Burns and Nicholson, or in other histories, can a
corroboration of these statements be found, — but on the outside
of the lintel of the doorway in the side wall, shown in the fore-
going sketches of the Blackethouse, may be seen (or, at least,
was to be seen in 1 857) the letters and date as in the margin.
J. B. may refer to a rebuilding of the house, by the quondam Governor of
Carlisle, after the restoration of Charles II, — and the other initials may have
been those of his wife in the usual fashion of the day.
" Jochie Bell, Brackenburn"
Another version is to be found in the "Collection of Epitaphs and Monumental
" Inscriptions, chiefly in Scotland, published,— Glasgow, D. McVean; Edinburgh,
"Thomas Stevenson, 1834, p. 27:
" Inscription on John Bell."
" John Bell lived in Annandale, ou the Scots side, and has a stone 200 years
old on him, with this inscription,
" I Jocky Bell, o' Brackenbrow, lyes under this stane,
Five of my awn sons laid it on my wame,
I lived aw my days but sturt or strife,
Was man o' my meat and maister o' my wife.
If you done better in your time than I done in mine,
Take the stane affray wame and lay it on thine."
John Bell's monument is in Reid Kirkyard, now in the parish of Graitney.