‘About five afternoon, there was a great fiery star, in the form of a
dragon with a tail, running through the firmament, and in the running
giving great light and spouting fire, which continued a pretty space
before it vanished. Others describe it thus: that the night being
fair and frosty, there arose a great fiery light in the south-west,
after the setting of the sun, and ran to the north-east, having at
the end thereof, as it were, the shape of the moon; and when it
vanished out of sight, there were two great cracks heard, as if they
had been thunder-claps. There followed a great calmness and frost
for eight or ten days; but the month following was bitter and stormy
weather.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 20.]
This day three men were tried for an extraordinary and most atrocious
crime.
[Sidenote: 1616.]
Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig (ancestor of the Dukes of Queensberry)
had become possessed of the lands of Howpaslot in Roxburghshire, much
to the chagrin of the widow of a former proprietor. On a certain day
in April 1615, Lady Howpaslot, as she was called, along with her
friend, Jean Scott of Satchells, had a meeting at the Cross of Hawick
with a man called George Scott, a cordiner of that town, commonly
called _Marion’s Geordie_; when a course of conduct was resolved upon
for the purpose of defeating the design of Drumlanrig to _stock_ or
_plenish_ the lands. The interest of the cordiner in this object does
not appear; neither does that of three other men, who entered into an
agreement to assist him in his plan--namely, Walter and Ingram Scott,
and another Scott described by his nickname of _the Suckler_. A few
days after the Hawick meeting, George Scott, accompanied by William
Scott of Satchells, ‘mussalit’ (disguised), proceeded under cloud of
night to Elrig-burn-foot, where the Suckler joined them. Then all three
went forward to Birnie Cleuch, where they met Walter and Ingram Scott,
‘having plaids and blue bonnets.’ Here, however, the Suckler deserted
the party. The other men passed on to a cleuch or hollow on the lands
of Howpaslot, where a flock of sheep were lying at rest. There they
fell upon the poor animals with swords, ‘bendit staffs,’ and other
weapons, killing about forty outright, and leaving twenty more wounded
and mutilated on the ground.
On the day noted in the margin, George, Walter, and Ingram Scott,
and John Scott the Suckler, were tried for this horrible crime, when
the last being accepted as a witness for the crown, the other three
were condemned to death. The Suckler suffered for sheep-stealing next
year.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 4.]
[Sidenote: 1616.