I was beat up at midnight to sign a warrant against some delinquents.  I afterwards heard that the officers were pursued by a mob from Galashiels, with purpose of deforcing them as far as St. Boswell’s Green, but the men were lodged in Jedburgh Castle.

Reports of mobs at all the elections, which, I fear, will prove too true.  They have much to answer for who in gaiety of heart have brought a peaceful and virtuous population to such a pass.

May 14.—­Rode with Lockhart and Mr. Mackay through the plantations, and spent a pleasanter day than of late months.  Story of a haunted glen in Laggan:—­A chieftain’s daughter or cousin loved a man of low degree.  Her kindred discovered the intrigue and punished the lover’s presumption by binding the unhappy man, and laying him naked in one of the large ants’ nests common in a Highland forest.  He died in agony of course, and his mistress became distracted, roamed wildly in the glen till she died, and her phantom, finding no repose, haunted it after her death to such a degree that the people shunned the road by day as well as night.  Mrs. Grant of Laggan tells the story, with the addition, that her husband, then minister of Laggan, fixed a religious meeting in the place, and, by the exercise of public worship there, overcame the popular terror of the Red Woman.  Dr. Mackay seems to think that she was rather banished by a branch of the Parliamentary road running up the glen than by the prayers of his predecessor.  Dr. Mackay, it being Sunday, favoured us with an excellent discourse on the Socinian controversy, which I wish my friend Mr. Laidlaw had heard.

May 15.—­Dr. M. left us early this morning; and I rode and studied as usual, working at the Tales of My Grandfather.  Our good and learned Doctor wishes to go down the Tweed to Berwick.  It is a laudable curiosity, and I hope will be agreeably satisfied.

May 16 and 17.—­I wrote and rode as usual, and had the pleasure of Miss Ferrier’s company in my family hours, which was a great satisfaction; she has certainly less affectation than any female I have known that has stood so high—­Joanna Baillie hardly excepted.  By the way, she [Mrs. Baillie] has entered on the Socinian controversy, for which I am very sorry; she has published a number of texts on which she conceives the controversy to rest, but it escapes her that she can only quote them through a translation.  I am sorry this gifted woman is hardly doing herself justice, and doing what is not required at her hands.  Mr. Laidlaw of course thinks it the finest thing in the world.[460]

May 18.—­Went to Jedburgh to the election, greatly against the wishes of my daughters.  The mob were exceedingly vociferous and brutish, as they usually are now-a-days.  But the Sheriff had two troops of dragoons at Ancrum Bridge, and all went off quietly.  The populace gathered in formidable numbers—­a thousand from Hawick alone; they were sad blackguards, and the day passed with much clamour and no mischief.  Henry Scott was re-elected—­for the last time, I suppose. Troja fuit.