Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/404

386 Lee, Sir James Lockhart, for using witchcraft." (A copy of the act of the Glasgow synod I saw; but I was not in the least the wiser for it, for I could not read it.) "There is no date to the act of the Glasgow ecclesiastical synod on the subject; but from the spelling of it, and the appellant being called Goodman of Raploch, a title then given to the small lairds, and Sir James being the name of the Laird of Lee, it must be as early as 1660." (The act of the synod was in favour of Sir James, as he was thereby permitted to continue the use of the stone, without the dread of being burnt for a wizard.)

"It is said, when the plague was at Newcastle upon Tyne, the inhabitants sent for the Lee Penny, and gave a bond for a large sum of money in trust for the loan of the stone; and they thought it did so much good, that they offered to pay the value of the bond if they might keep the Penny; but the laird would not part with it. A copy of this bond is very well attested to have been amongst the family papers; but supposed to have been spoilt, along with many more valuable ones, about the year 1730, by rain getting into the charter-room