GRETNA GREEN.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 183, 6 September 1872, Page 3

GRETNA GREEN.

The following account of the -lastof the-Gretna priests is given 4;he ' Carlisle Patriot':—" The last of the Gretna priests is dead —old Simon Lang—who ; fpx, .ppanj ypars past has been the lone survivor of a loag line of self-appointed dignitaries. ; : tte died April 23, at Kelling, Newcastle-on-Tyne (at which place he was staying with his son over winter), and was buried in Gretna churchyards The ii jailed careers of the t\Vo Langs, father q.nd !aspries is, extend fully eighty yean. David, the father, was bom and brought up in the parish of Gretna. Early in life he went into Lancashire as draper'or pedlar, and soon after was carried off by the pressgang. During the.time he was in the English service the ship in which he sailed was boarded and taken by Paul Jones the Pirate—Paul being the first man who stepped on board. The captives were, run. into a French port, and inducements made for them to join the American service, in which Paul then served. David Lang, however/ returned safe home to Gretna, donned the priests eereinotiials in the jear 1792, and continued in the 4ing line till the time of his (death, nearly forty years after. The greatest achievement of his reign was the marriage of Thomas Lord Erskinej in his old age, to his mistress, Miss Sarah Buck, of York Buildings, Marylebone. For this event it is.saiihe netted the siVm of 100 guineas. - David succeeded in joking several scions of noble. and powerful houses, including the Villier.*, the Beauclercs, and Coven tries, and others of almost equal standing!. ; He was cut off rather suddenly in 1817, in his 72nd year, from a severe .cold caught while attending the great sensational trial at. Lancaster of Wakefield, for the abduction of Miss Turner, a rich heiress, fifteen yesirs old. After this event Simon Lang at once entered npon the duties of the priestly office; and as his father's fame was full in the land, he naturally fell into a lucrative branch of business at once. Sim, however, had his trials amongst it ail. Some of his rivals, jealous of his success, resorted to all sorts of unprincipled dodges in.order to injure and annoy him. If a newly-arrived couple wanted, to find out'.Lang, the priest,' the invariable answer was, * Deid an' buriet, lang sen.'' ' But his son—surely he lives ?' ask tlje strangers. 4 1)eid an' a'—dieid's a door nail!' is again the response. Yet in spite of such unfair opposition, Sim flourished abundantly, following closely his legitimate occupations of varying the tone of these by doing a little smuggling on the quiet. He long outlived all his competitors, and saw the decline of th= golden days of old Gretna ; but still he continued in harness to the last. About twelve months since he went through probably the last marriage ceremony he ever performed incomplete dishabile, having nothing on but his shirt and drawesr. The reason of this unwonted exhibition was that the parties reached Gretna from Dumfries by the midnight train, and like all fond lovers, could brook no delay. So the old priest was aroused from his slumbers to do duty at a moment's notice."