Locherward (now Borthwick) is a considerable inland property in the east of Scotland, and for some reasons, not requisite to be inquired into here, this parish was appended to the Western Diocese of Cumbria, which comprised the valley of the Clyde and much of the west coast of Scotland during the episcopate of St. Kentigern. It is not improbable, then, that this cross-rearing Bishop would commemorate so important an event, in his accustomed manner, by sending to Locherward a cross of baskets made of the osiers and filled with the sea sand of his western diocese, which, having been sanctified by his episcopal benediction, would be appropriately set up in his new territory as a visible sign of the transfer, and a practical assertion of his accession to the property. Here again, however, I am compelled to say that I have not a shadow of proof to offer in support of my surmise. St. Kentigern may have set up the sea-sand cross by other means, and for another purpose. I have only endeavoured to suggest a reason in accordance with possibility and the customs of the times in which he lived. Before asking you to believe that the earliest existing stone crosses were reproductions of still earlier crosses of twigs, I may well be expected to offer some evidence that any such basket-work crosses ever existed. Of all the superstitious legends of the middle ages, none was more widely popular than that of St. Patrick’s purgatory. The little island in gloomy Lough Derg, in which it was believed that both the pains and advantages of purgatory could be anticipated, and the duration of its torments abridged, was visited by great and powerful pilgrims, who enriched its clerical guardians by their offerings. Suppressed at the Reformation, and its rude buildings more than once demolished by the orders of government, it nevertheless still retains so strong a grasp on the superstitious feelings of the poor and ignorant of the present day, that, actuated by religious enthusiasm, crowds of such pilgrims at certain seasons pour themselves upon this miserable little islet, consisting of three roods of barren surface; and so numerous are these visitors that the tenant pays the landlord a yearly rent of £300 (the greater part in sixpences), derived from a small charge imposed on them at the ferry toll.[24]