Lesmahagow

After Lord Airlie's tenant, Bawties, departed, Marion Steel returned to Waterhead with her children, and occupied the farm, but found nothing but desolation where peace and plenty had formerly reigned. Her husband now frequently ventured to spend the night at home. On one occasion a party of his persecutors came to Waterhead, apparently disposed to take up their quarters for the night. Mrs. Steel felt great anxiety, as her husband had appointed to be at home next morning to sow some grain. It was impossible to warn him of his danger, but her presence of mind did not forsake her. She feigned to be in a violent passion, and insisted on remaining all night out of doors, where she was watched by the enemy, whom in a frantic manner she loaded with opprobrious epithets. Early in the morning, Steel appeared in the distance, but hearing such an unusual noise proceeding from his house, he cowered down in a furrow, and providentially escaped unobserved in the direction of Blackwood. His wife, now assured of his safety, withdrew into the house, and soon became calm, and even cheerful; upon which the soldiers departed, cursing Mrs. Steel for having given her husband a signal of his danger.

Early one morning, as John Steel was proceeding to a small shop near Waterhead to procure some cordial for his sick child, he was observed by a party of dragoons and hotly pursued. He turned up Scorryholm Cleugh, and crossed a swamp where the footing was so soft that the horsemen could not follow. The commanding officer then ordered half his men to turn up the north side of the morass, while Steel turned a little to the south. Here he was almost surrounded, and completely enveloped in smoke from the constant fire of his pursuers. The spectators, who were deeply interested, had congregated on the neighbouring heights, and concluded that he must have fallen; but a thrill of joy succeeded when they beheld him running unscathed over the hills above Cleughbrae. From the marshy nature of the ground one dragoon only managed to follow, and was just raising his sword to hew down the fugitive, when his horse fell with his rider beneath him. ? Steel would have turned back to take his musket, but seeing the rest of the party coming over the hill at full gallop, he continued his flight, and safely reached Hareslack, fully two miles distant from the place where the pursuit began. The soldiers, who had been shouting, " Stand, ye dog, and be shot," were answered, " Ye are in the Deil's service, and will be weel paid for it; I can run where ye canna ride." Steel escaped through a mist to Logan House, where he was joyfully welcomed, the news having gone before that he had been shot. The dragoons, cursing the mist, departed, having with great difficulty made their way out of the bogs. Another story is told of this sturdy Covenanter, that when the soldiers had been at Waterhead on a marauding expedition, and had carried off' his corn to Milltown barn, about three miles distant, he went with a party of friends during the night and recovered it. On another occasion, taking advantage of the darkness, he recovered a flock of his own sheep which the soldiers had driven away. At another time, Steel and a party of Covenanters bad assembled at Auchengilloch glen for worship. When returning home, the Lesmahagow party were informed that the dragoons were quartered at Waterhead: It was dark, and Steel ordering those who had muskets to fire, and the rest of the party to shout and clap their hands, the soldiers, in uncertainty as to the magnitude of the danger, were so alarmed that they mounted their horses and rode off:

One night when at home, and the household assembled at family worship, a party of the enemy approached so stealthily that the house was surrounded before Steel's sentinel was aware of their presence. To escape into the fields was impossible. "I'm gane," said the "gudeman," as his courage for a moment failed. "No, John," said his wife heroically, " ye're no gane yet;" and hurrying him into the " byre," she made him lie down in a corner with the "big ha' bible" open on his breast. She then scattered a large quantity of litter over him. The soldiers searched every part of the house in vain, but being confident that he was somewhere on the premises, they called for lights in order to prosecute their work more successfully. The "gudewife," knowing that to hesitate would be but to betray her husband, quickly prepared torches of straw, and ran with them blazing into the "byre." While the soldiers were probing the litter with their swords, Steel's hand was wounded, but he bore the pain in silence. His wife, feeling convinced that such a method of search must soon either discover or destroy her husband, with wonderful presence of mind fell upon the device of dropping one of the burning wisps of straw into a large tub filled with what the " canny" housewives in Scotland in olden times used for scouring blankets. This produced such an overpowering stench that the soldiers rushed to the open air for breath, and hastily departed. One of them, who was supposed to have joined the persecutors for the purpose of assisting the Covenanters to escape, lingered behind, and returning to the house said, "Heist time ye hide, gudewife, hide better. I saw the edge of your husband's shoe, but with the point of my sword I covered it with a little strae, for Johnny Steel's bluid shall not lie on my head."
At this dismal period (during the year 1684) Mrs. Steel gave birth to a child. Some of the soldiers who were watching the house behaved so brutally that their comrades, hardened as they were, reproved them for their conduct. After a time, Steel having heard that some of ?the persecuted ministers were hiding in the neighbourhood of Lanark, went thither to obtain the services of one of them to baptize the child. He was accompanied by Archibald Stewart of Underbank, near Crossford. When near the top of the " brae," near Lanark, at a place still known as Steel's Cross, they were met by some persons who knew them to be Covenanters. Stewart was knocked down and secured, but Steel, who was powerful and athletic, would have escaped had not the miller of Mouse mill, who had seen him pass, and dogged him, felled him to the ground with his " rynd," as he was struggling with his adversaries. As Steel appeared to be dead, the party left his body and proceeded to Lanark, with Stewart as their prisoner, and rejoicing in the prospect of receiving the reward of 1000 merks set upon Steel's head; but the cold stanched his wounds, and he was able to crawl down the steep bank towards Clyde, and to cross the river on the ice. A number of people were engaged curling, but so intent were they upon the game that he passed them unobserved, and hid himself among the broom on the Corehouse side, at a place called Boathill. When the party from Lanark came to lift the expected corpse, it was nowhere to be seen, which so enraged the soldiers that they fell upon the unlucky miller and beat him severely. While Steel lay among the brushwood, a white pony came and gazed intently upon him. Fearing lest it should attract attention to himself, he tried to scare it away, but when night approached, finding it still grazing near him, he mounted it and rode home to Waterhead, and from thence he proceeded to his hiding?place on Mennock hill: No owner could ever be found for the pony, although diligently sought after, and it died at Waterhead of sheer old age. Steel bore upon his head the marks of his encounter with the miller to his dying day. Stewart, his companion, was conveyed to Glasgow, found guilty of being a Covenanter, and hanged. Fresh advertisements were affixed to public places renewing the offer of 1000 merks for Steel's head, and his house was surrounded by soldiers at all hours ; but it is pleasing to record that he was delivered from his enemies, after a hot persecution of nine years, by the Revolution of 1688. His name appears with many others rescinding fines and forfeitures. He returned and occupied his lands in peace, and although he never received compensation for the damage done to his property, nor for the loss of its products during so many years, he obtained from the Maxquis of Douglas a captain's commission in the 26th or Cameronian Regiment, then just raised in Douglas. It may be mentioned that the lineal descendants of John Steel at present occupy the farms of Waterhead and Skellyhill.