And It Is Consoling To Remember That He
Got Away At Last, And Kept His Abbacy, And, Over And Above, Had A
Pension From The Earl Until He Died.
Some way beyond Dunure a wide bay, of somewhat less unkindly
aspect, opened out.
Colzean plantations lay all along the steep
shore, and there was a wooded hill towards the centre, where the
trees made a sort of shadowy etching over the snow. The road went
down and up, and past a blacksmith's cottage that made fine music
in the valley. Three compatriots of Burns drove up to me in a
cart. They were all drunk, and asked me jeeringly if this was the
way to Dunure. I told them it was; and my answer was received with
unfeigned merriment. One gentleman was so much tickled he nearly
fell out of the cart; indeed, he was only saved by a companion, who
either had not so fine a sense of humour or had drunken less.
'The toune of Mayboll,' says the inimitable Abercrummie, {3}
'stands upon an ascending ground from east to west, and lyes open
to the south. It hath one principals street, with houses upon both
sides, built of freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation
of two castles, one at each end of this street. That on the east
belongs to the Erle of Cassilis. On the west end is a castle,
which belonged sometime to the laird of Blairquan, which is now the
tolbuith, and is adorned with a pyremide [conical roof], and a row
of ballesters round it raised from the top of the staircase, into
which they have mounted a fyne clock.
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