On The 1st And 7th Of September 1570 (Ill Dates For Mr.
Alan!), Gilbert, Earl Of Cassilis, His Chaplain, His Baker, His
Cook, His Pantryman, And Another Servant, Bound The Poor
Commendator 'betwix An Iron Chimlay And A Fire,' And There Cruelly
Roasted Him Until He Signed Away His Abbacy.
It is one of the
ugliest stories of an ugly period, but not, somehow, without such a
flavour of the ridiculous as makes it hard to sympathise quite
seriously with the victim.
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. There be four lanes which
pass from the principall street; one is called the Black Vennel,
which is steep, declining to the south-west, and leads to a lower
street, which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and it
runs from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have been
many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall gentry of the
countrey, who were wont to resort thither in winter, and divert
themselves in converse together at their owne houses. It was once
the principall street of the town; but many of these houses of the
gentry having been decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its
ancient beautie. Just opposite to this vennel, there is another
that leads north-west, from the chiefe street to the green, which
is a pleasant plott of ground, enclosed round with an earthen wall,
wherein they were wont to play football, but now at the Gowff and
byasse-bowls.
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