Although my grandfather had sustained a severe bruise by his fall, he
was still enabled, after he got on his legs, to superintend the
demolishment of the abbey till it was complete. But in the evening, when
he took up his quarters in the house of Theophilus Lugton with Dominick
Callender, who had brought on a party of the Paisley Reformers, he was
so stiff and sore that he thought he would be incompetent to go over
next day with the force that the Earl missioned to herry the Carmelyte
convent at Irvine. Dominick Callender had, however, among other things,
learnt, in the abbey at Paisley, the salutary virtues of many herbs, and
how to decoct from them their healing juices; and he instructed Dame
Lugton to prepare an efficacious medicament, that not only mitigated the
anguish of the pain, but so suppled the stiffness that my grandfather
was up by break of day, and ready for the march, a renewed man.
In speaking of this, he has been heard to say, it was a thing much to be
lamented, that when the regular abolition of the monastries was decreed,
no care was taken to collect the curious knowledges and ancient
traditionary skill preserved therein, especially in what pertained to
the cure of maladies; for it was his opinion--and many were of the same
mind--that among the friars were numbers of potent physicians, and an
art in the preparation of salves and syrups, that has not been surpassed
by the learning of the colleges. But it is not meet that I should detain
the courteous reader with such irrelevancies; the change, however, which
has taken place in the realm in all things pertaining to life, laws,
manners and conduct since the extirpation of the Roman idolatry, is,
from the perfectest report, so wonderful, that the inhabitants can
scarcely be said to be the same race of people; and, therefore, I have
thought that such occasional ancestral intimations might, though they
proved neither edifying nor instructive, be yet deemed worthy of
notation in the brief spaces which they happen herein to occupy. But
now, returning from this digression, I will take up again the thread and
clue of my story.
The Earl of Glencairn, after the abbey of Kilwinning was sacked, went
and slept at Eglinton Castle, then a stalwart square tower, environed
with a wall and moat, of a rude and unknown antiquity, standing on a
gentle rising ground in the midst of a bleak and moorland domain. And
his Lordship having ordered my grandfather to come to him betimes in the
morning with twenty chosen men, the discreetest of the force, for a
special service in which he meant to employ him, he went thither
accordingly, taking with him Dominick Callender and twelve godly lads
from Paisley, with seven others, whom he had remarked in the march from
Glasgow, as under the manifest guidance of a sedate and pious temper.
When my grandfather with his company arrived at the castle yett, and he
was admitted to the Earl his patron, his Lordship said to him, more as a
friend than a master,--
"I am in the hope, Gilhaize, that, after this day, the toilsome and
perilous errands on which, to the weal of Scotland and the true church,
you have been so meritoriously missioned ever since you were retained in
my service, will soon be brought to an end, and that you will enjoy in
peace the reward you have earned so well, that I am better pleased in
bestowing it than you can be in the receiving. But there is yet one task
which I must put upon you. Hard by to this castle, less than a mile
eastward, stands a small convent of nuns, who have been for time out of
mind under the protection of the Lord Eglinton's family, and he, having
got a grant of the lands belonging to their house, is desirous that they
should be flitted in an amiable manner to a certain street in Irvine
called the Kirkgate, where a lodging is provided for them. To do this
kindly I have bethought myself of you, for I know not in all my force
any one so well qualified. Have you provided yourself with the twenty
douce men that I ordered you to bring hither?"
My grandfather told his Lordship that he had done as he was ordered.
"Then," resumed the Earl, "take them with you, and this mandate to the
superior, and one of Eglinton's men to show you the way; and when you
have conveyed them to their lodging, come again to me."
So my grandfather did as he was directed by the Earl, and marched
eastward with his men till he came to the convent, which was a humble
and orderly house, with a small chapel and a tower, that in after times,
when all the other buildings were erased, was called the Stane Castle,
and is known by that name even unto this day. It stood within a high
wall, and a little gate, with a stone cross over the same, led to the
porch.
Compassionating the simple and silly sisterhood within, who, by their
sequestration from the world, were become as innocent as birds in a
cage, my grandfather halted his men at some distance from the yett, and
going forward, rung the bell; to the sound of which an aged woman
answered, who, on being told he had brought a letter to the superior,
gave him admittance, and conducted him to a little chamber, on the one
side of which was a grating, where the superior, a short, corpulent
matron, that seemed to bowl rather than to walk as she moved along, soon
made her appearance within.
He told her in a meek manner, and with some gentle prefacing, the
purpose of his visit, and showed her the Earl's mandate; to all which,
for some time, she made no reply, but she was evidently much moved; at
last she gave a wild skreigh, which brought the rest of the nuns, to the
number of thirteen, all rushing into the room. Then ensued a dreadful
tempest of all feminine passions and griefs, intermingled with
supplications to many a saint; but the powers and prerogatives of their
saints were abolished in Scotland, and they received no aid.
Though their lamentation, as my grandfather used to say, could not be
recited without moving to mirth, it was yet so full of maidenly fears
and simplicity at the time to him, that it seemed most tender, and he
was disturbed at the thought of driving such fair and helpless creatures
into the bad world; but it was his duty;--so, after soothing them as
well as he could, and representing how unavailing their refusal to go
would be, the superior composed her grief, and exhorting the nuns to be
resigned to their cruel fate, which, she said, was not so grievous as
that which many of the saints had in their day suffered, they all became
calm and prepared for the removal.
My grandfather told them to take with them whatsoever they best liked in
the house; and it was a moving sight to see their simplicity therein.
One was content with a flower-pot; another took a cage in which she had
a lintie; some of them half-finished patterns of embroidery. One aged
sister, of a tall and spare form, brought away a flask of eye-water
which she had herself distilled; but, saving the superior, none of them
thought of any of the valuables of the chapel, till my grandfather
reminded them, that they might find the value of silver and gold
hereafter, even in the spiritual-minded town of Irvine.
There was one young and graceful maiden among them who seemed but little
moved by the event; and my grandfather was melted to sympathy and sorrow
by the solemn serenity of her deportment, and the little heed she took
of anything. Of all the nuns she was the only one who appeared to have
nothing to care for; and when they were ready, and came forth to the
gate, instead of joining in their piteous wailings as they bade their
peaceful home a long and last farewell, she walked forward alone. No
sooner, however, had she passed the yett, than, on seeing the armed
company without, she stood still like a statue, and, uttering a shrill
cry, fainted away, and fell to the ground. Every one ran to her
assistance; but when her face was unveiled to give her air, Dominick
Callender, who was standing by, caught her in his arms, and was
enchanted by a fond and strange enthusiasm. She was indeed no other than
the young maiden of Paisley, for whom he had found his monastic rows the
heavy fetters of a bondage that made life scarcely worth possessing; and
when she was recovered, an interchange of great tenderness took place
between them, at which the superior of the convent waxed very wroth, and
the other nuns were exceedingly scandalised. But Magdalene Sauchie, for
so she was called, heeded them not; for, on learning that popery was put
down in the land by law, she openly declared that she renounced her
vows; and during the walk to Irvine, which was jimp a mile, she leant
upon the arm of her lover: and they were soon after married, Dominick
settling in that town as a doctor of physic, whereby he afterwards
earned both gold and reputation.
But to conclude the history of the convent, which my grandfather had in
this gentle manner herret, the nuns, on reaching the foot of the
Kirkgate, where the Countess of Eglinton had provided a house for them,
began to weep anew with great vehemence, fearing that their holy life
was at an end, and that they would be tempted of men to enter into the
temporalities of the married state; but the superior, on hearing this
mournful apprehension, mounted upon the steps of the Tolbooth stair,
and, in the midst of a great concourse of people, she lifted her hands
on high, and exclaimed, as with the voice of a prophetess, "Fear not, my
chaste and pious dochters; for your sake and for my sake, I have an
assurance at this moment from the Virgin Mary herself, that the calamity
of the marriage-yoke will never be known in the Kirkgate of Irvine, but
that all maidens who hereafter may enter, or be born to dwell therein,
shall live a life of single blessedness unasked and untempted of men."
Which delightful prediction the nuns were so happy to hear, that they
dried their tears, and chanted their Ave Maria, joyfully proceeding
towards their appointed habitation. It stood, as I have been told, on
the same spot where King James the Sixth's school was afterwards
erected, and endowed out of the spoils of Carmelytes' monastery, which,
on the same day, was, by another division of the Earl of Glencairn's
power, sacked and burnt to the ground.