This castle was partially burned in the last century, but not all of
it. The great tower is incorporated in the new house, and also a
considerable portion of the old walls was built in. The foundations
are those of the castle. The picture shows the double windows of the
tower. In places its walls are twelve feet thick. The lower room is
the "gun-room," and the little room above, that in the next story, is
always spoken of in the family as "Annie Laurie's room," or "boudoir."
This room of Annie's has been opened into the drawing-room by taking
down the wall, and it forms a charming alcove. Its stone ceiling shows
its great age.
In the dining-room, a fine, large apartment, we come again upon the
old walls, six feet thick, which gives very deep window recesses. In
this room hang the portraits of Annie Laurie and her husband,
Alexander Ferguson. They are half-lengths, life-size.
Annie's hair is dark brown, and she has full dark eyes--it is
difficult to say whether brown or deep hazel. I incline to the latter.
Whoever doctored the second verse of the original song--I heard it
credited to "Mrs. Grundy" by a grandnephew of Burns--whoever it was,
he had apparently no knowledge of this portrait, for you all know he
has given Annie a "dark _blue_ e'e."
[Illustration: Alexander Ferguson, Annie Laurie's husband. From a
painting now preserved at Maxwelton House.]
The nose is long and straight; the under lip full, as though "some bee
had stung it newly," like that of Suckling's bride. A true Scotch
face, of a type to be met any day in Edinburgh, or any other Scotch
town. She is in evening dress of white satin, and she wears no jewels
but the pearls in her hair.
Alexander Ferguson, the husband of Annie Laurie, has a handsome,
youthful face, with dark eyes and curling hair. His coat is brown, and
his waistcoat blue, embroidered with gold, and he wears abundant lace
in the charming old fashion.
It was at Maxwelton House, Annie's birthplace, that I came across the
missing link in the chain of evidence that fixes the authorship of the
song upon Douglas of Fingland. Fingland is in the parish of Dalry, in
the adjacent shire of Kirkcudbright, and Douglas was a somewhat near
neighbor of Annie.
The present proprietor of Maxwelton House is Sir Emilius Laurie,
formerly rector of St. John's, Paddington, when he was known as Sir
Emilius Bayley. He took the name of Laurie when he succeeded to the
family estates. Sir Emilius is a descendant of Sir Walter, third
baronet and brother of Annie.
Sir Emilius placed in my hands a letter of which he said I might make
what use I liked, and this letter contained the missing link. While
the song has been generally credited to Douglas of Fingland, it has
always been a matter of tradition rather than of ascertained fact.
But to the important letter.
It was written in 1889, by a friend, to Sir Emilius, and relates an
incident which took place in 1854. At that time the writer, whom we
will call Mr. B., was on a visit with his wife to some friends in
Yorkshire. Mrs. B. was a somewhat famous singer of ballads. A few
friends were invited to meet them one evening, and, after the ladies
had retired to the drawing-room, their hostess asked Mrs. B. to sing;
and she sang "Annie Laurie," in the modern revision, just as we all
sing it.
Among the guests was a lady in her ninety-seventh year. She gave close
attention to the singing of the ballad, and when Mrs. B. had finished,
she spoke up: "Thank you, thank you very much! But _they're na the
words my grandfather wrote_." Then she repeated the first stanza as
she knew it.
The next day Mr. and Mrs. B. called upon her, and in the meantime she
had had the original first stanza written out, dictating it to a
grandniece. She had signed it with her own shaky hand. Not being
satisfied with the signature, she had signed it a second time.
She explained that her grandfather, Douglas of Fingland, was
desperately in love with Annie Laurie when he wrote the song. "But,"
she added, "he did na get her after a'."
She was not quite sure as to Annie's fate, she said. Some folks had
said she died unmarried, while some had said she married Ferguson of
Craigdarrock, and she rather thought _that_ was the truth.
Questioned as to the authenticity of the lines she had given, she
said:
"Oh, _I_ mind them fine. I have remembered them a' my life. My father
often repeated them to me." And here is the stanza signed with her
name:
"'Maxwelton's banks are bonnie,
They're a' clad owre wi' dew,
Where I an' Annie Laurie
Made up the bargain true.
Made up the bargain true,
Which ne'er forgot s'all be,
An' for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down an' dee.'
"I mind na mair.
[Signed] "Clark Douglas.
"August 30, 1854."
In the common version this stanza reads:
"Maxwelton's braes are bonnie
Where early fa's the dew,
And it's there that Annie Laurie
Gie'd me her promise true;
Gie'd me her promise true,
Which ne'er forgot will be,
An' for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down an' dee."
In the original song there were but two stanzas, and this is the
second:
"She's backit like the peacock,
She's breistit like the swan,
She's jimp around the middle,
Her waist ye weel micht span--
Her waist ye weel micht span--
An' she has a rolling e'e,
An' for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down an' dee."
As I have said, the "rolling e'e" has been changed, and wrongly, into
one of "dark blue."
Who added the third stanza is not known; but no lover of the song
would willingly dispense with it:
"Like dew on the gowan lying
Is the fa' o' her fairy feet;
Like summer breezes sighing,
Her voice is low an' sweet--
Her voice is low an' sweet--
An' she's a' the world to me,
An' for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down an' dee."
The music of the song is modern, and was composed by Lady John Scott,
aunt by marriage of the present Duke of Buccleuch. The composer was
only guessed at for many years, but somewhat recently she has
acknowledged the authorship.
Maxwelton House sits high upon its "braes." It is "harled" without and
painted white, and is built around three sides of a sunny court. Ivy
clambers thriftily about it. Over the entrance door of the tower, and
above a window in the opposite wing, are inserted two marriage stones;
the former that of Annie's father and mother, the latter of her
grandfather and grandmother. These marriage stones are about two feet
square. The initials of the bride and bridegroom, and the date of the
marriage, are cut upon them, together with the family coat of arms,
which bears, among other heraldic devices, two laurel leaves and the
motto, _Virtus semper viridis_. Below the grandfather's marriage stone
is cut in the lintel the following:
_Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it_.
Looking up the glen from Maxwelton, the chimneys of Craigdarrock House
are seen.
It is distant about five miles, and Annie had not far to remove from
her father's house to that of her husband. She was twenty-eight at the
time of her marriage.
The Fergusons are a much older family, as families are reckoned, than
the Lauries. Fergusons of Craigdarrock were attached to the courts of
William the Lion and Alexander the II. (1214-1249).
Craigdarrock House stands near the foot of one of the three glens
whose waters unite to form the Cairn. The hills draw together here,
and give an air of seclusion to the house and grounds. The house,
large and substantial, lacks the picturesqueness of Maxwelton. It is
pale pink in tone with window-casings and copings of French gray. The
delicate cotoneaster vine clings to the stones of it. There are pretty
reaches of lawns and abundant shrubberies, and in one place
Craigdarrock Water has been diverted to form a lake, spanned in one
part by a high bridge. Sheep feed upon the hills topped with green
pastures, at the south, and shaggy Highland cattle in the meadows
below. A heavy wood overhangs to the north. There is plenty of fine
timber on the grounds, beeches, and great silver firs and, especially
to be named, ancient larches with knees and elbows like old oaks,
given to the proprietor by George II., when the larch was first
introduced into Scotland.
The present proprietor of Craigdarrock is Captain Robert Ferguson, of
the fourth generation in direct descent from Annie Laurie.
Religion has always been a burning question in Scotland, and about
Annie's time the flames raged with peculiar ferocity. Her father, Sir
Robert Laurie, was a bitter enemy of the Covenantry, and his name
finds a somewhat unenviable fame in mortuary verses of this sort cut
upon gravestones:
"Douglas of Stenhouse, _Laurie of Maxwelton_,
Caused Count Baillie give me martyrdom."
But the Fergusons were staunch Covenanters, and Annie, if we may judge
from her marriage with one of that party, must have favored
"compromise." Without doubt she must have worshipped with her husband
in the old parish kirk, which was burned about fifty years since. The
two end gables, ivy-shrouded, are still standing.
Against the east gable is the burial-ground of the Lauries, and
against the west that of the Fergusons. A ponderous monument marks the
grave of Annie's grandfather, cut with those hideous emblems which
former generations seemed to delight in. But the burial-place of the
Fergusons is singularly lacking in early monuments, and no stone marks
the place of Annie's rest. It is a sweet, secluded spot, and
Cock-Robin--it was September--was chanting his cheerful noonday song
over the sleepers when I was there.
At Craigdarrock House is kept Annie's will, a copy of which I give. As
a will, simply, it is of no special value. As Annie Laurie's, it will
be read with interest.
"I, Anna Laurie, spouse to Alexr. Fergusone of Craigdarrock.
Forasmuch as I considering it a devotie upon everie persone whyle
they are in health and sound judgement so to settle yr. worldly
affairs that yrby all animosities betwixt friend and relatives
may obviat and also for the singular love and respect I have for
the said Alex. Fergusone, in case he survive me I do heirby make
my letter will as follows:
"First, I recommend my soule to God, hopeing by the meritorious
righteousness of Jesus Christ to be saved; secondly, I recommend
my body to be decently and orderly interred; and in the third
plaice nominate and appoynt the sd. Alexr. Fergusone to be my
sole and only executor, Legator and universall intromettor with
my hail goods, gear, debts, and soams off money that shall
pertain and belong to me the tyme of my decease, or shall be dew
to me by bill, bond, or oyrway; with power to him to obtain
himself confirmed and decreed exr. to me and to do everie thing
for fixing and establishing the right off my spouse in his person
as law reqaires; in witness whereof their putts (written by John
Wilsone off Chapell in Dumfries) are subd. by me at Craigdarrock
the twenty eight day of Apryle Jajvij and eleven (1711) years,
before the witnesses the sd. John Wilsone and John Nicholsone his
servitor.
"ANN. LAURIE,
"JO. WILSON, Witness.
"JOHN HOAT, Witness."
If our dates are correct, this will was written the year after her
marriage. And it is pleasant to see that she had such entire trust in
Alexander Ferguson. Evidently she cherished no lingering regrets for
Douglas of Fingland.
In following up the "fairy" footsteps of Annie Laurie I came upon
others wholly different, but of equal interest--those of Robert Burns.
At Craigdarrock House is kept "the whistle" of his poem of that name.
Burns tells the story of it in a note. It was brought into Scotland by
a doughty Dane in the train of Anne, queen of James VI. He had won it
in a drinking bout. It was a "challenge whistle," to use a modern
term. The man who gave the last whistle upon it, before tumbling under
the table dead drunk, won it.
After various vicissitudes, the whistle came into possession of Laurie
of Maxwelton, and then passed into the hands of a Riddell of the same
connection. Finally came the last drinking skirmish in which it was to
appear, and which is chronicled by Burns. This final drinking bout
took place October 16, 1790. The three champions were Sir Robert
Laurie of Maxwelton, Alexander Ferguson of Craigdarrock--an eminent
lawyer, and who must, I think, have been a grandson of Annie
Laurie--and Captain Riddell of Friar's Carse, antiquary and friend of
Burns. The contest took place at Friar's Carse, and Alexander Ferguson
gave the last faint whistle before going under the table, and won the
prize, which ever since has been kept at Craigdarrock.
The whistle is large, of dark brown wood, and is set in a silver cup
upon which is engraved the fact that it is "Burns's whistle," together
with the date of the contest. A silver chain is attached to it; but it
reposes on velvet, under glass. It is too precious to use.