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.
CHAPTER XXVII
When my grandfather had, in the manner rehearsed, disposed of those sisters of simplicity in the Kirkgate of Irvine, he returned back in the afternoon to the Earl of Glencairn at Eglinton Castle to report what he had done; and his Lordship again, in a most laudatory manner, commended his prudence and singular mildness of nature, mentioning to the Earl and Countess of Eglinton, then present with him, divers of the missions wherein he had been employed, extolling his zeal, and above all his piety. And the Lady Eglinton, who was a household character, striving, with great frugality, to augment the substance of her Lord, by keeping her maidens from morning to night eydent at work, some at their broidering drums, and some at their distaffs, managing all within the castle that pertained to her feminine part in a way most exemplary to the ladies of her time and degree, indeed to ladies of all times and degrees, promised my grandfather that when he was married, she would give his wife something to help the plenishing of their house, for the meek manner in which he had comported himself toward her friend, the superior of the nuns. Then the Earl of Glencairn said,—