From Burns’s day to our own it has been held by the Oswalds. Craigie, too, was for centuries a seat of the Wallaces; and it also has its cave and its well, dedicated to the hero—the mark of his heel is still pointed out on the platform of rock on which he jumped down, and whence rushed, and still rushes, a pure spring of water. And among the trees of Laiglan, Burns tells us that he spent a summer-day tracing the footsteps of the patriot, and in vision saw him “brandish round the deep-dyed steel in sturdy blows.”
THE DAM AT AYR.
From the summit of these high banks delightful glimpses are had, through the trees, of the ancient burgh of Ayr. “Low in a sandy valley spread”; with spires, towers? and factory stalks rising above the greenery and the masses of houses; its broad and rushing river in the midst of it, crossed by bridges old and new; behind these the sweep of the Bay of Ayr, and, as background towards the south, the dark ridge of Brown Carrick Hill ending seaward in the bold front of the Heads of Ayr—the town shows bravely from a distance. Nor does a nearer view destroy the impression which it makes, especially as seen from the leafy margin of the stream, across the still expanse of the Dam, or from the Railway Bridge. Lower down are the historic arches of the “Twa Brigs” that unite the original Ayr with its northern suburbs of Newtown and Wallacetown. The poet’s prophecy, as the citizens noted with ill-concealed delight, has been, at least in part, fulfilled. The Auld Brig, “the very wrinkles Gothic in its face,” still stands, although reserved for foot-passengers alone; its younger rival, giving way prematurely to the assaults of time and flood, has had to be rebuilt:
“I’ll be a brig when ye’re a shapeless cairn.”
Near the approaches of the Auld Brig are congregated what remains of the old Ayr houses—a diminishing company, as town improvements break in and sweep away narrow closes and grim dwellings with high-pitched roofs and crow-stepped gables; below it are the harbour and the shipping. Of what was memorable and historic in Old Ayr—its monasteries of the Black and the Grey Friars; its castle, where kings and parliaments sat in council; its ancient church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, wherein great Kirk controversies have been held, and Knox and other Reformers have preached—all have disappeared except the tower of St. John, and even it was reft of its gables last century “to give it a more modern appearance.” Cromwell, to make room for his fort, cleared away church and castle; and the fort itself has followed in its turn.
The high places of Ayr are of more modern date; and chief among them, perhaps, are the Wallace Tower, the imposing front of the Joint Railway Station, and the Hospital and the Poorhouse, heirs and successors of the Lepers’ Home, endowed by The Bruce in gratitude for the ease yielded to him by the waters of St. Helen’s Well at “King’s-ease.” The handsome Town Hall was destroyed by fire in 1897. Round the margin of the town, especially in the direction of the Doon, are streets of handsome villas and open spaces shaded by trees; and the place grows and thrives steadily if slowly. But, more than of its architecture, Ayr is proud of its sons and daughters:—
“Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a toon surpasses,
For honest men and bonnie lasses.”