The book Arran; - Cook Clan

ARRAN IN POLITICS 91
delight ! Too much history has been made of this
sort.
Less notice would be taken of another set of transactions,
which nevertheless lie closer to the foundations of social life
under the however ruffled surface the steady tide of sheer
human sustenance must flow. Thus not beneath respect are
these commonplace hints on the island life in the late sixteenth
century. Ayr is then a market for foreign and home
merchants, whence local needs may be supplied from foreign
imports. Buyers, in presence of a notary and witness, enter
a pledge or bill to pay, and the notary registers the same.
From such a book we glean the following transactions for
Arran. On June 18, 1583, Matthew Stewart in ' Kirk-
patrick ' and his mother ' actit to pay ' to Adam Stewart,
a local importer, seven score marks in March next for wine
just bought. On July 1, ' Alaster Stewart '—place in Arran
a blank— ^binds himself in fifty marks for wines bought
from a burgess of Ayr. It is possibly the same Alaster ' in
the Bennane ' who, about six weeks later, acknowledges £24
to be paid before Michaelmas, on account of cloth, to Adam
Stewart. Apparently it is a renewal of this bill which is
entered on August 20, since the amount and goods are
the same, but it is noted that £6 are ' ressavit in hand.'
But another Alaster Stewart on a similar business hails from
' Glenskordill,' having, on August 15, bought wine to the
value of seventy-five marks, and twenty-four shillings worth
of salt.^ These goods were no doubt, in all cases, for distribution
by sale in the south end, which thus procured
some at least of its necessities of life. The intolerable deal
of wine, in proportion to the other things, may be explained
by the fact that these others could be procured at home,
though of inferior quality. The imported stuff probably all
came from France.
' ' Notarial Note-Book of John Mason ' in Archceol. and Hist. Collectiom relating to
Ayrshire and Galloway, vol. vi. pp. 220, etc.
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