The book Arran; - Cook Clan

108 THE BOOK OF ARRAN
stream running into the Cnocan Bum below the castle, is
said to have taken its name from the fate of a cow seized
by the soldiers in the byre of the farmer of Cnocan. As
he saw the animal led away, the enraged farmer, disregarding
the remonstrances of his frightened wife, seized his reapinghook
and hamstrung the beast, remarking, ' Better a dead
cow than nothing.' Bullying and pillaging the people and
insulting the women, the soldiers roused such hostility of
feeling that, at last, a foraging party, on their march back
to the castle, was attacked and annihilated. The skirmish
referred to is said to have commenced at Allt-a-Chlaidheimh
(Sword Burn), betwixt South Sannox and Corrie, and the
last man of the English party was dragged from the shelter
of Clach-a-Chaih (Stone of Battle; now called the ' Cat Stone')
and killed. Another version of this crude skirmish, in which
the wrathful people used farm tools as weapons, places it
near the castle, and allows the governor and his men to escape
in a small boat, all save one, who was chased and killed under
a big rock in the Merkland Wood, near the public road,
which rock commemorates the incident in its name of Creag
an Stobaidh, ' the stabbing rock.'
Lag-nan-Sassunnach is a little hollow near the mouth of
the North Sannox burn, a few hundred yards from the beach.
In it is said to be interred the English who fell in an engagement
near by. It has been always understood that this
engagement was fought at a date previous to the Crom-
wellian period.
The Commionwealth certainly put the Hamiltons in hard
case. The first Duke had left the estates burdened with
debt, part of it a loan raised on the property for Charles i.
it was luck to have this repaid later by the second Charles.
Added to the debt was a heavy fine by the Commonwealth
Government and the necessity of redeeming the forfeited
property. The credit of retaining intact the family lands,
under these most difficult conditions, falls to Anna or Anne,
;