[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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A large amount used to be transacted in wool and lambs ; and not a few
staplers were in the habit of coming even from the manufacturing towns
of England.
But we must follow the graphic description of the ballad
" The tents, in a' three score and three,
Were planted up and down, man
While pipes and fiddles through the fair,
Gaed bummin' roun' and roun' man.
And mony a lad and lass cam' there
Sly looks and winks to barter,
And some to fee for hay or liairst,
And others for the quarter.
Some did the thieving trade pursue.
While others cam to sell their woo ;
And mony cam' to weet their mou.
And gang wi' lasses hame, man."
Besides the fame acquired by Kirkdamdie as a market, it was still
celebrated as the Donnybrook of Scotland
more
" A canty chap a drap had got.
And he gaed through the fair, man
He swore to face wi' twa three chiels
He wadna muckle care, man.
At length he lent a chiel a clout.
While his companions sallied out,
So on they fell, wi' sic pell-mell.
Till some lay on the ground, man."
The feuds of the year, whether new or old, were here reckoned over, and
generally settled by an appeal to physical force ;
and it was no uncommon
thing, towards the close of the fair, when " bauld John Barleycorn " had
sufficiently inspired his votaries, to see fifty or a hundred a-side engaged
with fists or sticks, as chance might favour.
Smuggling, after the Union,
became very prevalent throughout Scotland, and nowhere more so than
in Ayrshire and Galloway. A great many small lairdships were then in
existence, the proprietors of which, almost to a man, were associated for
the purpose of carrying on a contraband trade.
union, they lived beyond the reach or fear of the law.
From locality as well as
At Kirkdamdie,
future operations were planned, and old scores adjusted, though not always
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