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

PETSR galbraith.
walls. The stone-and-mud work finished, next came the labours of the
carpenter, and here the ingenuity of Peter was equally useful.
The wood
he bought whole, not in planks, as most people would have done who had
no one to aid them in the saw-pit. For the services of a fellow-workman
he substituted a large stone, placed at the lower end of the saw, the weight
of which helped to drag the instrument down, after he had drawn it up.
By such contrivances as this, he succeeded in overcoming the most formidable
difficulties. At length Peter's castle, as his neighbours termed it,
was completed ; having been built, roofed, and thatched, all by his own
hands. One thing alone seemed wanting, and that was a large flag, to lay,
by way of pavement before the door. Peter, in his rambles, had discovered
a stone admirably suited for the purpose, but being large and flat, he
could neither carry it in his apron, nor roll it along the ground, as he had
done with the others.
Here, for the first time, he felt himself in a dilemma
;
but being well liked in the vicinity, Peter was no sooner known to
be in a predicament, than offers of assistance were tendered from all
quarters, and the bringing home of the flag was made a gala occasion.
The neighbourhood turned out in a body—old and young—to share in
the triumph of putting the cap-sheaf, as it were, on Peter's castle. The
stone being placed in a cart, drawn by six or eight horses, decorated with
flowers and evergreens, Saunders Greive, a -well known local poetaster,
ascended the vehicle, and said or sung a long metrical harangue in honour
of the event. Of this production, the few verses given are all that have
been preserved. Saunders having finished his poetical eulogium, the
procession moved onward to the sound of the bagpipe. Never was such
a merry party seen in the district. Arriving at Perclewan, the stone was
carefully laid in its proper place, amidst much cheering, and a bumper
drained to the health and prosperity of Peter. In the evening the proceedings
were closed by a ball in the adjacent clachan, at which all the
beauty and fashion of the parish attended. Many a person marvelled
why Peter should have built a house of two stories, thinking that less
accommodation might have served him. But they little knew his mind
on this subject. The lower flat he designed for his intended wife and
family—the higher for himself,
that he might not be disturbed, as he remarked,
by their bawling. But, as the result showed, Peter gutted his