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

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THE LAIRD
CHANGUE.
But soon I'll scatter your bonny flocks,
An' boil your bouk in tar !"
The monk has gather'd the countryside
To the Alti-kirk by night
And there he has cursed* the laird of Changue,
By bell, book, and candle light.
And curs'd ilk ane soud wi' him speak,
Or wi' him soud buy or sell
Or in his face soud dare to keek,
Or tread on the samin hill.
And he has hired a gipsy band,
That fen'd in Pinwhapple glen,
To spulye his sheep, and herry his land,
And vex him might and main.
Ane Riever Rab o' this band was chief,
And he was a desperate loon,
For he raised black mail o' mutton and beef
O'er a' the country roun'.
And fast by the side of Pinwhapple burn,
'Neath the Dow Craig's rugged steep.
hart of Bar appears as one of the seventy-eight " barons and gentlemen of Kyle,
Cunninghame, and Carrick, professing the true evangel," who assembled at Ayr
and subscribed a bond " to maintain and assist the preaching of the holy evangel,
and the ministers of the same, against all persons, power, and authority, that
will oppose the self to the doctrine proponed and by us received," &c.
It appears strange, in our day, that Changue should have been accused of
being with Knox, when there is such a distance between the places mentioned ;
but it must be remembered that, in those days, when the light of truth was
only beginning to break in upon the mind-enslaved peasantry, it was no uncommon
matter for the people to travel ten, twenty, or even thirty miles, to
hear a preacher of the true evangel.
* Rome has been more sparing in her maledictions than she was at the date
of the circumstance mentioned in the text. The last instance on record is as
late, however, as the year 1844, when Priest Walsh, in the glens of Antrim in
Ireland, pronounced the greater excommunication against one of his congregation,
because he had been caught reading the Bible in Irish to some of his ignorant
neighbours. This victim of priestly tyranny was a miller, and the priest
declared that "he would make his miU as dry as the road;" but the times are
sadly altered. Priest Walsh was cited before a court of justice, and fined in
£70 damages and costs.