Ayrshire > Volume 1

THE AYRSHIRE VENDETTA 133
vessels, for cruelly striking his wife with " back strokes,"
for putting him, first in confinement in the Tolbooth of
Irvine, and then in the stocks, and for cruelly pulling
out his wife's hair in great quantities. This offence throws
a curious and a very dark sidelight upon the manners of
the times, and the extent to which looting went, on
occasion. It looks as if the burgher's wife had defended
herself against the spoilers of her pots and pans and other
domestic utensils, and that the marauders had retaliated
upon her in a fashion that quite merited the heavy punish-
ment inflicted upon them by the Lords of Justiciary.
The first serious overt act in the feud was the sacking
and burning of Turnlaw, or Kerelaw Castle, one of the
smaller fortress keeps of the Cunninghames, in the
parish of Stevenston, which, even in its ruins, bears
witness to its sufficiency for the troublous times when,
looking out on the one hand towards the Castle of
Montgomerie on the banks of the Lugton, and on the
other to the Castle of Ardrossan, another of the many
keeps of the Eglinton clan, it was so situated in the very
heart of the enemy's country as to make it a special
object of aversion to the Montgomeries. They descended
upon it when it was bereft of the men-at-arms, who
could have given account of themselves and of their
charge behind the shelter of its powerful bulwarks, and
consigned it to the flames. These could not reduce the
massive masonry, but they cleared it out, and left the
keep, what it remains to this day, a ruin. The
Cunninghames delayed their vengeance. They did not
forget the deed recalled to them by the blackened walls
of their erst fair and stately fortalice, but they bided
their time. The weeks grew into months, the months
into years, and the years stretched out until, in 1505,
Cunninghame of Craigens, the King's Coroner for the
neighbouring shire of Renfrew, was waylaid by the Master
of Montgomerie and seriously wounded. The Master,
as we have seen, was summoned to the Court of
Justiciary, but he did not answer to the summons. In
January of 1507, the Cunninghames came in some force