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Updated: June 17, 2025
Bailie Kilspinnie of Crail having dealings with certain Glasgow merchants, who sold plaiding to the Highlanders of Lennox and Cowal, finding them dour in payment, owing, as they said, to their customers lengthening their credit of their own accord, on account of the times, the west having been from the battle of Langside unwontedly tranquil, he, in the spring of 1571, came in quest of his monies, and my grandfather having notice thereof, took on behind him on horseback, to see her father, Agnes Kilspinnie, who had lived in his house from the time of his marriage to her aunt, Elspa Ruet.
At this juncture, a blooming and modest-eyed damsel came into the room; but, seeing a stranger, she drew back and was going away, when the bailie, drying his eyes, said, "Come ben, Elspa; this is the young man that ye hae heard me sae commend for his kind friendship to me, in that dotage-dauner that I made in my distraction to St Andrews.
How's a' wi' the bairns?" "Are ye no frighted, Marion, to speer sic a question, when ye think how ye left them, and what for ye did sae?" "Am na I their mither, have na I a right to speer?" "No," said Elspa; "when ye forgot that ye were their father's wife, they lost their mother."
Foreseeing that the step they had taken would soon be visited by the wrath of the Queen Regent, they resolved to prepare for the worst, and my grandfather was ordered to hold himself in readiness for a journey. Thus was he prevented from going to Crail with Elspa Ruet, who, with a heavy heart, went back in the evening with the man and horses that brought the Reformer to the town.
"They are as weel as can be hoped for," replied Elspa, moved by her altered manner; "but they'll lang miss the loss of their mother's care. O, Marion, how could ye quit them! The beasts that perish are kinder to their young, for they nourish and protect them till they can do for themselves; but your wee May can neither yet gang nor speak.
As my grandfather and Elspa Ruet rode along together, they partook of the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with success.
He instantly recognized Elspa, his nurse; the faithful attendant on his grandfather's declining years! the happy matron who had decked the bridal bed of his Marion! and with an anguish of recollections that almost unmanned him, he returned her affectionate embrace.
Having told his Lordship that he had delivered his message to John Knox, and that the Reformer would not fail to attend the call, he then related partly what had happened to himself in his former sojourn at St Andrews, and how and for what end he had brought Elspa Ruet there that day with him, entreating the Lord James to give him his livery and protection, for fear of the Archbishop; which, with many pleasing comments on his devout and prudent demeanour, that noble worthy most readily vouchsafed, and my grandfather returned to the vintner's.
Elspa made a gentle beck as her brother-in-law was speaking, and, turning round, dropt a tear on the neck of the youngest baby, as she leant down to take it up for a screen to hide her blushing face, that reddent with the thought at seeing one who had so witnessed her sister's shame.
When they had been some time in the house of old Ursie Firikins, as the kind carlin was called, Elspa Ruet all the while weeping like a constant fountain and repeating, "Marion, Marion!" with a fond and sorrowful tenderness that would allow her to say no more, my grandfather having got a drink of meal and water prepared, gave it to the famished outcast, and she gradually recovered from her stupor.
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