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Her father was Sir Robert Laurie, first baronet, and her mother was Jean Riddell. Maxwelton House was originally the castle of the earls of Glencairn. It was bought in 1611 by Stephen Laurie, the founder of the Laurie family. Stephen was a Dumfries merchant. The castle was a turreted building. In it Annie Laurie was born. This castle was partially burned in the last century, but not all of it.
Religion has always been a burning question in Scotland, and about Annie's time the flames raged with peculiar ferocity. Her father, Sir Robert Laurie, was a bitter enemy of the Covenantry, and his name finds a somewhat unenviable fame in mortuary verses of this sort cut upon gravestones: "Douglas of Stenhouse, Laurie of Maxwelton, Caused Count Baillie give me martyrdom."
Looking up the glen from Maxwelton, the chimneys of Craigdarrock House are seen. It is distant about five miles, and Annie had not far to remove from her father's house to that of her husband. She was twenty-eight at the time of her marriage. The Fergusons are a much older family, as families are reckoned, than the Lauries.
His recklessness cost him one ring, but as the Discarded had lost one, they were still tied, with eight rings to the credit of each, for the first prize. Only four others were left the Knight of the Holston and the Knight of the Green Valley tying with seven rings for second prize, and the fat Maxwelton Braes and the Knight at Large tying with six rings for the third.
"The sea! the sea! the open sea! Roll on, roll on, thou deep! Maxwelton braes are bonny, but Macbeth hath murdered sleep! Answer me, burning shades of night! what's Hecuba to me? Alone stood brave Horatius! The boy oh, where was he?" "Oh, Father!" cried Marjorie, as Mr. Maynard finished, "did you really make that up? Or did you find it in a book?" But Mr.
The music of the song is modern, and was composed by Lady John Scott, aunt by marriage of the present Duke of Buccleuch. The composer was only guessed at for many years, but somewhat recently she has acknowledged the authorship. Maxwelton House sits high upon its "braes." It is "harled" without and painted white, and is built around three sides of a sunny court. Ivy clambers thriftily about it.
Billy leaned forward on his elbows, placed the points of his fingers together, and, while waiting for Dic to begin, hummed his favorite stanza concerning the braes of Maxwelton. "Well," responded Dic, "I've concluded not to go to New York." Billy's face turned a shade paler as he took his pipe from his lips and looked sadly at Dic. After a moment of scrutiny he said:
After various vicissitudes, the whistle came into possession of Laurie of Maxwelton, and then passed into the hands of a Riddell of the same connection. Finally came the last drinking skirmish in which it was to appear, and which is chronicled by Burns. This final drinking bout took place October 16, 1790.
Craigdarrock House stands near the foot of one of the three glens whose waters unite to form the Cairn. The hills draw together here, and give an air of seclusion to the house and grounds. The house, large and substantial, lacks the picturesqueness of Maxwelton. It is pale pink in tone with window-casings and copings of French gray. The delicate cotoneaster vine clings to the stones of it.
His coat is brown, and his waistcoat blue, embroidered with gold, and he wears abundant lace in the charming old fashion. It was at Maxwelton House, Annie's birthplace, that I came across the missing link in the chain of evidence that fixes the authorship of the song upon Douglas of Fingland.
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