SEPTEMBER 209 



name, were disgusted with their chief's brutality in this affair. 

 Kennedy, laird of Bargany, espoused the commendator's 

 cause, stormed the house of Dunure, and bore off Stewart, 

 ' brunt as he was,' to Ayr. Thereupon broke out a feud 

 between the two branches of the Kennedys, so bloody 

 and so long-continued as if the whole fury of expiring 

 feudalism had concentrated itself in this corner of Scot- 

 land. It is brought very near to these our times by the 

 observation that the laird of Bargany's 'neise was laich 

 (nose flattened) be ane straik of ane goiff ball on the hills 

 of Air in reklesnes.' They were strong drivers, it would 

 seem, the golfers of Queen Mary's reign, and they played 

 not with a plain 'gutty' or Haskell ball, but with one 

 made of wood. 



Bargany had such a strong force of his own in Carrick, 

 besides contingents of his friends from Kyle and Cuning- 

 ham, that he was able to bid defiance to his chief, and 

 eventually the earl, who was probably thoroughly ashamed 

 of himself, consented to allow the commendator a hand- 

 some pension for life. The chronicler makes use of a 

 curiously modern bit of slang in bringing his account of 

 this transaction to a close. ' And this way,' he says, ' wes 

 my Lordis conqueise of Corsragall; quhilk wes bot ane 

 bad forme.' 



The ' King of Carrick ' came to a violent death not long 

 after this peace had been patched up, for in riding to 

 Edinburgh his horse fell, and he died of his injuries. 

 He left Lord Glamis, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, as 

 tutor or guardian to his son and heir, the fifth earl ; and 

 herein was matter for rekindling the flames of feud, which 

 were presently roaring more fiercely than ever. For the 

 uncle of the young earl, Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean, 



