In that year it consisted of the old Scottish Keep, built in the reign of James I. by Sir Ranulph Crawford, of Rohallion, his ambassador, first to Henry VI. of England, and afterwards to Charles VII. of France, for which services he was created Keeper of the Royal Palace of Carrick. Adjoining this grim tower, with its grated windows, machicolated ramparts, and corner tourelles, was the more modern mansion built in the time of James VI., by Hugh, third Lord Rohallion, who slew the gipsy king in single combat at the Cairns of Blackhinney. It had crowstepped gables, dormer windows, gabletted and carved with dates, crests, and quaint monograms, and many a huge chimney, conical turret, and creaking vane, added to its picturesque appearance. To this was added a wing in the time of Queen Anne, somewhat unsightly in its details, yet the general aspect of the whole edifice was bold and pleasing, chastened or toned down as it was by time and the elements. On one side it overlooked the Firth, then opening to a stormy sea, with the ruins of Turnberry in the distance--the crumbling walls wherein the conqueror of the proud Plantagenet first saw the light, and learned "to shake his Carrick spear." On the other, its windows opened to the most fertile portion of the bailiewick--wooded heights that looked on the banks and braes of the Doon, where the scenery wakened a flood of historical or legendary memories; where every broomy knowe and grassy hill, every coppice and rushy glen, grey lichened rock and stony corrie, were consecrated by some old song or stirring tale of love or local war--the fierce old feudal wars of the Kennedies, the Crawfords, and the grim iron Barons of Auchindrane; and, more than all, it was the birthplace, the home of Robert Bruce and of Robert Burns--the one the warrior, and the other the bard of the people. From the windows of Rohallion could be seen the very uplands, where, but a few years before, the latter had ploughed and sown, and where, as he tells us in his filial love of his native soil, when he saw "The rough burr-thistle spreading wide, Among the bearded bear; I turned the weeding-hook aside, And spared the emblem dear!" The scenery from whence he drew his inspiration looked down on the old tower of Rohallion, which contained on its first floor the stone-paved hall, that had witnessed many a bridal feast and Christmas festival, held in the rough old joyous times, when Scotland was true to herself, and ere sour Judaical Sabbatarianism came upon her, to make religion a curse and a cloak for the deepest hypocrisy; and ere her preachers sought "to merit heaven, by making earth a hell."