 Scottish family above
the lower rank; and strange things sometimes took place there, into which even
the law did not scrupulously inquire.
    The credulous Mr. Law says, generally, that the Lord President Stair had a
daughter, who »being married, the night she was bride in (that is, bedded
bride), was taken from her bridegroom and harled (dragged) through the house (by
spirits we are given to understand), and soon afterwards died. Another
daughter,« he says, »was possessed by an evil spirit.«
    My friend, Mr. Sharpe, gives another edition of the tale. According to his
information, it was the bridegroom who wounded the bride. The marriage,
according to this account, had been against her mother's inclination, who had
given her consent in these ominous words: »You may marry him, but soon shall you
repent it.«
    I find still another account darkly insinuated in some highly scurrilous and
abusive verses, of which I have an original copy. They are docketed as being
written »Upon the late Viscount Stair and his family, by Sir William Hamilton of
Whitelaw. The marginals by William Dunlop, writer in Edinburgh, a son of the
Laird of Househill, and nephew to the said Sir William Hamilton.« There was a
bitter and personal quarrel and rivalry betwixt the author of this libel, a name
which it richly deserves, and Lord President Stair; and the lampoon, which is
written with much more malice than art, bears the following motto: -
 
Stair's neck, mind, wife, sons, grandson, and the rest,
Are wry, false, witch, pests, parricide, possessed.
 
This malignant satirist, who calls up all the misfortunes of the family, does
not forget the fatal bridal of Baldoon. He seems, though his verses are as
obscure as unpoetical, to intimate, that the violence done to the bridegroom was
by the intervention of the foul fiend, to whom the young lady had resigned
herself, in case she should break her contract with her first lover. His
hypothesis is inconsistent with the account given in the note upon Law's
Memorials, but easily reconcilable to the family tradition.
 
In al Stair's offspring we no difference know,
They doe the females as the males bestow;
So he of's daughter's marriage gave the ward,
Like a true vassal, to Glenluce's Laird;
He knew what she did to her suitor plight,
If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight,
Which, like his own, for greed he broke
