"Ayr" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Eyra Thing, held on the ayr of the river Nid, that is, on the spit of sand, still called an ayr in the north of Scotland, dividing a lake, pond, or river-mouth from the sea. At the Thing held here the kings of Norway were chosen and proclaimed. It was held to be the proper Thing for settling disputes ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... the pious enthusiast regulated his circuit so as annually to visit the graves of the unfortunate Covenanters, who suffered by the sword, or by the executioner, during the reigns of the two last monarchs of the Stewart line. These are most numerous in the western districts of Ayr, Galloway, and Dumfries; but they are also to be found in other parts of Scotland, wherever the fugitives had fought, or fallen, or suffered by military or civil execution. Their tombs are often apart from all human habitation, in the remote moors and wilds to which the wanderers had fled for concealment. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... whichever should first enter the Western Marches with an English army, and stand in need of such a supply. This army was also to relieve our wants, I mean those of my uncle the Earl of Pembroke, who for some time before had lain with a considerable force in the town called Ayr, near the old Caledonian Forest, and where we had hot wars with the insurgent Scots. Well, sir, it happened, as in similar cases, that Thirlwall, though a bold and active soldier, was surprised in the Castle of Douglas, about Hallowmass, by this same worthy, young James ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... recovered from his accident, while detachments of his troops penetrated as far as Perth and St. Andrews. Meanwhile the south-west rose in revolt, under Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose father had fought at Falkirk. Late in August, Edward made his way to Ayr and occupied it, while Bruce fled before him. Provisions were still scarce, and the army was weary of fighting. The Durham contingent deserted in a body,[1] and the earls were so lukewarm that Edward was fain to return by way of Carlisle, capturing Lochmaben, Bruce's Annandale stronghold, on ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... dedication of St. Mungo; the chief of these is Lanark parish church. There is a parish bearing his name in Dumfries-shire, and many holy wells are called after him; one of these is in Glasgow Cathedral, others are in the precincts of Glasgow, and at Huntly, Peebles, Ayr, Dumfries, Glengairn (Aberdeenshire), also at Currie, Penicuik and Mid-Calder, near Edinburgh. There is also St. Mungo's Isle in Loch Leven. Besides these Scottish dedications, there are seven churches ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... Lewie and the Emperor; and the scarlet Pope, and the muckle black devil himself, peering out the red mouth of hell in an ecstasy of hate and hope. "One pull more!" he seemed to cry; "one pull more, and it's done. There's only Clydesdale and the Stewartry, and the three Bailiaries of Ayr, left for God." And with such an august assistance of powers and principalities looking on at the last conflict of good and evil, it was scarce possible to spare a thought to those old, infirm, debile, ab agendo devils whose holy place they were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire of Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the Carrick side of the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cleft with shallow dells, and sown here and there with farms and tufts of wood. Inland, it loses itself, joining, I suppose, the great herd of similar hills ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of to-day contain a queer juxtaposition of nationalities, and the proportion of native colliers is becoming less and less. Thousands of Irish families from Ulster and Connaught are now settled permanently in the counties of Lanark, Stirling, and Ayr. The alien Pole, too, is to be found in the same regions uttering melodious oaths learned on the banks of the Vistula. To complete the welter, huckstering Orientals may be seen gliding about among the rows of houses, fulfilling prophecy and selling highly-coloured ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... hear my earnest cry and pray'r Against the Presbyt'ry of Ayr; Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak' it bare Upo' their heads, Lord, weigh it down, and dinna spare, For ...
— English Satires • Various
... Ayr. The bank was looted that night and robbed of thirty thousand dollars. They roused the cashier from his bed and made him give the combination. He didn't want to, and Ned Bannister"—her voice sank to a tremulous whisper—"put red-hot running-irons between his fingers till he weakened. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... poet, novelist and dramatist, son of Robert Buchanan (1813-1866), Owenite lecturer and journalist, was born at Caverswall, Staffordshire, on the 18th of August 1841. His father, a native of Ayr, after living for some years in Manchester, removed to Glasgow, where Buchanan was educated, at the high school and the university, one of his fellow-students being the poet David Gray. His essay on Gray, originally contributed to the Cornhill ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... members of the family was John Murdock, the poet Burns' first teacher. Burns went to his school at Alloway Mill, when he was six years old. There he learnt to read and write. When Murdock afterwards set up a school at Ayr, Burns, who was then fifteen, went to board with him. In a letter to a correspondent, Murdock said: "In 1773, Robert Burns came to board and lodge with me, for the purpose of revising his English grammar, that he might be better qualified to instruct his ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... collection of the laws of Scotland—a manuscript written about 1270—was detected in the public library of Berne, and lately restored to this country. In 1824, Mr. Thomson, a schoolmaster at Ayr, picked up, on an old bookstall in that town, a valuable manuscript collection of Scotch burghal laws written ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... was born at Ayr in Scotland, January 25, 1759. He was the son of a poor farmer, and he himself followed the plow in his earlier days. He was about to seek his fortune in America when his first volume of poems was published and won him fame at once. His style is simple and ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... "people dwelling alone, and not reckoned among the nations." He was not born in a district peculiarly distinguished for romantic beauty—we mean, in comparison with some other regions of Scotland. The whole course of the Ayr, as Currie remarks, is beautiful; and beautiful exceedingly the Brig of Doon, especially as it now shines through the magic of the Master's poetry. But it yields to many other parts of Scotland, some of which Burns ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... yet a plow boy he was challenged by two highly educated gentlemen, who were seated awaiting their dinner to be served at an Inn in the town of Ayr. ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... fellow had a long beard, a drooping eyelid, and a black clay pipe in his mouth. He was a Scotchman from Ayr, dour enough, and little disposed to be communicative, though I tried him with the "Twa Briggs," and, like all Scotchmen, he was a reader of "Burrns." He professed to feel no interest in the cause for which ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... issued to the landed gentry of Renfrew and Ayr, the shires where the disaffection was strongest, requiring them to give bail that their servants and tenants should not only abstain from personal attendance at conventicles, but also from all intercourse with intercommuned persons. The gentry answered that such assurance was impossible. ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... was in the navy, and at the capture of Quebec, where he assisted the sailors to drag the cannon up the heights of Abraham; m. Miss Johnstone of Straiton, co. Linlithgow; died 1814. Walter; m. Miss Wallace of Cairnhill, co. Ayr, father of the late Colonel Ferrier Hamilton of Cairnhill and Westport. Ilay, major-general in the army; m. first Miss Macqueen, niece of Lord Braxfield, second, Mrs. Cutlar of Orroland, co. Kirkcudbright. He was Governor of Dumbarton Castle, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... neighborhood of Paisley. His mother, who according to one account was Sir Malcolm's second wife, is stated by the genealogists to have been Margaret, daughter of Sir Raynald or Reginald (other authorities say Sir Hugh) Crawford, who held the office of Sheriff of Ayr. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... feeding time: Be at some distance, and behold the ensuing Sport. Your Pigeons, Rooks, Crows, &c. comeing to pick out the Corn or Worms, the Pyramidal-snare hangs on their heads, they fly straight upright, almost out of sight, and as if some Gun in the Ayr had met with them, down they come tumbling (being spent) and become ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... be polished by being plunged for a little time in dilute nitric acid, then rubbed down with sand paper or fine emery and oil, finished with "Water-Ayr" or "Snake-stone," and finally polished with putty-powder and oil. A mussel-shell treated in this manner makes a most beautiful object, coming out purple, with streaks of ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... castles galore within easy reach; and glad indeed we should have been had we been able to make the Station Hotel our headquarters for a week and devote our time to exploring. But we were already behind schedule and the afternoon found us on the road to Ayr. ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... and put up at Mackenzie's inn. Mr Keith, the collector of Excise here, my old acquaintance at Ayr, who had seen us at the fort, visited us in the evening, and engaged us to dine with him next day, promising to breakfast with us, and take us to the English chapel; so that we were ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... himself the education of his lads and lassies, whom he treated as if they were men and women, conversing with them on serious topics as they accompanied him in his labors on the farm, and borrowing for their edification, from a Book Society in Ayr, solid works like Derham's 'Physico- and Astro-Theology' and Ray's 'Wisdom of God in the Creation.' This course of heavy reading was lightened by the 'History of Sir William Wallace,' which was loaned to Robert by a blacksmith named Kilpatrick, and which forced a hot flood ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... told me of a celebrated circuit where Lord Hermand was judge, and Clephane depute-advocate. The party got drunk at Ayr, and so continued (although quite able for their work) till the business was concluded at Jedburgh. Some years after, my informant heard that this circuit had, at Jedburgh, acquired the permanent name of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Boroughstoness. He was next employed in a like capacity by Mr. Beaumont, the mineral-manager of the collieries of Mrs. Cunningham of Lainshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshire; after which he was appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subsequently at the Govan Coal Works near Glasgow, where he remained until his death. It was while working at the Irvine Works that he first became acquainted with his future wife, Marion Smith, the daughter of a Renfrewshire bleacher, a woman remarkable through life for her clever, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... in Scotland for the care and confinement of lunatics, brought in by Lord Binning and Mr. Brogden, was read the first time. A few days after, a petition of the noblemen, gentlemen, freeholders, justices for the peace, Commissioners of Supply, and other heritors of the county of Ayr was presented against it, setting forth that the petitioners, "from the first moment that they were made acquainted with the principle and provisions of the proposed Bill, were deeply alarmed for their own interests and those of Scotland in general, ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... enemies, that he entirely forgot the services and disregarded the feelings of his old friends. The three chiefs of the Club, rebels and Puritans as they were, had become his favourites. Annandale was to be a Marquess, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, and Lord High Commissioner. Montgomery was to be Earl of Ayr and Secretary of State. Ross was to be an Earl and to command the guards. An unprincipled lawyer named James Stewart, who had been deeply concerned in Argyle's insurrection, who had changed sides and supported the dispensing power, who had then changed sides a second time and concurred in the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I go musing all alone, Thinking of divers things foreknown, When I build castles in the ayr, Void of sorrow and void of feare, Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet, Me thinks the time runs very fleet. All my joyes to this are folly, Naught so sweet ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... My woonds too gently, dally with my dowbts And flutter my trewe feares: the even was calme, The skye untrobled, and the soon went downe Without disturbance in a temperate ayr. No, not the least conjecture coold be made Of such a suddeine storme, of which the woorld Till after midnight was not sensible. His hower was supper, and ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... and William M'Steen in Dunskeith (co. Ross), 1605. Stevenson, Steenson, Macstophane, M'Steen: which is the original? which the translation? Or were these separate creations of the patronymic, some English, some Gaelic? The curiously compact territory in which we find them seated—Ayr, Lanark, Peebles, Stirling, Perth, Fife, and the Lothians—would seem to ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dame, that, for his want of spirit, it might choke him. That effect, however, was more likely to be produced by the beef got in the regular Border way; for the laws were beginning now to be more vigorously executed, and many a riever was astonished and offended by the proceedings of the Justice-Ayr at Jedburgh, where they were actually going the length of hanging for the crime of conveying cattle from one property ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... came not in till late, on plea of businesse. My lord tolde him the king had visitted him not long agone, and was soe well content with his manor as to wish it were his owne, for the singular fine ayr and pleasant growth of wood. In fine, wound up y^e evening with musick. My lady hath a pair of fine toned clavichords, and a mandoline that stands five feet high; the largest in England, except that of the Lady Mary Dudley. The sound, indeed, is powerfull, but methinketh ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... the countess could reply, a messenger entered with news from Ayr. Eighteen Scottish chiefs had been treacherously put to death, and others were imprisoned and awaiting execution. Wallace and his men marched straight to the castle of Ayr, surprised it while the English lords were feasting within, and set it afire. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... whom he printed a treatise entitled Metaphysicae Synopsis, a duodecimo of ninety pages, and a work on Moral Philosophy of three hundred and thirty pages. He also printed in the same year the second and third editions of a sermon preached by William Leechman before the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and editions of Cicero and Phaedrus. All these were in duodecimo or small octavo, printed in a clear readable type, that probably came from Urie's foundry. On the 31st March ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... because you are young and know no better. Look, away over yonder, as far as your eyes can see, is the sea. If it was a little clearer you would see the ships in Ayr Harbour; and down there lies Tarbolton; away over there, the way we have come, Kilmarnock. And do you see that little wooded hill about two miles ahead to the left? Among these ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... at the idea of a bird doing any service in such a cause; and, maybe, might have laughed yet, had not a carrier-pigeon, despatched by Capt. Sir John Ross, from his winter quarters in 1850, actually reached its home, near Ayr, in Scotland, in five days. In our expedition none of these birds had been taken; but on board the "Felix" Sir John Ross had a couple of brace. I plead guilty, myself, to having joined in the laugh at the poor creatures, when, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... was yet in England, an arrangement was made for a public discussion between me and Colonel Michael Shaw, of Bourtree Park, Ayr. Colonel Shaw was a kind of lay minister, who preached the Gospel gratuitously, and spent his time and property in doing good. He was a Christian and a gentleman out and out; a Christian and a gentleman of the highest order. Five such men might have saved Sodom and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery and causes a woeful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much of our way lay along a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... examples of the second tendency are too numerous to require mention. Examples of ecclesiastical names are Laurencekirk and Kirkcudbright, and the growth of commerce receives the witness of such names as Turnberry, on the coast of Ayr, dating from the thirteenth century, and ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... for Iamblichus, see essay on 'Ancient Spiritualism'. As to Welsh, the evidence for the light in which he shone is printed in Dr. Hill Burton's Scot Abroad (i. 289), from a Wodrow MS. in Glasgow University. Mr. Welsh was minister of Ayr. He was meditating in his garden late at night. One of his friends 'chanced to open a window towards the place where he walked, and saw clearly a strange light surround him, and heard him speak strange words about his spiritual joy'. Hill Burton thinks that this verges on the ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... infinitely fair, witty, and deserving, but to what Vast degrees in all, they can only Judge who liv'd to Gaze and Listen; for besides Madam, all the Charms and attractions and powers of your Sex, you have Beauties peculiar to your self, an eternal sweetness, youth and ayr, which never dwelt in any face but yours, of which not one unimitable Grace could be ever borrow'd, or assumed, though with never so much industry, to adorn another, they cannot steal a look or smile from you to inhance their own beauties price, but all the world will know it yours; so ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... he stayed not long; but there he reaped a harvest of converts, which subsisted long after his departure, and were a part of Mr. Samuel Rutherford's flock, though not his parish, while he was minister at Anwoth. Yet when his call to Ayr came to him, the people of the parish of Kirkcudbright never offered to detain him, so his transportation to ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie |
