'This Bell Is Founded At Maiboll Bi Danel Geli, A
Frenchman, The 6th November, 1696, Bi Appointment Of The Heritors
Of The Parish Of Maiyboll.' The Castle Deserves More Notice.
It
is a large and shapely tower, plain from the ground upwards, but
with a zone of ornamentation running about the top.
In a general
way this adornment is perched on the very summit of the chimney-
stacks; but there is one corner more elaborate than the rest. A
very heavy string-course runs round the upper story, and just above
this, facing up the street, the tower carries a small oriel window,
fluted and corbelled and carved about with stone heads. It is so
ornate it has somewhat the air of a shrine. And it was, indeed,
the casket of a very precious jewel, for in the room to which it
gives light lay, for long years, the heroine of the sweet old
ballad of 'Johnnie Faa' - she who, at the call of the gipsies'
songs, 'came tripping down the stair, and all her maids before
her.' Some people say the ballad has no basis in fact, and have
written, I believe, unanswerable papers to the proof. But in the
face of all that, the very look of that high oriel window convinces
the imagination, and we enter into all the sorrows of the
imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of the long, lack-lustre
days, when she leaned her sick head against the mullions, and saw
the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and the children at
play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray.
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