All these things were normal, and the participants seldom ended their shillelah practice within the walls of "MacJannet's Hotel"--MacJannet being the name of the chief gaoler of the town prison.
"The Castle" itself was a tall old hump of a building set in a courtyard with high-spiked walls. It had once been a town house of the reigning family of the Kennedys of Cassillis. They used to spend some time there by the waterside during the summer after the long winter months at Maybole, and, indeed, their doing so counted for much in the early history of the compact little town at the head of the loch.
The lower part of the "Castle" had been fitted up as a guard-room, and here, at all hours of the day, were to be found groups of soldiers, making the time pass in various games of chance and skill, from plain odd-and-even to _bouchon_ learned from certain captive Frenchmen who were permitted to mingle with them under no very strict supervision. The square tower of the original Cassillis house had been cut down and roofed in, which gave it a very uneven and squat appearance, and all about the walls little sheds had been erected, to shelter this detachment and that on its way through to Ireland. Some of these were as old as Claverhouse and his King's Life Guards in the bad days of the covenant. But, one and all, they were insufficient, out of repair, drippy, smelling of stale bad tobacco and wet wood ashes.
Tony MacJannet, chief keeper of the prison of Stranryan, installed Stair Garland on the second story, immediately over the gate where the guard was on duty. Stair had no view to the front, but two small windows looked out on the courtyard, from which, through thick bars, he could see the comings and goings of the French prisoners, and even watch the ebb and flow of the games. Stair's chamber was spacious--the largest and best in the gaol, but the roof had not been plastered, and he could see the light through the slates, though some attempt had been made at scantling, and even in one corner a quantity of plasterers' laths had been piled. But there the matter had rested and was likely to rest.
As usual, the Town Council objected to spending money. The Government sent down every year lists of "immediate requirements," which the council as promptly filed owing to the lack of any accompanying draft. To spend good siller "oot o' the Common Guid" and then look to a far-off Government to reimburse them, was an affair in which the shrewd burgesses of Stranryan very naturally declined to engage.