“But although our annalist refers both to Major and Blair, it is the latter only who mentions either the design of the visit paid to the west of Scotland, or the persons who are said to have been associates in it. The whole of Sir David’s reasoning rests on the correctness of a date, and of one given _only_ in the meagre remains ascribed to Arnold Blair. If his date be accurate, the transaction at Ayr, whatever it was, must have taken place thirty-seven days afterwards. Had the learned writer exercised his usual acumen here--had he not been resolved to throw discredit on this part of the history of Wallace--it would have been most natural for him to have supposed, that this event was post-dated by Blair. It seems, indeed, to have been long before the battle of Falkirk. Blind Harry narrates the former in his Seventh, the latter in his Eleventh Book. Sir David himself, after pushing the argument from the date given by Blair as far as possible, virtually gives it up, and makes the acknowledgment which he ought to have made before. ‘I believe,’ he says, ‘that this story _took its rise_ from the pillaging of the English quarters, about the time of the treaty of Irvine, in 1297, which, as being an incident of little consequence, I omitted in the course of this history.’ Here he refers to Hemingford, T. I. p. 123.
“Hemingford says, that ‘many of the Scots and men of Galloway had, in a hostile manner, made prey of their stores, having slain more than five hundred men, with women and children.’ Whether he means to say that this took place at Ayr, or at Irvine, seems doubtful. But here, I think, we have the nucleus of the story. The _barns_, according to the diction of Blind Harry, seem to have been merely ‘the English quarters,’ erected by order of Edward for the accommodation of his troops. Although denominated _barns_ by the Minstrel, and _horreas_ by Arnold Blair, both writers seem to have used these terms with great latitude, as equivalent to what are now called _barracks_. It is rather surprising, that our learned annalist should view the loss of upwards of five hundred men, besides women and children, with that of their property, ‘as an incident of little consequence,’ in a great national struggle.