Saline

Two Friends in a Garden

With pots of ale in their hands and the trees around them Souter Johnny and Tam O'Shanter sit comfortably in ample armchairs and take the air above the village of Saline. Johnny wears his cap and apron; Tam is smartly turned out in a frogged coat. These more than lifesize figures-the jovial pair of sculptured drinkers' prototypes we can meet in a grotto near the Burns Monument at Ayr-are believed to be the work of one of the Mercers, the stonemason family who built the heavily ornamented cottages with castellated gateways which are so noticeable a feature of Saline's steep street.

The statues are now at home on the lawn of the house of Kirklands. Near to them are two more statues-these a couple of men standing facing each other, one with a noose around his neck and his hair rising in horrible curves from his affrighted forehead. They are a grim couple. They stand amid the sinister shadows and fortunately so concealed from their drinking neighbours that Souter Johnny can maintain his fat and pleasant smile although he faces the couple. Tarn, who has witnessed more horrifying scenes, blandly turns his back on it.

This house of Kirklands has, however, a greater treasure than these four grotesques. Recently discovered in the deep glen of the garden is an ancient and lovely roofed well, with a semi-circle of heavy stone as a wall. When the trees that had grown over it during the centuries were cleared away, the well was found wonderfully preserved with the mark cut across the stone for the overflow still deep and sharp. The water bubbling up from a spring and filling the well is cold and sparkling. It is believed that this was the well used by the monks in the days when Kirklands was a monastery.

Saline stands on the fringe of Kinross-shire with the Cleish hills around it and commands striking views of the Ochils. From the higher parts of the village we can look across the whole of Stirlingshire to the cleft peak of Ben Lomond and we can see also the pencil streak of the Wallace Monument at Stirling. Sir Walter Scott was a frequent visitor to Saline, staying at Nether Kinneddar with the talented William Erskine, who is credited with the preface to the Bridal of Triermain and to whom Sir Walter dedicated the third canto of Marmion.

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