Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/415

 KILBIRNIE CASTLE 395 THIRD PERIOD The modern part of the edifice, we learn from the Statistical Account, was built by John Crawfurd of Kilbirnie about 1 627, and its style quite corresponds with that date. Exactly 1 30 years afterwards, " on a calm Sunday morning, on the 1st of May, when the family were unconscious of danger, one of the .servants, in going to the stables, observed smoke issuing from the roof, and gave the alarm. The Earl came down instantly, and seeing the reality of the danger, ran to the garrets, and on opening the door the flames burst forth with tremendous fury, and spread rapidly over the whole attic story." He had just time to save his sleeping infant daughter, Jean (afterwards to become Countess of Eglintoun), and, fol- lowed by the whole members of his family, to rush from his blazing home. The house was never repaired, but it is a pity that it should be allowed to crumble gradually to ruin, when a small outlay would save it for a long time to come. RUTHVEN CASTLE, OR HUNTINGTOWER, PERTHSHIRE. Situated on the crest of a high bank above the river Almond, about two miles from Perth, this castle is famous as the scene of the " Raid of FIG. 341. Ruthven Castle, Plan. Ruthven." It consisted originally of a single keep of three stories (Fig. 340), built in the fifteenth century, now the eastern portion of the