Crossword-Solution: KIRKTON 7 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 15

The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their bodies were dismembered and distributed to different parts of the country; ‘the heads of Major M‘Culloch and the two Gordons,’ it was resolved, says Kirkton, ‘should be pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; the two Hamiltons and Strong’s head should be affixed at Hamilton, and Captain Arnot’s sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh.

One strange story have we of these times of blood and persecution: Kirkton the historian and popular tradition tell us alike of a flame which often would arise from the grave, in a moss near Carnwath, of some of those poor rebels: of how it crept along the ground; of how it covered the house of their murderer; and of how it scared him with its lurid glare.

And aye an’ while we nearer draw To whaur the kirkton lies alaw, Mair neebours, comin’ saft an’ slaw Frae here an’ there, The thicker thrang the gate an’ caw The stour in air.

When a poor barefooted boy, he walked six or eight miles across the moors daily to learn reading at the little village schoolhouse of Kirkton; and this was all the education he received; the rest he acquired for himself.

The ship found its way - intentionally on the part of the crew, or forced by a great storm - to the sheltered bay of Kirkton of Raasay, opposite the present mansion house, where young MacGillechallum at the time resided.