witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but
the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative
faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of
rule and reason to the contrary. Possibly, some carnal minister, some
priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the
consecration of the holy edifice by his pretence of prayer, and thus
made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils.

The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent
a purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for
it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone-masonry, and each
compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on
one of the monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is
impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be,
had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs
to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they
sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from
our own precincts, too,--from that inalienable possession which Burns
bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth
and annexing it to the domain of imagination. And here these wretched
squatters have lain down to their long sleep, after barring each of
the two doorways of the kirk with an iron grate! May their rest be
troubled, till they rise and let us in!

Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it
fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside
of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more
than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few
windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with
mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the