auld ayrshire of robert burns

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The

AULD AYRSHIREOFROBERT BURNSBy

T.' F. HENDERSONAuthor of ^^ The Casket Letters and Mary Queen of Scots,

History of Scottish Vernacular Literature Lifeof Mary Queen of Scots ; Co-Editor along withW, E, Henley of The Centenary Burns

etc, etc.^

PHILADELPHIAGEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.

Publishers


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Giftif . HUTCHESON.


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CHAPTER CONTENTS

I. The Sphere op Burns as Poet Page 1II. Ayr and Alloway .... 24

III. At Mount Oliphant .... 51IV. LOCHLEA AND TARBOLTON, ETC. . . 73

V. MOSSGIEL, MAUCHLINE, AND KIL-MARNOCK 108

INDEX 142


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ILLUSTRATIONSSpecially Paintedfor The Auld Ayrshire of Robert Bums

by Monro S. Orr, the Glasgoio Artist

The Cottage at Alloway, where Burns wasborn Frontispiece

AGEThe Tarn o' Shanter Inn, Ayr ... 16The Auld Brig, Ayr 32Alloway's Auld Haunted Kirk ... 48Moiuit Oliphant 64

The Auld Brig o' Doon 80The Old Masonic Lodge at Tarbolton . . 96Mary Morison's House, Mauchline . . 112Nanse Tinnock's 128Poosie Nansie's at Mauchline.... 136


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THE AULD AYRSHIEEOF EGBERT BURNSTHE SPHERE OF BUBNS AS POET

It is now nearing one hundred and fiftyyears, since, on a stormy 25th of January,two obscure Scottish peasants, in their frailclay-built cottage at Alloway in Ayrshire,were made happy by the birth of theirfirst childa son whose name was to befamous and wonderful, as that of the chiefpoet of his native land, and one of themost remarkable bards of all time. As re-gards its parentage genius is of course in-dependent of rank or station ; it is a giftof nature and not of circumstances, and thecomplex laws of heredity that determineits production are beyond our ken; butin how many instances has genius, fromlack of scope and opportunity, remainedhidden and ' inglorious ' A peasant's cir-cumstances and occupation can hardly be


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THE AULD AYRSHIREdeemed favourable for its culture. Hiswants are simple, his daily tasks onlyfaintly exercise his intellect, and theirmonotonous round tends to dull his im-agination and deaden his aspirations.The rude clay cottage of an obscurecountry clachan, was, thus, a most un-likely place for the birth of a poet soworld-famed as Burns ; and it was un-likely to the verge of incredibility thatpoetic achievements of such merit shouldbe accomplished by one who was still atoiling peasant. Of course, with the im-pediments which he shared in commonwith peasants in general, he possessedcertain advantages in being a Scottishpeasant; and he was also the son of an ex-ceptionally intelligent father; but, makingallowance for special favouring influences,there is in his triumph a certain unique-ness that awakens in a peculiar mannerboth our sympathy and our wonder. How-ever we may account for that triumph,it must be held to betoken an immensenative endowment, a quite exceptionalirrepressibility.In endeavouring to realise the actual sit-uation and circumstances of Burns, we

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OF ROBERT BURNSare met of course, at the outset, by thedifficulty that the Ayrshire into which hewas born was an Ayrshire which had notcome under the spell of his enchantment.Several generations of Scots have nowbeen nurtured on his poems and songs ; thesubtle influences of his remarkable geniushave been partly absorbed into the na-tion's life, and have assisted to broadenthe peasant's thoughts and to sweeten andcivilise his social sentiments. The Ayrshireof a hundred and fifty years ago was anAyrshire which had not yet experiencedthe thrill of joining in that great anthemof good fellowship, ' Auld Lang Syne ;whose ideas of manly independence hadnot found expression and ratification inthe boldly truculent, ' A man's a man fora' that;' which had not been subjectedto the wholesome castigation of suchmirth-provoking, yet penetrating, satiresas 'The Holy Fair,' and 'Holy Willie'sPrayer ;' and which was still unblessed bythe quickening effects of the many-sidedsympathy, which is the pervading elementof most of the Bard of Coila's verse.We must therefore begin by admittingthat the ascendancy of Burns over subse-3


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THE AULD AYRSHIREquent generations increases our difficultyin understanding the exact character ofhis circumstances and surroundingsthisapart from the processes of change, whichare the inevitable consequence of the lapseof time. Yet it is possible to exaggeratethe dimensions of the gulf that separateshis generation from ours ; for after all,marvellous genius though he was, he was,in a sense, the ripe fruit of the precedinggenerations; and his success would neitherhave been so immediate and considerableas it was, nor so abiding as it has been,had the general tone and sentiment ofhis verse not been in harmony with thegeneral tendency of the nation's aspira-tion, and the influences that were further-ing its intellectual and social progress.The age of Burns was an age of advance-ment towards more enlightened liberty,intellectually, ecclesiastically, socially, andpolitically; and his poetry voiced the spiritof that advancement. The Kirk still con-tinued to exercise an authority over thepeople which appealed rather to theirsuperstition than their intelligenceanauthority which, in the case of most,would now be deemed intolerably tyran-

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OF ROBERT BURNSnical; but there was already, amongst bothclergy and people, a widespread sentimentof revolt against the more rigid and vio-lent tenets of the old Puritanic creed. Itis this sentiment of revolt which, directlyor indirectly, animates much of the verseof Burns : to this it owed both some ofits most peculiar moral merits and itsoccasional moral defects, and much ofits immediate vogue. It was largely anassertion of the claims of what may betermed the secular side of human natureto fair consideration: a protest againstthe ancient assumption of the essentialcursedness of the present world, and thatrigidly serious conception of human con-duct, which instead of seeking to distin-guish between the use and abuse of thearts that minister to enjoyment, tendedto place mere recreation and amusementunder a kind of ban. For combating thisancient ecclesiastical moroseness, humourwas perhaps the most effective weapon,and seldom has humour been employedmore effectively than in the ecclesiasticalsatires of Burns.When Burns appeared upon the scene, thereaction had already begun to set in. The5


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THE AULD AYRSHIREexcessively repressive character of theKirk's enactments was bound in the endto create it ; but towards its creation theKirk had also directly assisted by cultivat-ing so sedulously, though within some-what narrow limits, the intelligence ofthe people. Whatever the mistakes andfaults of its policy, it is undeniable thatit had at heart what it deemed the people'sbest welfare. If its aims in regard to theirenlightenment w^ere narrow, its purposewas at least earnest and sincere. It hada system of parochial education, whichnotwithstanding great variations in itspractical efficiency, was, on the whole,perhaps in advance of that in any othercountry of Europe; and this secular edu-cation was supplemented by a systematicdoctrinal training and instruction fromwhich no one was permitted to be exemptuntil deemed fit to become a communicantof the Kirk. On every adult of the parishattendance had also, until lately, beenobligatory at the parish kirk. There theparishioners listened to long doctrinal andhortatory harangues, which, preposterousand extravagantthough in certainrespectsthey might be, appealed, in a manner, to


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OF ROBERT BURNStheir understanding and conscience, aswell as to their terrors and superstitions.On the whole those addresses tended topromote thought and reflection, and oncethought and reflection are provoked, it isdifiicult to assign a limit to their action.So much for the causes of the reactioncreated directly or indirectly by the policyof the Kirk. Co-operating therewith werea variety of outside influences, which weregradually emancipating both clergy andpeople from the narrow and more ped-antic notions of the previous centuries.The new era of invention and industrialprogress had begun to show signs of itsarrival, and widening commercial inter-course was assisting to introduce morepractical and common-sense notions re-garding duty and conduct. New ideas asto human liberty had also begun to dawnupon the world, and it was becomingmore and more difficult to interfere withthe right of private judgment. Moreover,the splendid literature of England hadbegun to cast its spell over the Scottishintellect. The old hide-bound ecclesiasticalliterature was now threatened with for-midable rivalry, and the period of the7


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THE AULD AYRSHIREnation's obsession by it was drawing to aclose.Finally, the Kirk's domination, despoticand absolute as it might seem to be, had,as regards the bulk of the people, beenalways, perhaps, more ostensible thanreal. In its palmiest days the Kirk hadnever quite conquered the heart of thenation. The causes of its peculiar ascend-ancy were largely fortuitous. It was it-self the product of a reaction, and its aimswere too inflexible, too one-sided, too aus-tere to commend them to the nation's per-manentacceptance. Asregards the general-ity of the people, it never really subduedthe old immemorial superstitions ; andamongst the bulk of them ancient paganideas and sentiments, which had sur-vived during the Catholic ages, were stillleft unmastered by Christianity ' Natureand Nature's laws' work out their endsonly by slow and gradual processes, and ifrashly and violently interfered with, arecertain, sooner or later, to manifest resent-ment. Even among many of the moredevout, the natural healthy instincts forrecreation demanded a fuller outlet thanwas consistent with the strictness of Puri-8


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OF ROBERT BURNStan gravity ; and the need of diversion, ifinterfered with in one direction was cer-tain to assert itself in another. Whileexercising a certain influence over theconduct and habits of the community, theKirk's control suffered from narrownessof outlook and insufficient enlightenment.It left largely out of account a whole worldof sentiment and emotionthe sentimentand emotion which is the outcome ofgeneral social intercourse, of the variedpractical experiences of life, and of con-tact with the sights and sounds of externalnature.Under the auspices of the Kirk, the noblesuccession of the old Scottish poets hadcome suddenly to a close. All secularverseall verse that did not echo in someform the doctrines of Protestant theology,that was not stamped with the Kirk'simage and superscriptioncame undertaboo; the old popular songs had been,in a manner, and for a time, supersededby devout parodies of them, entitled ' TheGude and Godly Ballats ' ; prose literatureconcerned itself only with theological andecclesiastical themes ; and Scotland ceasedto have a native literature worthy of the


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THE AULD AYRSHIREname; but the predilection for the oldballads and songs was not eliminated fromthe hearts of the people ; and though, forsome generations, none of them were cir-culated in print, many of them were pre-served in rude traditional forms. Sometime before the arrival of Burns the Puri-tan rigour in regard to the old nativeliterature had become relaxed ; and withthe increasing appreciation of the literarture of England a revived interest in theold vernacular verse had been awakenedthrough the exertions of Allan Ramsayand others.Various circumstances had thus createdfor Burns his peculiar opportunity. Hadhe been born a few centuries earlier, hewould not have had the same sphere forthe exercise of his special genius, and nosuch sufficient incentive to exercise it.Even could he have obtained circulationfor his verse, the nation would not havebeen in the same mood to welcome it asit was towards the close of the eighteenthcentury. Great, also, as was the nativevigour of his genius, his poetry was, neces-sarily, influenced by the special circum-stances of his own time ; and but for the10


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OF ROBERT BURNSold poetic tradition to which he fell heir,it would, also, have lacked some of itsmost characteristic qualities, and couldhardly have appealed, with quite thesame effect, to the heart of the Scottishnation.For the attainment of his illustrious posi-tion as the national poet of Scotland,Burnswas also greatly indebted to his peasantcircumstances circumstances which, inthe case of one less remarkably doweredthan he, might have been actually dis-qualifying. As it was, his peasanthood en-dowed him with qualifications for hisspecial role which were possessed neitherby Ramsay nor Fergusson, even had theyapproached him in genius. Exceptionallygifted though he was, he shared thepeasant's appreciation of the simple, in-genuous sentiments of the old ballads andsongs. Through his peasant's heart the oldScottish poetic traditions made a moredirect appeal to him than otherwise theywould have done ; and though his acquaint-ance with the classic models of Englandgreatly benefited his poetic taste, andmade him a much more intelligent, re-fined and accomplished artist than he11


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THE AULD AYRSHIREotherwise could have been, it was mainlyby the delineation of his own peasantcircumstances and experiences that he en-abled his countrymen and the world torecognise

' the boundless storeOf charms that nature to her votaries

yields.'Elxcept when he occasionallyand mis-takenlyessayed English verse, Burns at-tempted no direct, deliberate studies ofthe aspects and features of nature, andessayed no detailed poetic landscapes. Herecognised that, as he himself expressedit, he could not

'showTo paint with Thomson's landscape

glow.'The allusions to scenery and to the moodsand aspects of nature in his verse are forthe most part incidental. They help togive it colour and vitality, or to illustrateand vivify his passing thoughts and senti-ments ; and they are introduced seeminglywithout effort and almost casually. Byvirtue of his constant familiarity withnature, they occurred to him as spontane-ously as they would to any other peasant,12


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OF ROBERT BURNSalthough, of course, the instinctive art ofthe genius and poet is manifest in themanner of their introduction and in thevivid picturesqueness of their use. Apeasant's as well as a poet's keen sym-pathetic appreciation of nature is ex-pressed in the following stanza of his' Epistle to William Simson '

' O Nature a' thy shows and formsTo feeling, pensive hearts hae charms,Whether the summer kindly warms

Wi' life and lightOr winter howls in gusty storms

The lang, dark night.'Great as was the poetic susceptibility ofBurns, and admirable as was his gift ofterse expression, his incidental allusions tonature and animal life owe much of theirvivid reality, and some of their most felici-tous and characteristic touches, to the factthat he was a peasant. 'In order to pro-duce a picturesque effect in poetry'wroteScott, in reply to the suggestion of WarrenHastings that he should make ' the gallantNelson ' the subject of a lay ' a very inti-mate knowledge of the subject describedis an essential requisite.' Had he soughtfor an illustration of this theory he could

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THE AULD AYRSHIREhave found none more apt than the poetryof Burns, whichespecially his vernacularverseis unsurpassed for vivid pictur-esqueness, picturesqueness derived fromknowledge so thorough and detailed that,with genius to inspire him, it suppliedhim with material for his effects almostspontaneously. How minutely and admir-ably observed, and how exquisitely pictur-esque the description of the idiosyncrasiesand diversions of Caesar and Luath in theintroduction to the confabulation of ' TheTwa Dogs ' How redolent of peasant as-sociations the flow of half-melancholy,half-humorous reminiscences in 'PoorMailie's Elegy' And what a wealth ofpeasant experience, knowledge and sym-pathy are enshrined in every verse ofthat, after its own fashion, quite match-less ' Address of the Auld Farmer to hisAuld Mare Maggie ' Compared with themasterly touches of Burns' portrait ofthe auld farmer and his mare, Tennyson'switty sketch of the 'Northern Farmer'seems perfunctory and superficial. For theaccomplishment of the one portrait geniuswas aided by the peculiar knowledge, sym-pathy and appreciation of the peasant's14


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OF ROBERT BURNSson ; the other, with all its cleverness, isonly half true. It is mainly ironic, andthis because it is informed by imperfectknowledge and sympathythe knowledgeand sympathy of one who, with all hisacute poetic instinct, was, in this case,mainly an outside observer of certainclass peculiarities. 'The Northern Farmer'is, in truth, little more than a poetical jeudesprit, and hardly ranks in estimatingthe character of Tennyson's genius. ' TheAuld Farmer,' on the other hand, hasmore than plausible claims to rank as themasterpiece of Burns,notwithstanding thebrilliancy of such achievements as 'TheJolly Beggars' and 'Tam o' Shanter.' Ittouches himself more nearly than theydo, it expresses his peasant heart in amanner that they necessarily do not do,it sounds a deeper note, and its humouris of a finer kind, because it is in closerassociation with

' the true pathos and sublimeOf human life.'

But it is not merely in set piecesas inthose now mentioned and several othersthat might be quoteddealing with spe-cific peasant themes, that Burns reveals

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THE AULD AYRSHIREthe peculiarly intimate knowledge of na-ture possessed by the discerning peasantthis knowledge is manifested continuallyin the character of his incidental allusions,in his vivid epithets and phrases, and oc-casionally, in short descriptions, whichseem to suggest themselves to him spon-taneously and almost irresistibly. It ishardly necessary to mention the exquisitestanza on the rocky woodland stream in' Halloween.' Here we have a poetic pic-ture, with every detail of which the poethad been lovingly familiar, perhaps earlierthan he could remember

' Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,As thro' the glen it wimpl't ;Whyles round a rocky scaur it straysWhyles in a wiel it dimpl't

Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,Wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle

Whyles cookit underneath the braes,Below the spreading hazel,

Unseen that night.'Much less elaborate in detail, but quite asvivid in effect, and because it has to dowith sentient life, appealing less to ourfancy and more to our human sentiments,is the following winter scene

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THE AULD AYRSHIRE' Listening the doors an' winnocks rattle,I thought me on the ourie cattle,Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle

O' winter war,And thro' the drift, deep-lairing sprattleBeneath a scaur,'

An even still more expressively emotionalnote is struck in the following stanza,where the gloomy signs of the oncomingof a stormy night are made to symbolisethe dark forebodings of the poet at theprospect of being compelled to leave hisnative land

' The gloomy night is gath'ring fast.Loud roars the wild inconstant blastYon murky cloud is filled with rain,I see it driving o'er the plain ;The hunter now has left the moor,The scattered coveys meet secureWhile here I wander, prest with careAlong the lonely banks of Ayr.'

But all the three stanzas have this incommon they breathe the deep sym-pathetic interest in the scenes of nature,to be acquired only by constant com-munion with it. These pictures, paintedby the vivid art of genius, had alreadyunconsciously impressed themselves upon

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OF ROBERT BURNSthe poet's mental retina in the course ofhis everyday experiences. Every strokeexpressed what he fully knew and felt,and the whole impression indicates a just-ness and completeness of appreciationthat is beyond criticism.But it is as much in lines and phrasesand epithets, as in stanzas or set poems,that the intimate peasant knowledge ofBurns reveals itself. Here are a few ex-amples of its incidental use to add lifeand picturesqueness to his narrative, orto supply him with an apt comparison'The hares were hirplin' down the furs'[in the early morning] ; * The thresher'sweary flingin'-tree ' ; ' An' heard the rest-less rattons squeak about the riggin' ' ; 'Aratton rattled up the wa' ' ; ' When lyartleaves bestrew the yird'; 'When windsrave thro' the naked tree' ; 'And partricksscraichin' loud at e'en ' ; ' Ye curlews call-ing through a cloud, ye whistling plover';'The kye stood rowtan i' the loan'; *Ye[the deil] like a rash buss stood in sight,wi' weaving sough ' ; ' Awa ye squatteredlike a drake on whistling wings,' etc.The truth is that the peasanthood ofBurns enters into the very fibre of his19


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THE AULD AYRSHIREverse, into its every tone and manner. Itis this which communicates to it its speci-ally piquant charm, as compared with theverse of such nature poets as those of thehighly accomplished and semi-philosophi-cal lake school, where nature and sim-plicity assume the form of a cult. Lesssubtle, less idealistic, ruder, more homely,more plain-spoken than they, he is at thesame time more picturesque, much morebroadly humorous, truer, stronger, moregraphic and realistic. He indulges little inmeditative musings, or exalted raptures,or when he does, the virtue goes out ofhim; he mainly utters with passionate,sincerity, or humorous mirth, his peasantobservations, thoughts and emotions, andrelates with vivid fidelity what as a pea-sant he has seen and experienced, andtherefore thoroughly knows. To knowpeasant life as he knew it, and to describeit as he has described it, implied, of course,that he was quite an exceptional peasant.He had a very special poetic training, hepossessed considerable book-lore, he wasgifted with a quite marvellous insightinto men and things, and with a poeticgenius and skill which are the possession

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OF ROBERT BURNSof only the elect of the human race ; butwith all he was by birth, descent and cir-cumstances, at heart a peasant, and heexpressed himself with most significance,and in the highest terms of his art, whenhe expressed himself so to speak inpeasant terms.Nor except when, following the adviceof certain learned mentors, he intermit-tently essayed to imitate the methods ofthe classic English poetsand his modelshere were too frequently the pompouslyfrigid and modishly artificial versifiers ofthe eighteenth centurydid he seek togo outside his own experience for a sub-ject. He attempts no ideal or mysticalromances. He in fact avoids almost everykind of idealism, and his references evento history are little more than incidental,if we except the rapturous 'Scots whahae.' His standpoint is mainly that ofthe shrewd, observant, warm-hearted andpassionate peasant. His theme is virtuallythe peasant Ayrshire within the limits ofhis personal experience ; the life he depictsis that of its rough and homely farms,and its poor and squalid villages; thosewhose adventures he relates, whom he21


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THE AULD AYRSHIREaddresses, or eulogises or satirises beingthose whom he knew, were few of themknown beyond the bounds of Ayrshire,while the majority were of very humblestation, and some of them of by no meansreputable life and conversation ; the inci-dents he celebrates are founded on whathe himself has experienced or observed,or on traditions of his native district;most of his love lyrics have a distinctlyrustic setting; and in general it may beaffirmed that while his genius is stampedwith a universality which makes an ap-peal to every rank and station, and se-cures for it appreciation in every countryand clime where white men congregate,its universal appeal is due to the fact thathe has represented with adequate depthand fidelity the microcosm within his ownken. His experiences were as varied andcomplete as his peasant sphere permittedthem to be ; the good and the bad, and allthe varied idiosyncrasies of human naturewithin his own sphere were to him anopen book ; and his merit lies in the vivid-ness, picturesqueness and truth withwhich he has depicted life as he lived andknew it in his native Coila. Coila was the

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OF ROBERT BURNSMuse to which he professed to owe hisinspiration : she it was who taught him

' Manners-painting strains,The loves, the ways of simple swains.'And it was Coila which he more particu-larly aspired to celebrate in his verse :

' Auld Coila, now, may fidge fu' fain,She's gotten bardies o' her ainChiels wha their chanters winna hain,

But tune their lays,Till echoes a' resound again

Her weel-sung praise.'


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II

AYR AND ALLOWAYThe chief charm of Kyle or Coila, thecentral district of Ayrshire, is its woodedhollows and its rocky streams. In theuplands the view is extensive in all direc-tions, but possesses no striking featuresexcept towards the sea with the pic-turesque Arran mountains. The easternportion consists mainly of bleak and baremoorland country rising into stretchesof rounded hills of no great altitudeand the cultivated lower ground thoughpleasantly undulating is lacking in varietyand interest but for the fringes of woodalong the banks of the rivers and streams.It is a typical agricultural country of theless romantic districts of western lowlandScotland ; and with the general absence offences and enclosures, the larger propor-tion of boggy and uncultivated land, andthe generally mean and tawdry characterof the farm buildings, the country in thetime of Burns must have presented a

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THE AULD AYRSHIREmore uninviting appearance than it doesnow. But every country has its ownpeculiar attractions for those born andbred in it; for them it has a secret fas-cination which no stranger is able pro-perly to appraise ; its presence is associ-ated with much that is dearest to themin life; even when it ceases to be thetheatre of their daily experiences it con-tinues to haunt their dreams, and toassert itself as the life companion of theirsouls. It is with enthusiastic appreciationthat Burns refers to

' Auld Coila's plains an' fells,Her moors red-brown with heather

bells,Her banks and braes, her dens and

dells.'And while his fancy was chiefly capti-vated by its woods and haughs, and itsverdant summer scenes, its barer andbleaker aspects also powerfully appealedto certain of his moods' O sweet are Coila's haughs an' woodsWhen lint - whites chant amang the

buds.And jinkin' hares, in amorous whids,Their loves enjoy

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THE AULD AYRSHIREWhile thro' the braes the cushat croods

With wailfu' cryEv'n winter bleak has charms to me,When winds rave thro' the naked treeOr frosts on hills of Ochiltree

Are hoary grayOr blinding drifts wild-furious flee,

Dark'ning the day It has been noted by Keats and othersas rather remarkable that though Burnsspent his boyhood within reach of thesea, lived most of his years within viewof it, and was resident for several monthsin the seacoast towns of Ayr and Irvine,the sea is but sparingly alluded to in hisverse. That he was not insensible to itsfascination we learn from the address ofthe Muse of Coila to him in ' The Vision '

' I saw thee seek the sounding shore,Delighted with the dashing roar.'

In ' Had I a cave ' he further declares' Had I a caveOn some wild distant shoreWhere the winds howl

To the waves' dashing roar,There would I weep my woes,' etc.

In ' The Brigs of Ayr ' we have also thisvivid picture of still midnight

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OF ROBERT BURNS' The tide-swollen firth with sullen-

sounding roar,Thro' the still night dash'd hoarse

along the shore;All else was hush'd as Nature's closed

e'e,' etc.Here, moreover, is another seascape morecharged with human sentiment

' Along the solitary shore,Where fleeting sea-fowls roundme fly,

Across the rolling, dashing roarI'll westwards turn my wistful eye.'

And here is yet another, in two amongstthe most mournfully pathetic lines thatperhaps poet ever penned

' The wan moon is setting behind thewhite wave,

And Time is setting with me, O.'But these quotations pretty nearly ex-haust all his allusions to the sea that canproperly be termed poetic. His mostfrequent references to it are as merelyan impediment to communication, as in' Auld Lang Syne '

' But seas between us braid hae roared.'In the general character of his allusionsto it there is a monotonous sameness. Hedid not know its moods and aspects with

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THE AULD AYRSHIREthe same intimacy as he did the rusticscenes of Coila; and of the picturesquegrandeur of the peaked Arran mountains,bounding part of the western horizon, hemakes no mention.The Ayrshire country most intimately as-sociated with the life and the verse ofBurns is included within the radius of avery few miles. The clay cottage of hisbirth and early childhood lies about twomiles south-east from the town of Ayr ; ,Mount Oliphant is about other two milessouth-eastward, and Lochlea and Moss-giel lie about ten and twelve miles re-spectively to the north-east. Episodes ofhis life are associated with places some-what farther afield; especially with thesmuggling village of Kirkoswald near theCarrick shore, and the seaport town ofIrvine ; while he was latterly pretty wellacquainted with the ' streets and neuksof Killie,' which on his ' weel-gaun fiUiehe was frequently accustomed to visit onmarket days.Of town life, such as it then existed in re-mote and old-world Ayrshire, Burns ob-tained some impression at a very earlyperiod of his existence, for the county

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OF ROBERT BURNStown was little more than two miles dis-tant from AUoway; and such grandeursas it could show in shops and buildingsmust have been to him subjects for youth-ful curiosity and wonder, almost as soonas he began to speculate about the outsideworld. Amongst his earliest recollectionsmust have been those of his Sunday visitsto the parish church, where he listenedto ' Dundee's wild-warbling measures,' or' plaintive Martyrs,' or * noble Elgin,' sungdoubtless with many quavering gracenotes and much grating discord, but witha much greater volume of some kind ofmelodic sound than in the clay cottageat home. The gentle prelections of ' Dal-rymple mild,' and the more learned onesof the 'heretic,' though equally amiable,* Dr Mac, must alike, for some time, haveconveyed to his ear much that his infantintellect was unable to assimilate ; butthe benevolent personalities of the twoclergymen were alone fitted beneficiallyto impress a nature so quick and sensitive.Of Dalrymple he told Ramsay of Ochter-tyre that his father was so much pleasedwith his strain of preaching and bene-volent conduct that he embraced his re-

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THE AULD AYRSHIREligious opinions, though practically heremained a Calvinist.' Burns, we know,did not remain a Calvinist: indeed hehated Calvinism with his whole mind andheart and soul; and the prosecution ofhis friend Dr Macgill for heresy, on ac-count of what were deemed Socinian opin-ions, evoked his warmest scorn towardsthose he termed the ' rotten-hearted Puri -tans' of the Presbytery, whose 'hereticblast' he vivaciously burlesqued in the' Kirk's Alarm.'In other than ecclesiastical respects hisvicinity to Ayr was, in his youth, so hehimself states, of great advantage to him.When the family, in his seventh year,removed to Mount Oliphant he was twoadditional miles away from it, but he wasnow quite able to make the longer journey,and his social disposition being, even in hisearly youth, 'without bounds or limits,'he was quite inclined to utilise every op-portunity to visit it that fell in his way.He told Dr Moore of his acquaintanceshipthere with ' other yonkers who possessedsuperior advantages' and who lent himbooks to read and helped him to learnFrench; but we cannot but believe that

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OF ROBERT BURNShe had other interests in the town of aboy's usually miscellaneous character, andthat its facilities for diversion were uti-lised with quite as much eagerness asthose for mental improvement. Later hehad, of course, occasion often to visit itas man and farmer, even when residentat the more distant Lochlea or Mossgiel.His poetical and social gifts secured himthe friendship not only of its two excellentclergymen, but of such prominent citizensas Robert Aiken, solicitor, and surveyor oftaxesthe 'Orator Bob' of 'the Kirk'sAlarm' John Ballantyne, banker, andsome time provost of the burgh, lawyerWillie Chalmers, and Major Logan ofPark, ' thairm-inspirin,' rattlin' Willie';and he must also have had a pretty com-prehensive acquaintanceship amongst itshumbler citizens, besides being, not un-frequently, the life and soul of the com-panies who foregathered at its inns andhostelries. When market days were wear-ing late, he probably often left it, if notin the highly primed condition of Tam o'Shanter, at least in as pleasantly exhilar-ated mood as the 'Auld Farmer' and hismare Maggie 31


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S c si

82 S

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THE AULD AYRSHIRE'When thou was corn't, and I was

mellow,We took the road aye like a swallow.'Of this 'Auld Ayr,' the streets of whichwere paced as boy and man by Burns,almost every outside nook and corner ofwhich was famihar to his eyes, where hediverted himself when a bare-footed andragged youngster, where later he stoodgossiping and joking with its ' honest menand bonnie lassies,' and whose inn parloursresounded to the laughter evoked by hishumorous sallies, only traces of the mereskeleton remain. The High Street stillwinds its way over the identical strip ofearth it then occupied; but the modernthoroughfare with its electric poles, itstramway lines, and its broad side pave-ments, is quite a different one from theancient, roughly cobbled, irregular high-way without side walks of any kind. Andif the face of the thoroughfare would nowbe unrecognisable by Burns, it would bequite as difficult for him to identify thestreet from the character of its buildings.Here and there the eye lights on thethatched roof of a shabbily plain two-storey house ; but its humble, antique as-


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THE AULD AYRSHIREpect seems quite put out of countenance bythe slated pretentiousness of its modernneighbours ; and it but faintly assists usin our attempts to conjure up the ' AuldAyr ' of the time of Burns, with its rowsof thatched and picturesquely gabledhouses, its mean, small-windowed shops,its chapman billies' stands, and its old-world ease and dulness, only stirred intosome show of temporary bustle and acti-vity on fair or market days. The HighStreet of to-day, quite modern in itsgeneral aspect, is, it is to be hoped, merelyin a transition state towards a more har-monious and beautiful architectural unity;but meanwhile it is less satisfying to theartistic sense than would liave been thehumble picturesqueness which has beenalmost entirely effaced. The buildings areprovokingly irregular both in height andin their architectural features, and themain effect of their combination is thatof heterogeneous confusion ; but there isabundant evidence, both in the characterof the shops and in the appearance of thepassers-by, of comfort and prosperity ; forthe street is now the business and shoppingcentre of a town that has increased more34


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OF ROBERT BURNSthan tenfold in population since the timeof Burns, and is now a sort of miniatureGlasgow, or Greenock, or Paisley, withthe additional advantages of sea-bathing,and, in the immediate neighbourhood, ofquite an embarras des riches, in the choiceof golf courses.Of the inns frequented by the poet, thatnow named the 'Tarn o' Shanter' is ap-parently the sole survivor. It is substanti-ally the same old inn at the blazing ingleof whose parlour the poet imagines Tarnas 'planted right,' with Souter Johnnie'at his elbow,' and bowls of 'reamingswats ' before them ; but the environmentof the inn is as completely changed as thedress and appearance of its frequenters,and even the remains of the old gatewayof the town, which conferred on the hos-telry a certain antique dignity, have longbeen removed.Such prominent features of the town astowers and steeples have, of course, multi-plied with the growth of the populationand the increase of denominational meet-ing-houses; but the two immortalised in' The Brigs of Ayr ' no longer survive, the' drowsy steeple clock ' of the old Tolbooth35


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THE AULD AYRSHIREhaving ceased to number the hours ofthe day in 1826, and its clock and bellshaving been transferred to a new andloftier Wallace Tower, erected in 1834. Onthe site of the old horse fair now standsthe lonely-looking statue of the Bardhimself, amid parterres of flowers, andfronting the showy railway station andhotela strangely old-world, agriculturalfigure to be found in such a convention-ally urban situation; and, doubtless, didit suddenly become endowed with anima-tion, it would be a little puzzled to knowwhere it was, or to find its way to Lochleaor Mossgiel.The river, of course, runs, as formerly, tothe sea, and behaves, when in flood, verymuch as it did in the time of Burns ; butthe Ratton Key has long ceased to wit-ness 'winter speats,' both it and the lar-ger quay having been superseded by theharbours, docks, and piers suitable for athriving modern commercial port. Thebrig which Burns saw when first 'buskitin its braw new coat,' became, by thefloods of 1877, a ' shapeless cairn,' as Burns,by the mouth of the Auld Brig, prophesiedbut the Auld Brig, almost the sole sur-36


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OF ROBERT BURNSviving memento of the Auld Ayr of thepoet, has itself, for some years, practicallyceased to be a brig; and to prevent it,like its rival, becoming a shapeless cairn,la a problem that is taxing the wits ofengineers and architects. Whether it willcontinue to ' warstle wi' Time' much longeror not, the transforming influence of thatagency is abundantly manifest on bothbanks of the riverwhich it spans ; and couldwe conceive the Bard before the earlyhours of some winter morning revisitingthere the glimpses of the moon, he couldhardly realise that the buildings on theKing's -Kyle side formed part of the'ancient burgh of Ayr'; while the modernNewton on the Stewart-Kyle side of theriver has quite blotted out of existencethe small thatched village of that name,which was blessed by the ' meek and mimministrations of ' sairie Willie Water-foot.'But Time has not only completely trans-formed the ' Auld Ayr ' with which Burnswas familiar ; it has also so extended itsboundaries as completely to alter the char-acter of its immediate landmarks. Thechief highway to the cottage and the Brigof Doonthe Oarrick Road, which had no37


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THE AULD AYRSHIREexistence in the eighteenth centuryislined, almost half way to the cottage, bya constant succession of smart suburbanvillas, which are succeeded by trim hedgesand well-built walls, bounding the well-cultivated fields, where early potatoes aregrown for the delectation of the good folksof Glasgow, or fertile grazing groundstrimly adorned with clumps of trees, andbrowsed on in comfortable content bythriving Highland and Ayrshire cattle.These model agricultural fields and grass-lands can only by a great effort of theimagination be identified with the wild,uncultivated moorland that of old bor-dered the approach to 'AUoway's auldhaunted kirk,' where the traveller passedsuccessively the ragged clump of birksand the

' Meikle staneWhere drunken Charlie brak's neck

bane,'the whinny knolls and the cairn,'Where hunters found the murder'd

bairn,'and the solitary

' thorn abune the well,Where Mungo's mother hanged hersel'.'38


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OF ROBERT BURNSWhatever the truth or falsehood associ-ated with these weird traditions, the scenewas entirely in keeping with them ; butit is not so now: their memorials haveall perished, and left not a wrack behind.Smug respectability and prosperity per-vade the whole region from the AuldBrig of Ayr to the Auld Brig of Doon.The ruined Kirk Alloway and the AuldBrig have changed but little since Burnsimmortalised them, and doubtless willlong remain as mementoes of his tale.But it was the creation of quite a differentcentury from ours. Ghaists, howlets, war-locks, and Auld Nick himself, have prob-ably long ceased to scare belated travel-lers, whether drunk or sober, passing theanciently haunted kirk. If they did stillcherish occasional desires to renew theirassemblies there, the tramway and thenew railway would perhaps be sufficientto convince them of the discretion ofselecting a more secluded meeting-placefor their unholy revels. With the tramcarpassing the ' winnock-bunker in the east,'and railway trains rumbling, howevermodestly, behind the building, it is nolonger a place where such 'unco sights'


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THE AULD AYRSHIREare to be looked for as those which en-riched the eyes of the heroic Tain o'Shanter.As for the village of AUoway, where thepoet first looked upon the world, it alsois no longer the Alloway of the poet'sdays. The old clay cottage has now noneighbours of a similar or a still plainerand more primitive aspect. When firsterected, it was probably one of the morepretentious mansions of the rustic clac-han ; for the poet's father was a man of su-perior tastes, enlightenment, and aspira-tions to most of his neighbours, and wasso far a man of means that he was ableto hire seven acres of nursery ground, andexpend the money for the^ materials, inaddition to clay, necessary for the erectionof his cottage. Even towards the close ofthe eighteenth century the mass of thecommon people of Scotland were housedin hovels no better than those yet to befound in some of the remoter westernislands round, one-roomed stone andturf shanties without chimneys, the smokefrom the fire in the centre finding its exitmerely by a hole in the apex of the roof.It is, indeed, a somewhat similar, though

40


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OF ROBERT BURNStwo-roomed, dwelling which figures in theVision ; and what the poet professes thereto describe is not a mere cotter's hut, butthe older, though still common, farmhouseof the period

' There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,I sat and ey'd the spewing reek,That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,The auld clay biggin'An' heard the restless rattons squeak

About the riggin'.'With a curious oversight in regard todates, Gilbert Burns was concerned lestsome readers might suppose that the poethad here in his mind AUoway cottage,whereas, of course, he left the cottagewhen only in his seventh year; and itwas on an evening in his early manhood,after he had been tired by wielding, the*lee-lang day,' the 'threshers' wearyflingin' - tree,' that he saw, by the inglelowe,

* Now bleezin' bright,A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,Come full in sight.'

The ' spence ' of the Vision must have beenmeant to represent that either of Lochleaor Mossgiel farmhouse, for he muses thus

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THE A ULD AYRSHIRE' Had I to guid advice but harkit,I might by this have led a market,Or strutted in a bank, and clarkitMy cash-accovmtWhile here, half-mad, half-fed, half-

sarkit.Is a' th' amount.'

It is rather remarkable that Gilbert, inhis anxiety to vindicate the taste andability of his father as architect andbuilder, entirely overlooks other possi-bilities; and thus, while affirming that,as regards its application to the cottage,his brother's description is a mere fancypicture, he does not stay to considerwhether it could in any way apply to oneof the farmhouses.Here, however, is what he does say aboutthe cottagehe is writing to Dr Currie' That you may not think too meanly ofthis house, or of my father's taste inbuilding, by supposing the poet's descrip-tion in the Vision (which is entirelya fancypicture) applicable to it, allow me to takenotice to you, that the house consisted ofa kitchen in one end, and a room in theother, with a fireplace and chimney ; thatmy father had constructed a concealed42


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OF ROBERT BURNSbed in the kitchen, with a small closet atthe end, of the same materials with thehouse, and when altogether cast over,outside and in, with lime, it had a neat,comfortable appearance, such as no familyof the same rank, in the present improvedstyle of living, would think themselves illlodged in.'Gilbert wrote, be it remembered, nearlyfifty years after the cottage was erected,and even then he considered it quite upto the improved standard for the better-conditioned villagers. That he deemed itworth while to state that it actually pos-sessed a parlour with a fireplace andchimney, implies that this was not by anymeans the rule in regard to the cottagesof the period ; and most likely it was animprovement on the general type in theclachan of AUoway. But since Gilbertwrote more than a century has passed,and the style of living amongst those inhis father's rank in life has, at least asregards the character of their dwelling-houses, improved still further. There is,in fact, hardly a clay cottage now in alllowland Scotland ; and in Allowaywhichhas increased considerably since the poet's43


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THE AULD AYRSHIREdays and probably partly by reason of hisfamethe style of architecture is consider-ably above the average of the Scottish vil-lages. As a rule Scottish villagesevenapart from those in the mining districts,with their monotonous rows of shabby,dirty-white dwellings and hideous backyards possess little of the Arcadianprettiness of the villages of rural Eng-land. The standard of comfort has greatlyimproved, but the situation is often bareand unsheltered, and aesthetics have usu-ally but small consideration, except as re-gards the flower beds in the well-keptgardens. In AUoway, however, there isnow the intrusion, especially in the neigh-bourhood of the cottage, of somethingbearing at least a faint resemblance tothe suburban villa, or an attempt to com-bine rural simplicity with suburban gen-tility ; and the entirely modern, and quite' superior ' aspect of the village generally,helps to emphasise the antique meannessof the excessively thatched and curiouslysmall-windowed building, which is thesole vestige of the clachan of the poet'sdays. For nearly a century until 1881 thecottage enjoyed the distinction of being44


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OF ROBERT BURNSthe village ' public ' ; but in that year it waspurchased by the trustees of the Monu-ment, who have caused it to assume, inter-nally and externally, as much as possible,the appearance it presented when occu-pied by the poet's father; it may still,with all its needful renovations, be re-garded as the veritable cottage in whichthe poet was born ; and it is in reality amore striking and impressive memorialof him than the more elaborate one nearthe river. But the cottage in which Mur-doch held his school is no longer extantand indeed both the near and more re-mote neighbourhood of the poet's birth-place is immensely changed within thelast centuryall except Kirk Alloway, theAuld Brig o' Doon, the Brown CarrickHill, and 'the banks and braes o' bonnieDoon ' ; and though they ' bloom as freshand fair ' every spring and summer as theywere wont to do, their aspect near theAuld Brig has, of course, been greatlyaltered by the presence of the Monumentand the Hotel, with the ornamentalgrounds near the river.In its primitive rustic days, the landscape,except near the banks of the river, must45


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THE AULD AYRSHIREhave been rather bare and bleak. The roadalong which Tarn o' Shanter

' Skelpit on thro' dub and mirewas evidently no better a highway thanthe average country roads of the period,and most likely a mere unenclosed horse-track. About the period of the poet'schildhood there were few, if any, carts inthe agricultural districts of Ayr, luggageand agricultural produce being conveyedin sacks slung on the backs of horsesbut the now admirable highways in theneighbourhood of Alloway, shaded withtheir lines of trees, and bordered by theneat, highly cultivated enclosures whichmeet the eye in all directions, have com-pletely changed the landscape's character.The country in the neighbourhood of thecottage and the monument is now one ofthe most charming spots in Ayrshire. Itscultivated and wooded richness now con-trasts admirably with the long, heathy.Brown Carrick Hill, which culminates inan elevation of some 900 feet, and conferson the landscape a pleasing picturesque-ness, though in the time of Burns itsgrey-brown mass must have helped toemphasise the bleakness of what, apart46


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OF ROBERT BURNSfrom the wooded policies of Doonholm,must have been a somewhat wild andmoorish district.While the hill redeems the surroundingcountry, with its gentle elevations, frommonotony, its summit commands a strik-ing view of Arran, and the line of thriv-ing towns that border the Ayrshire coast,of the country northward as far as BenLomond and other dimly visible Highlandpeaks, and of the moors and valleys ofinland Ayrshire girdled by their widelyextended rim of lesser eminences. But,though the poet's eyes must have beenattracted by the hill almost as soon ashe began to speculate about the outsideworld, and though he is not unaccustomedto make passing allusions to hills in hispoetry, there is no record of his havingmentioned it either in verse or prose.Whether, in an age when scenery-hunt-ing had not begun to be a common diver-sion, he ever took the trouble to ascendit, there is no evidence to show; but ifhe did there is nothing to indicate thatits magnificent prospect left any vividand permanent impression on his mind,unless it be that to it we are indebted47


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ALLOWAY'S AULD HAUNTED KIRKFrom a Painting by Monro S. Orr

' When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze ;Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing,And loud resounded mirth and dancingBut Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,She ventur'd forward on the lightAnd, wow Tam saw an unco sightWarlocks and witches in a dance :Nae cotillon brent new frae France,But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,Put life and mettle in their heels.A winnock-bunker in the east,There sat auld Nick in shape o' beastA towzie tyke, black, grim, and large.To gie them music was his charge ;He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.


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THE AULD AYRSHIREfor some of the finest stanzas in ' TheVision '

' Here rivers in the sea were lostThere mountains to the skies were

tostHere tumbling billows mark'd the

coastWith surging foam

There distant shone Art's loftly boast,The lordly dome,' etc.

But, after all, this is hardly meant torepresent an extended landscape pictureit represents rather separate scenes, aswell as historic and other incidents. Thereis indeed little trace in his verse of anyinterest in wide and varied prospects. Inthis respect he was characteristically apeasant ; his eyes were attracted mainlyby the features of nature which werefamiliar to him in the course of his dailyavocations ; by the ' deep green-mantledearth' spangled with daisies and wildflowers, or the yellow, ripening corn, orthe 'lang yellow broom' or the white-blossomed or red -fruited hawthorn, orthe verdant woods vocal with the songs ofbirds, or the wind whistling through thebared trees, or the hills white with snow,D 49


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THE AULD AYRSHIREor the moors 'red-brown with heather-bells,' or the streams and rivers windingthrough the haughs, and especially

' The bonnie, winding banksWhere Doon runs, wimplin' clear.'On the whole, the native district of Burns,though bleaker, barer and wilder in muchof its aspect than it is now, must havebeen even then a pleasant, and in partsbeautiful, country enough, and by nomeans unfitted to nourish a poet's youth-ful fancies.


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IllAT MOUNT OLIPHANT

By the removal of the family, in hisseventh year, to Mount Oliphant, theexternal surroundings of Burns were butlittle changed ; and] for two years he con-tinued, with his brother Gilbert, to attendthe school of Murdoch at AUoway. MountOliphant is situated in the uplands some200 feet more in altitude than AUoway,and distant from it some two miles, thedistance from Ayr being about four. Thefarm buildings, including the dwelling-house, though now somewhat antiquated,must have been all renewed since thepoet's time, when doubtless they presentedthe primitive thatched appearance of theperiodwith the usual abundance of rats'about the riggin'.' It commands a beau-tiful vista towards the sea, and has alsothe further advantage, as the poet wouldcount it, of proximity to the woodedbanks and braes of the Doon. It was, how-ever, still farther out of the world than

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THE AULD AYRSHIREAllowaystill farther removed from thevaried human interest of the town ofAyr ; and, what was more important, thefamily's removal thither definitely de-cided that the lot of Burns in life was tobe that of a toiling peasant. Had he beenborn a century later this might not havebeen his fate. One so intelligent, and,withal, so practical-minded and aspiring,as his father, might have arranged for hisapprenticeship to some kind of trade orcommercial pursuit in Ayr ; but in the mid-eighteenth century there were few pro-mising openings for country lads in towns,the great wave of commercial prosperitywhich was to overspread the west ofScotland having, as yet, given but fewsigns of its approach. Even had his fathercontinued at Alloway, Burns would havehad hardly other prospect than that ofbecoming a ploughman : in his own wordshe would 'have been marched off to beone of the little underlings about a farm-house'; but even so, his worldly prospectsmight in the end have been better thanthey turned out to be; for though itwas more particularly on his two sons'account, and that he might have them

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OF ROBERT BURNSunder his charge, that the father ven-tured to engage in farming, the venture,in the words of Gilbert, was the sourceof all the father's ' difficulties and dis-tresses ' ; and it was as disadvantageousto the sons as it was to the father.From the beginning William Burns suf-fered from a lack of capital ; and the soilof the farm was, according to Gilbert,writing in 1800, the ' very poorest ' he thenknew ' to be in a state of cultivation 'but to understand the character of thefamily's situation the general backwardnature of agriculture, at this period, inScotland, has to be considered. Writingeven of a later period Dr Currie remarkedthat the Scottish farmer neither vestedthe same capital in the soil as the Eng-lish farmer nor expected the same re-turn. While he is now in the van ofBritish agriculturahsts he then laggedfar behind his southern neighbour. Hismethods of cropping and manuring wereunenlightened; and his machinery andimplements were so primitive that hard,unremitting toil availed very little tomitigate his chronic poverty. The ploughof the period was a huge, unwieldy, and

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THE AULD AYRSHIREyet comparatively ineffective implement,drawn either by a large team of oxen orfour stout horsesas indicated by Burnsin 'The Inventory'and the progress ofthe one plough, which was frequently indifficulties, occupied the attention of allthe men folks of the farm. In his earlyteens, the, in those days, much more tir-ing, if not more skilful, task of holdingthe plough was entrusted to Robert, whowas a stout lad for his years, but whoseyoung strength was severely tried andstrained by the plough's frequent shocksand collisions against stones and boulders,and by endeavours to guide it past them,and up and down the irregular knolls andhollows. The harrows and other imple-ments for breaking down the land wereequally imperfect ; and their imperfectionrendered the task of preparation for theseed much more tedious and prolongedthan it is noweven had the Burns familynot been, as they always were, somewhatshorthanded. Similarly, in harvest-time,the work of securing the ripening grainbefore its destruction by storms necessi-tated then more prolonged, unremittingtoil on the part of reapers, for the54


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OF ROBERT BURNSprocess of shearing by the hook was aslow one, unless the company of reaperswas a good deal more numerous thanWilliam Burns could afford it to be ; whilein winter, instead of the threshing-milldoing the work of severing the grainfrom the stalk, all had to come under the' threshers' weary flingin'-tree.'This was the round of toil which youngBurns was soon called upon to enter onat Mount Oliphantdoing, on account ofhis father's failing strength and extremepoverty, the work of a grown man whilestill in his early teens. Hard though itwas, he, in his early youth, in a mannerenjoyed it, for in his ' Epistle to the Guid-wife of Wauchope House ' he writes of itthus:'When I was beardless, young and

blate,An' first could thresh the barn.

Or baud a yokin' at the pleugh.An', though forfoughten sair eneugh.Yet unco proud to learnWhen first among the yellow cornA man I reckoned was.

An' wi' the lave ilk merry mornCould rank my rig and lass

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THE AULD AYRSHIREStill shearing and clearingThe tither stooked rawWi' clavers and haversWearing the day awa',' etc.

This is the picture of a quite happy youth-time ; but, full of vim and sociality thoughhe vi^as, the continuous and premature toilto which he was subjected gradually toldon his health and spirits. Had it reallyassisted his father to success as a farmerthis would have been a mitigation; hadany prospect of real reward presenteditself to the family for their hardships,they could have been faced with a certaincontent ; but the task which engaged con-tinuously their whole care and energieswas a merely hopeless one; 'the farm,'as he says, 'proved a ruinous bargain';and when, after the death of his father'sold master, the laird of Doonholm, they'fell into the hands of a pitiless factor,'they necessarily began to deem their con-dition little better than that of galleyslaves. 'A novel-writer,' Burns remarks,' might perhaps have viewed these sceneswith some satisfaction, but so did not Imy indignation yet boils at the recollec-tion of the scoundrel factor's insolent,56


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OF ROBERT BURNSthreatening letters, which used to set usall in tears.' They were, indeed, a modelpeasant family in their loyalty to oneanother, in their diligence, in their intel-ligent desire after self-improvement, intheir frugal simplicity, in their Spartanendurance ; but the happiness of theirAyrshire Arcadia was fatally marred bytheir hopeless poverty

' Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash,How they maun thole a factor's snashHe'll stamp an' threaten, curse, an'

swear.He'll apprehend them, poind their gearWhile they maun staun', wi' aspect

humble,An' hear it a', an' fear an' trembleI see how folk live that hae richesBut surely poor folk maun be wretches

During the Mount Oliphant period of thepoet's life there are few outstanding in-cidents, and comparatively little is knownof his association with personalities andplaces in the neighbourhood. Itwas mainlythe hobble-de-hoy time of his life ; and fora considerable portion of it ' no solitaire,'so he affirms, 'was less acquainted withthe ways of the world,' though no peasant57


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THE AULD AYRSHIREsolitaii'e was so eager to know all thatwas to be known of the world, whetherthrough personal observation or by per-usal of the thoughts and observations ofothers. Books were, indeed, the chief com-pany, and the chief recreation, of this re-markable family of peasant toilers. Theykept themselves very much to themselves,partly because they had little or no oppor-tunity of doing anything else. 'Nothing,'writes Gilbert, ' could be more retired thanour general manner of living at MountOliphant ; we rarely saw anybody but themembers of our own family. There wereno boys of our own age, or near it, in theneighbourhood. Indeed, the greater partof the land in the vicinity was at thattime possessed by shopkeepers and peopleof that stamp, who had retired from busi-ness, orwho kept their farm in the country,at the same time that they followed busi-ness in town.'As Mount Oliphant is in Ayr parish, andthe father had a special favour for theprelections of Dalrymple, one of the Ayrministers, the family most probably didnot sever their connection with the churchin Ayr, and thus had fewer opportunities58


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OF ROBERT BURNSthan otherwise they would have had ofmaking acquaintance with the families inthe Dalrymple parish ; for the Kirk then,as indeed it is partly still, was the greatsocial rendezvous of the country people.On set occasions the curiosity of youngBurns may have led him to pay a visit toDalrymple parish church, but the identicalbuilding he may have sat in no longerexists, the church having been entirelyrebuilt since his days. The old parishschoolsituated at St Valleywhich fora short time he attended, has also quitedisappeared, though it has a successor ina flourishing Board School. Indeed, withinthe last century the landmarks of the dis-trict have completely changed. There isnow no hamlet at Perclewan,at the smithyof which Burns got his horse shod by thegreat-grandfather of Principal Candlish,the father of the future Free Church. Theblacksmith, like many of his craft in Scot-land, was intelligent above the average ofhis neighbours ; he had, apparently, talkswith the youth about other matters thanhorses or farming. Most probably theydiscussed together the deeds of the oldhistoric heroes of the district, for it was59


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THE AULD AYRSHIREfrom the blacksmith that he got a copyof one of the first two books he ' ever readin private,'the ' History of Sir WilliamWallace,' in the modern Scots version ofHamilton of Gilbertfield, the reading ofwhich, he says, 'poured a Scottish pre-judice into my veins, which will boil alongthere till the floodgates of life shut ineternal rest.'It was probably while attending Dal-rymple parish school that Burns firstmade the acquaintance of the blacksmith'saspiring son, James Candlish, who becamea lecturer of medicine in Edinburgh ; buthe must, of course, have often met him atthe smithy, and they probably renewedacquaintance afterwards at Mauchline,for Candlish married one of the ' Mauch-line belles,' the 'witty' Miss Smith. In aletter to Candlish from Edinburgh, inMarch 1787, Burns remarked : ' I am stiU,in the Apostle Paul's phrase, the old manwith his deeds, as when we were sportingabout the lady-thorn.' The reference can-not be identifiedsome have conjecturedthat it may apply to a locality near theschool called ' the Lady-thorn,' the sceneof their sports when boys ; but the phrase


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OF ROBERT BURNS' the old man with his deeds ' suggests apossible allusion to the love frolics of theirearly manhood, near some trysting thorn,either at Perclewan or elsewhere.Besides his errands to the Perclewansmithy, Burns had occasion often to visitthe mill of Allan Kilpatrick, with whomthe father seems to have been on speci-ally friendly terms, for Kilpatrick's youngdaughter was engaged one year as one ofthe harvesters at Mount Oliphant. Shewas the 'handsome Nell,' whose sweetsinging, good looks, and winning waysfirst initiated Burns into 'the passion oflove,' and first inspired him to ' tune hisrustic lyre.'How far he extended his rambles intothe surrounding country we have no de-finite information. His period of miscel-laneous roving had not then begun; butin his journey to and from Kirkoswaldin his seventeenth year, he had occasionto pass through a district of great tradi-tional and historic interest. His familiar-ity with the fairy-haunted mounds, theCassilis Downans, is indicated in the intro-ductory stanza of ' Halloween,' which alsoembodies a reminiscence of the scenery61


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THE AULD AYRSHIREround Culzean Castle, on the Carrickshore to the north of Kirkoswald:

' Upon that night, when fairies lightOn Cassilis Downans dance,Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze.On sprightly coursers pranceOr for Colean the route is taen,Beneath the moon's pale beamsThere, up the Cove, to stray and rove,Among the rocks and streams

To sport that night.'Whatever special memories were asso-ciated with the Halloween described byBurns, to whatever extent the incidentsnarrated and the characters depicted werefounded on fact, the scene of the sportswas evidently intended to be Mount Oli-phant, or some neighbouring farm

' Among the bonny winding banks,Where Doon rins, wimplin' clearWhere Bruce ance ruled the martial

ranks.An' shook his Carrick spear

Some merry, friendly, country-folksTogether did convene

To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks,An' baud their Halloween

Fu' blithe that night.'


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OF ROBERT BURNSWhile acquainted with fairy traditionsof OassiUs he must also have been familiarwith the tragic story of the erring Coun-tess of Cassilis, who was the heroine ofthe ballad of Johnny Faa; though in-stead of an amorous countess he makesan amorous Earl of Cassilis the subjectof a lyric

' My Lord a-hunting he is gane,But hounds or hawks wi' him are nane ;By Colin's cottage lies his game,If Colin's Jenny be at hame.My Lady's white, my lady's red.And kith and kin o' Cassilis bludeBut her ten-pund lands o' tocher gudeWere a' the charms his lordship lo'ed.'

The tragedy associated with the Castleof Auchindranenow obliterated by anew buildingin which another Earl ofCassilis, as well as his friend the Lairdof Culzean was involved, Culzean as apreliminary victim, must have had itseffect on his young imagination ; and thehistoric memories associated with the dis-trict, from the days of Bruce and earherto the times of the Covenanters, doubtlesshelped to colour his peculiar Scottishpatriotism. 63


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THE AULD AYRSHIREWith Maybole the capital of Carrick he ac-quired special familiarity from visiting italong with William Niven a native of theplace, and nephew of the farmer of Bal-lochniel, with whom Burns stayed whileat Kirkoswald. His acquaintanceship wascontinued after his removal to Lochleaand Mossgiel ; and when he was about toissue his poems he paid a visit to Mayboleto obtain subscriptions, when he was in-troduced by Niven, whose father was abailie of the town, to certain of the moreintelligent natives, including the school-master. At a merry meeting in the King'sArms, it would appear, from a letter ofBurns, that the poet was induced to fav-our those assembled in his honour withrecitations of some of his more humorousverses. This, he was afraid, might after-wards make them see him in a lighthe did not deserve, that seemingly of asomewhat vain young man; and indeedmodesty as to his own poetic merits wasa more prominent characteristic of Burnsthan vanity. Vanity rather than modestyseems, however, to have been the specialweakness of Niven, who got to persuadehimself that 'The Epistle to a Young

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THE AULD AYRSHIREFriend ' was originally addressed to him,and not as Burns in the published volumeprofessed, to the son of Robert Aiken. Hewas thus quite oblivious of the possibilitythat, since he was much the same age asthe poet, to bombard him with such ad-vice as that contained in the ' Epistle,'might imply that he was an exceptionallyweak young man, 'dear amiable youth'though he may have been.The poet's visit to Kirkoswald must havebeen one of the most pleasant episodes ofthe Mount Oliphant period. For genera-tions the parish had included the homesof the poet's maternal ancestors, thenames of many of whom are inscribed ona tombstone in the churchyard surround-ing the ancient ruined church, which inolden times was of special account byreason of its relation to the Abbey ofCrossraguel in the neighbourhood, partlydestroyed by the Protestants of the westin 1561, but still a well-preserved ruin.The walls of the church once echoed tothe thunders of Knox when denouncinga work on the Mass by Abbot QuentinKennedy, with whom Knox had also adisputation at Maybole in September


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OF ROBERT BURNS1562, which lasted three days. The schoolwhere Burns prosecuted his studies inmensuration was a small apartment in acottage opposite the churchyard, whitherit had been lately removed from a ruinousbuilding in the east end of the old church.He resided at some distance from thevillage, with his maternal uncle, SamuelBrown, who lodged at the farm of Bal-lochniel; but being removed from therigid and exacting control of his father,he felt himself, for the first time of hislife, pretty much his own master andguardian; and, according to his own ac-count, though he made pretty good pro-gress in his studies, he made still greaterprogress in his 'knowledge of mankind.'The scenes ' of swaggering riot and roar-ing dissipation,' which were the inevitableinterludes of the contraband trade, wereobserved by him with that critical andkeenly humorous interest in the moresqualidly, eccentric freaks of humannature, which is responsible for someof his most realistic and striking verseand while he thus learned, as he tellsus, to 'move without fear in a drunkensquabble,' he also made progress towards

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THE AULD AYRSHIREthe acquirement of the ease and freedomof address, which latterly enabled himto place himself on a footing of socialcordiality with even the more regardlessmembers of the community.So much for the sordid side of his Kirk-oswald surroundings. How much hismore sentimental experiences there reallymeant for him, it is hard to say; buttwo kailyards of the villagethat of theschoolhouse and that of the neighbour-ing cottagewere the scene of the inaug-uration of a love idyll, which was perhapsthe first one of his real manhood, andtherefore for the time being of a peculi-arly absorbing character. According tohis own version of the affair, while busilyengaged in taking the sun's altitude, hisattention was suddenly distracted by thevision of what he, in his somewhat un-pleasantly affected French fashion, termsa 'charming filette,' the daughter of aneighbouring cottager, whom he poetic-ally represents as like

* Proserpine, gathering flowers,Herself a fairer flower.'

But his eyes most likely were occupiedm.ore with the 'fairer flower' than the


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OF ROBERT BURNSvegetables which he supposes her to havebeen plucking. Whether he asked her fora posy he neglects to mention ; but wemust suppose he accosted her in a suffici-ently fascinating manner ; for they wereimmediately on terms of evening walksand mutual vows, while for the poet him-self it was a case even of ' sleepless nights/during the short week that remained ofhis stay at Kirkoswald. 'We'll gentlywalk,' so he represents himself as address-ing her in a ' Song, composed in Augustevidently however not written thenand there but in mere commemorationof the episode

' We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk,While the silent moon shines clearly

I'll clasp thy waist and, fondly prest.Swear how I lo'e thee dearly.'Burns was yet to clasp many waists be-sides that of Peggy Thomson, and swearof his love in equally ardent terms totheir owners; but if love between himand Peggy soon died out, sincere affec-tion and respect seemed, in the case ofboth, to have survived; and when, aftershe was the wife of another, he took fare-well of her with the intention of proceed-


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THE AULD AYRSHIREing to the Indies, he reports that both heand she were so moved that neither couldspeak. But the main influence of the epi-sode was that on his general habits.Being now initiated into the fascinationof gently walking and sweetly talking inmoonlight nights, he, not long afterwardsif not, as he represents, immediately onreturning homeresolved, 'in order,' ashe puts it, ' to give ' his ' manners a brush,'to attend a country dancing school; andhaving thus begun his career as a ruralLothario, he was continually finding newincentives and subjects for the cultivationof his lyric muse.In other respects his Kirkoswald visit wasfruitful of influences, which left certainpermanent impressions. The ancient as-sociations of the district with the heroicBruce, who was Earl of Carrick and Lordof Turnberry Castle, helped to fan theflame of patriotic enthusiasm whichglows in so much of his verse ; and thereare further definite traces of the memoryof his visit in two of the greatest of hispoems, ' Halloween 'as we have alreadyseenand Tam o' Shanter.' Here he issupposed to have made acquaintance with

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OF ROBERT BURNSthe prototypes Douglas Graham andJohn Davidson, whose graves are inthe Kirkoswald churchyardof the im-mortal ' drouthie cronies,' 'Tam o' Shanter'arid ' Souter Johnnie ' ; and it is even as-serted that he once heard from the lipsof Graham's wife, Helen M'Taggart, thesubstantial denunciations of her absenthusband which are set forth with suchglowing rhetorical art in the poem ; whilethe village inn beside the church is iden-tified as the 'Lord's House,' where Kate[Helen's prototype]untruthfully, accord-ing to the traditionary reputation of theinn and its very circumspect hostessinher denunciations represents her husbandas drinking on Sunday,

' With Kirkton Jean till Monday.'But for the increased signs of prosperityand comfort amongst the inhabitants ofthis remote agricultural seaboard parish,and the absence of the smuggling excite-ments with the accompanying scenes of' swaggering riot and roaring dissipation,'the district until lately must have differedbut little in character from what it waswhen Burns and Peggy Thomson strayedthere in moonlight evenings to view71


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THE AULD AYRSHIRE' the charms of nature,

The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,And ilka happy creature.'Now, however, the railway whistle hasbegun to arouse the echoes of the Carrickshore; the 'fore' of the golfer has, forsome time, been heard in the land ; and atTurnberry, hallowed by its memories ofBruce, the inevitable hotel, ' commandingin the words of a newspaper enthusiast'a panoramic view of the great high-way of the seas,' etc., in spick and spansplendour now fronts the western Carrickhorizon ; and the villa of the speculativebuilder will doubtless soon be an appreci-able feature of the landscap^e, and moreand more combine its neat, artificial pret-tiness with the more rustic and ancientcharms of the 'rustling corn' and 'thefruited thorn.'


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IVLOCHLEA AND TARBOLTON, ETC.

In 1777 William Burns reached a breakin his lease at Mount Oliphant; and onWhitsunday of that year removed toLochlea in the parish of Tarbolton. FromTarbolton, Lochlea is some two and a halfmilesdistant bythe higher of thetwo roadsto Mauchline. On leaving the village, wepass round an eminencethe hill of Baal'sfire, according to the traditional originof the word Tarboltonand then descendtoward's 'Willie's Mill' as described in' Death and Doctor Hornbook '' I was come round about the hill,

An' todlin' down on Willie's mill,Setting my staff wi' a' my skill,

To keep me sicker.'The Cumnock hills over which the ' moonbegan to gloure ' faced Burns dimly in thefar distance. The mill, now a rather dil-apidated range of whitewashed buildings,lies in the valley, and is passed on theright just before we cross the small but

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THE AULD AYRSHIREclassic Fail, associated in an early rhymewith the ' berry-brown ale ' of an ancientfriary destroyed, as recorded by Knox,by the Protestants of the west in 1561.The place which the dreadful Somethingselected for the interview was not a parti-cularly uncanny-looking spot, but it wasthe most uncanny part of the way be-tween Tarbolton and Lochlea. The way-farer was in, or nearing, the gloom of thevalley, which he would soon leave for thebare, exposed hillside, and probably theroad was slightly shaded, as it now is nearthe bridge,by trees,though even the oldestof them now standing could hardly havebeen there when Burns passed that way.As was to be expected, the stone on whichthey took a seat is ' still pointed out,'though for Burns himself to have pointedit out would really have been carrying thejoke too far. It is just as likely as not thatafter one of his trying descents he tooka seat on the coping of the bridge, whetherhe there foregathered or not with anyearthly or unearthly companion. The' auld kirk-hammer ' that then

' strak the bellSome wee short hour ayont the twel74


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OF ROBERT BURNShas long ceased to announce the hours ofthe day and night, the church having beenrebuilt in 1821, when a new clock was in-serted in the tower of the new spire. Thekirk stands high at the north-eastern endof the village, and the striking of theclock in the silence of the night would beheardwith quite startling clearness by thetwo gossips in the valley below.From Willie's mill the Mauchline roadwinds gradually up the hillsides, whichare now covered by well-cultivated fieldsseparated by trim hedgerows, and dottedhere and there by whitewashed farmbuildings, with their clumps of trees re-newed probably from time immemorial.Even in its summer greenness the countryhas a somewhat bare and bleak aspect,and this characteristic is emphasisedrather than not by the few strips ofrugged plantation here and there visibleon the hillsides, and the distant woods inthe river haughs. In its winter barenessit must be a ' bleaky ' country indeed. Themain compensation is the extensive viewin all directions, which though hardlybeautiful or picturesque, except towardsthe sea, with Arran and other islands in

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THE AULD AYRSHIREthe far distance, conveys an exhilarat-ing sense of freedom and expansion, anddoubtless had its own effect in encourag-ing the poet's day-dreams ofhuman libertyand brotherhood.Lochlea is not visible from the Mauchlineroad until you attain the hill beyond thecountry road on the left, that leads up tothe farm, which is the second on the left.It is situated in a slight hollow, but witha pretty open exposure to the winds that'aff Ben Lomond blaw,' though not somuch so as Mossgiel. The farmhouse andsteading have, of course, been renewedsince the time of Burns, and the imme-diate surroundings have doubtless been agood deal changed. The loch from whichthe farm takes its name, and which wasoriginally formed to feed one of the oldgrinding-mills, has now been drained ; butsome strips of plantation to the north-east may occupy the position of those,though the trees must have been renewed,by the sheltered side of which Burns de-lighted to walk. 'There is scarcely anyearthly object,' he wrote, ' gives me moreI do not know if I should call it pleasure,but something which exults me, some-76


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OF ROBERT BURNSthing which enraptures methan to walkin the sheltered side of a wood or highplantation, in a cloudy winter day, andhear a stormy wind howling among thetrees and raving o'er the plain. It is mybest season for devotion ; my mind is raptin a kind of enthusiasm to Him who, in thepompous language of Scripture, walksupon the wings of the wind. In one ofthese seasons, just before a trade misfor-tune, I composed the following song : The wintry west extends its blast.

And hail and rain does blaw,Or the stormy north sends driving forthThe blinding sleet and snaw

While tumbling brown, the burn comesdown.

And roars frae bank and braeAnd bird and beast in covert rest.And pass the heartless day.AtLochlea, whichwas some ten milesfromMount Oliphant, the family were moreremote from the world as represented tothem by the county town of Ayr, theirnearest town being now Kilmarnock,someseven miles distant. They were dependentfor social intercourse on an almost en-tirely new circle of acquaintances, who

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THE AULD AYRSHIREwere nearly all primitively rustic, butmuch more accessible to intercourse thanthose adjoining Mount Oliphant. In ad-dition to this, the social instincts of Robertand the elder children were more eagerfor gratification. It is matter of disputewhether the dancing school Robert firstattended was near Mount Oliphant ornear Lochlea; but if he did attend onewhen at Mount Oliphant, his mannerswould already have got that 'brush'which he deemed needful in one aspiringto be a rustic gallant. The father, the su-perior of most of his neighbours in abilityand intelligence, was naturally reservedexcept in very congenial society. Probablyhe never lost the hard and brusque styleof address, peculiar to his native regionand his wearing struggle with misfor-tunes had now begun severely to affect hishealth and spirits; but the mother, thedaughter of a Carrick farmer, would feelherself quite at home amongst her ruralAyrshire neighbours; and the son withhis Kirkoswald experience had already,when they removed to Lochlea, madeconsiderable progress in the social facil-ity, which made him a welcome guest78


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OF ROBERT BURNSwherever 'two or three were met to-gether.'The grave Gilbert, modelled very muchafter his father, remarks that the Lochleaperiod of the poet's life was not markedby miuch literary improvemient. This ishardly true, for it was while at Lochleathat his poetic genius first gave indica-tions of the great qualities which wereto captivate the world. But evidentlyhis leisure hours were not so wholly de-voted to the study of books as of old ; andGilbert is doubtless substantially correctwhen he goes on to say : ' But during thistime the foundation was laid of certainhabits in my brother's character, whichafterwards became but too prominent,and which malice and envy have takendelight to enlarge on. Though, whenyoung, he was bashful and awkward inhis intercourse with women, yet when heapproached manhood, his attachment totheir society became very strong, and hewas constantly the victim of some fairenslaver. The symptoms of his passionwere often such as nearly to equal thoseof the celebrated Sappho. . . . He hadalways a particular jealousy of people

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THE AULD BRIG O' DOONFrom a Painting by Monro S. Orr

' Sweet are the banks, the banks o' Doon,The spreading floivers are fair,And everything is blythe and glad,But I am fu' o' care.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird.That sings upon the bough

Thou minds me o' the happy daysWhen my fause Luve was true.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird.That sings beside thy mate,

For sae I sat, and sae I sang,And wist na o' my fate Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon,To see the woodbine twine.

And ilka bird sang o' its luve,And sae did I o' mine.Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a roseUpon its thorny tree,But my fause lover staw my roseAnd left the thorn wi' me.'


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OF ROBERT BURNSwithout an assistant confidant. I possesseda curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity inthese matters, which r

auld ayrshire of robert burns

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