Part 34

It is well known to most readers that this house was built by Burns's father, and that about a week after Robert, his first child, was born, the roof fell in during a tempest at midnight, and that mother and child had to be carried forth in a hurry, through the storm and darkness, to a cottage, which still remains, not far off, on the opposite side of the road. Robert Burns was born in what is now the kitchen, in one of those recess beds so common in Scotch cottages. This is still shown to visitors by the occupiers of the house. The better room, in which the guests are entertained, that nearest to the town of Ayr, bears abundant marks of the zeal of these visitors. The walls are well written over with names, but not in that extraordinary manner that the walls of Shakspeare's birth-place at Stratford are. The rage here has taken another turn, that of cutting the names into the furniture. There are two plane-tree tables, which are cut and carved in the most singular completeness. There does not seem to be left space, neither on the top, the sides, nor the legs, even for another initial. There were formerly three of these tables, but one of them was sold some years ago. There is a cupboard and chairs all cut over, the chairs having been obliged to be renewed, but the fresh ones are now as much cut as ever. We were informed by Mrs. Gondie, the widow of the old miller, John Gondie, of Doonside Mill, who had lived in the house nearly forty years, that the lease of the property had been bought of Burns's father, by the Shoemaker's Company of Ayr, for one hundred and sixty guineas; but that the property now let for £45 a year; and that the said Shoemaker's Company wishing again to raise the rent, the widow was going to quit at Michaelmas last, and that another person had taken the house and small piece of ground adjoining, at a rental of £60 a year. Mrs. Gondie said that she had been once bid £15 for one of the tables, but had refused it; that, however, being now about to quit the premises, she had sold the chairs and tables to a broker at Glasgow, who was announcing them as the actual furniture of Burns, though it was well known that when Burns's father left this house for Mount Oliphant, a few miles off, when Robert Burns was not seven years of age, he took all his furniture with him. Conspicuous among the carved names in this room was that of an ambitious Peter Jones, of Great Bear Lake, North America.

Burns's father, who was, when he lived here, gardener to Mr. Ferguson, of Doonholm, was a man of an excitable temperament, but of a most upright disposition; and his mother, like the mothers of most remarkable men, was a woman of clear, clever, and superior mind, of a winning address, and full of ballads and traditions. From both sides the son drew the elements of a poet; and we can well imagine him sitting by the humble fireside of this cottage, and receiving into his childish heart, from the piety of the father, and the imaginative tales of the mother, those images of genuine Scottish life which poured themselves forth as well in Tam O'Shanter as in the grave and beautiful Cotter's Saturday Night.

Having insisted on my worthy guide getting some refreshment, we again sallied forth to make a more thorough exploration of the youthful haunts of the poet. And now, indeed, we were surrounded by mementoes of him and of his fame on all hands. The cottage stands on a pleasant plain; and about a quarter of a mile onward you see, on the left hand of the road, the monument erected to his memory: a dome, surmounted with a lyre and the significant wine-cup, and supported on Corinthian pillars. On the opposite, that is, on the right-hand side of the road, is the old Kirk of Alloway; beyond, away to the right, is heard the sea, while the airy range of the Carrick Hills stretches across, closing the landscape before you. At their feet a mass of trees marks the course of the Doon; but, before you reach any of these objects, you pass, on your left, the large open field in which was held the Burns Festival on the 6th of August, 1844. The place where the wall had been broken down to admit the procession was plainly discernible by its new mortar; and a fine crop of corn was now waving where such thousands had, but a year before, met in honor of the immortal exciseman.

Of this festival copious particulars are to be found in all the newspapers of the day, but in none so complete and accurate as "The Full Report" published by Mr. Maxwell Dick, the worthy publisher of the Ayrshire News Letter at Irvine, one of the most enthusiastic admirers of the genius of Burns, and of genius in general. By this report it appears that the procession, forming on the Low Green of Ayr, near the County Buildings, met at ten o'clock in the morning, and consisted of the magistrates of the town, public bodies, farmers, numerous freemasons' lodges, societies of gardeners, archers, and odd fellows, King Crispin in his most imposing style, with Souter Johnny in character, accompanied by attendants with banners floating, and bands playing music of Burns's songs. In this procession were seen gentlemen and noblemen, and literary men of the highest distinction, from all parts of the empire. It reached a mile along the high road, three abreast. The whole number of persons present--that is, in the procession and on the ground--was calculated at eighty thousand. A splendid triumphal arch was erected at the cottage where the poet was born, and, as the procession drew near it, the band played, "There was a Lad was born in Kyle;" the vast multitude uncovered at once, and the flags were lowered as they passed the humble but much respected spot. Platforms were erected in various places, so that people could get a _coup-d'oeil_ of the procession. As it approached Kirk Alloway, the old bell, which still occupies the belfry, was set a ringing, and continued so while the procession marched under the triumphal arch along the new bridge. Deploying round toward the old bridge of Doon, the circling line, partially obscured by the houses and trees, had a truly picturesque effect; the waving banners, the music of the bands, mellowed and echoed by "the banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," were deeply impressive. On reaching the Auld Brig, over which was thrown a triumphal arch, the band struck up "Welcome, Royal Charlie," while the procession, uncovering and lowering their flags, passed over in front of the platform, on which stood the three sons of Burns, his sister Mrs. Begg, her son, and two daughters. The procession occupied at least an hour in coming from the new bridge to the field, on entering which the band played "Duncan Gray," followed by "The Birks of Aberfeldy." A large circle was then formed round the platform for the musicians in the field; and the whole company, led by professional vocalists, joined in singing "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," and "Auld Lang Syne." The bands were then stationed in various parts of the field: the regimental and Glasgow St. Andrew's bands in the center of the field; the Kilwinning and Cumnock bands at the cottage; and the bagpipers played at a distance from the pavilion. There were two inclosures for dancing: one near the head of the field, and the other on the brow overlooking the Doon. Immediately after the procession was over, the crowd were astonished by the sudden appearance of Tam O'Shanter, "well mounted on his gray mare Meg," and a flight of witches in full pursuit of her, till he reached and passed the keystone of the arch of the Auld Brig. At two, the Earl of Eglinton took the chair at the banquet in the pavilion, with Professor Wilson as croupier. To the right of the chairman sat Robert Burns, Esq., the eldest son of the poet; Major Burns, his youngest son; on the left, Colonel Burns, second son of the poet; Mrs. Begg, Burns's sister; and right and left, other members of the family, amid many noble and distinguished persons: as Mrs. Thomson, of Dumfries, the Jessie Lewars of the poet; Sir John M'Neill, late plenipotentiary to the court of Persia; the lord-justice-general, the Countess of Eglinton, Alison, the historian, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Robert Chambers, of Edinburgh, Douglas Jerrold, William Thom, the poet of Inverury, &c., &c. The chairs of the chairman and croupier were made of oaken rafters from Kirk Alloway, and many mementoes of the poet decorated the table. The scene in the pavilion is described as splendid, and like one of fairy-land; and the most enthusiastic speeches were made in honor of the poet, especially by the noble chairman and the eloquent John Wilson.

It will be seen, by those acquainted with the ground, that the procession had thus taken a course contrived to include every object of interest connected with Burns here. It had passed the cottage of his birth; passed between Kirk Alloway and his monument; crossed by the new bridge over the Doon to the side of the river, and returned over the old bridge, so as to see all "the banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," and so entered the field of the festival, having entirely encircled the monument. There, in full view of all these objects, the cottage, the old ruins of the kirk, the monument, and the banks of Doon, they celebrated--eighty thousand persons--the festival of his honor, amid the music of his own enchanting songs, among which were, "A Man's a Man for a' That;" "This is na my ain House;" "Green Grow the Rashes, O;" "My Love she's but a Lassie yet;" "What ye wha's in yon Toun."

This stirring and tumultuous expression of a nation's veneration was gone by; silence had again fallen, as it were, with a musing sense of the poet's glory on the scene; and with my worthy old guide I went over the same ground leisurely, noting all its beauties and characteristics. First, we turned into the grave-yard of Kirk Alloway. Here stood the roofless old kirk, just such a plain, simple ruin as you see in a hundred places in Ireland. One of the first objects that arrests your attention is the bell in the little belfry, with a rope hanging outside, only sufficiently low for the sexton, on any occasion of funeral, to reach it with a hooked pole, and thus to prevent any idle person ringing it at other times. This bell, when the parishes of Alloway and Ayr were joined, was attempted to be carried away by the authorities of Ayr, by no means to their honor, but the crofters of Alloway manfully rose and resisted successfully the removal. There are plenty of open windows where Tam O'Shanter could take a full view of the uncanny dancing-party; and "the winnock bunker in the east," a small window, "where sat Auld Nick, in shape o' beast," as fiddler, is conspicuous enough. The interior of the kirk is divided by a wall. The west-end division is the burial-place of the Cathcarts, which is kept very neat. The other end, and where the witch-dance met Tam's astonished eyes, is now full of briers and nettles, bearing sufficient evidence of no recent displays of this kind. The kirk-yard is crowded with tombs, and the first memorial of the dead which meets your eye is the headstone of the poet's father, just before you as you enter by the stile, with this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of William Burns, farmer in Lochlea, who died Feb., 1784, in the 63d year of his age; and of Agnes Brown, his spouse, who died the 14th of Jan., 1820, in the 88th year of her age. She was interred in Bolton Church-yard, East Lothian.

"O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, Draw near with pious reverence, and attend! Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, The tender father, and the generous friend. The pitying heart that felt for human woe; The dauntless heart that feared no human pride; The friend of man, to vice alone a foe; 'For e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side.'"

This epitaph was written expressly for this tomb by Burns, the last line being quoted from Goldsmith.

Advancing now to the new bridge, you stand between two remarkable monuments of the poet. On your right hand, close on the banks of the Doon, and adjoining the bridge, stands a handsome villa, in beautiful grounds which occupy part of "the banks and braes." This is the house of Mr. Auld, the enterprising hair-dresser of Ayr, who was the first to recognize the genius of Thom the sculptor, then a poor stone-mason of Ayr. Thom, seeing a picture of Tam O'Shanter in Auld's window, requested the loan of it for a few days. Being asked by Auld what he wanted it for, he said he had a notion that he could make a figure from it. It was lent, and in a few days he returned with a model of Tam in clay. Mr. Auld was so struck with the genius displayed in it, that he suggested to Thom to complete the group by adding Souter Johnny. That was soon done; and then, by the assistance of Mr. Auld, the well-known group was cut in stone. The enterprising hair-dresser now prepared to set out on an expedition of exhibition of this group, the proceeds of which, I understand, were agreed to be equally divided between Auld, Thom, and the committee for a monument to Burns, near his birth-place. Such was the success of the scheme, that Thom, I am told, received £4000 as his share of the proceeds, which, however, he soon contrived to lose by taking stone-quarries, and entering on building schemes. Having lost his money, he retired to America. Auld, more careful, quitted the wig-block and lather-brush, and building himself a house, sat down as a country gentleman opposite to the monument, which seems to be in his keeping. It has been said that the monument committee never received any thing like a third of the proceeds of the exhibition, or the monument might now be opened free of cost to the public. That, however, is a point which the committee and Mr. Auld must be best informed about. One thing is certain, that Mr. Auld's present residence is a grand specimen of the effect of the united genius of Burns, Thom, and Auld; an exciseman, a stone-mason, and a barber. To the left hand of the road, opposite to _this_ monument, stands, in a pleasant garden, the _other_ monument of Burns, as already described, and which also, it seems, partly owed its existence to the same bold enterprise of this barber of Ayr, who seems actually to have had the art of "cutting blocks with a razor." In this monument is no statue of Burns, but merely a framed copy of that admirable colored print of Burns, published by Mr. Maxwell Dick, of Irvine, from Nasmyth's picture; and on the table in the center, the Bible and Testament given by Burns to his Mary at their last parting near Montgomery Castle. These are two separate volumes, and are displayed at the beginning of each, where Burns has placed a masonic sign, and written his name, now nearly obliterated; adding the two texts, Leviticus, xix., 12; Matthew, v., 33; which are, "Ye shall not swear by my name falsely; I am the Lord;" and, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." These precious volumes were known to be in the possession of the sister of Burns's "Mary," in America; and a society of young men, ardent admirers of Burns, resolved to regain them, if possible, for the public. This, after great trouble and expense, they finally effected, and here they are, objects certainly of the deepest interest.

In a separate and small building in the same garden stands the celebrated group, by Thom, of Tam and Souter Johnny. This, however, it being Sunday, was, by an order of the authorities of Ayr, not allowed to be seen, though the monument was. I asked the youth who showed the monument if he could explain to me why it was a sin to show the group, and not a sin to show the monument on a Sunday; but the lad very properly replied that he did not pretend to a metaphysical sagacity so profound; his business was to _show_ the monument, and _not_ to _show_ either the group or the reason why; for that he referred me to the superior hair-splitting piety and acumen of the corporate authorities of Ayr.

Quitting this garden, you encounter, at the foot of the new bridge, a new inn called Burns's Inn and Hotel, with a fine painted sign, with a blackbird singing upon a bough, with a crook and a house, and an oak in the center of a shield laid on branches of olive and oak; and over it the words, "Better a small bush than nae bield." The auld brig is some little distance up the stream, and the view from it is very beautiful. You are surrounded by "the banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," steep, hung with orchards and fine woodland trees. At some little distance still further up the stream, you descry the old mill of Alloway, half buried in umbrageous trees, and all round rise sweet woodland fields at the feet of the hills. The bridge is well carved over with names, and overgrown with masses of ivy. Standing on this remarkable old gray bridge, my companion exhibited a trait of delicate and genuine feeling, which no man of the most polished education in the school of politeness could have surpassed. Gathering a sprig of ivy, he said, presenting it, "May be ye would like to send this to your leddy in England; it's gathered just frae the keystane." I accepted it with the liveliest pleasure, and it is now carefully preserved where the good man wished it. We now returned to Ayr, talking of Burns, his history, his poetry, and his fine qualities all the way; and after one of the pleasantest rambles I ever made in any company, I bid my old friend good-by at his door, leaving in his hand a trifle to mend his Sunday supper. "But," said he, as I was going away, "might I request the favor of your name, that I may know who it was that I had the honor of a walk with to Burns's monument, when I am thinking of it?" I told him; his face passed from its usual paleness to a deep flush; and he exclaimed, "Eh, sir! I ken yer name, and that o' yer leddy too, right weel!" Depend upon it, the recollection of that walk has been as pleasant to my old friend as to myself.

The next day, with a driver well acquainted with the country, I issued forth in a gig to visit all the various residences of Burns, between Ayr and Mauchline. Burns, in his life, seemed like a bird leaving its nest. He took two or three short flights till he flew quite away to Dumfries. At every move he got further from Ayr. He was like an emigrant, still going on and on in one direction, and his course was southeast. First he went, that is, with his father, to Mount Oliphant, a farm about four miles from Alloway, where he lived from his sixth to his twelfth year. This farm has nothing particular about it. It lies on a bare ridge of hill, an ordinary little Scotch farm-steading, with bare and treeless fields. Then he went on to another farm--to Lochlea, still further out on this long, high, and bleak tract of country, near Tarbolton. This farm ruined his father, and there he died. Lochlea is a neat farm-house, lying in a hollow more sheltered than Mount Oliphant, but still possessing no picturesque features. In fact, the family was seeking, not the picturesque, but a livelihood. At Lochlea, Burns lived till he was twenty-four, and here he attended the masonic lodge at the Cross Keys, at Tarbolton, which still remains. There he became acquainted with Mr. David Sillar, the schoolmaster of Tarbolton, and addressed to him his Epistle to Davie. It was about three miles from Tarbolton, but that was nothing to Burns, full of life and poetry. The Bachelor's Society that, with David Sillar and other young men, he formed there, had infinite charms for him. Humble were these companions; in David Sillar's words,

"Of birth and blood we do not boast, No gentry does our club afford, But plowmen and mechanics we In nature's simple dress record;"

but they were men after Burns's own heart. He judged of men as his father had taught him:

"My father was a farmer upon the Camek Border, And carefully he bred me up in decency and order; He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing, For without an honest, manly heart, no man was worth regarding."

It was during his abode here that he wrote John Barleycorn; Corn Riggs are Bonnie; Winter, a Dirge; the Death of Poor Mailie; Mailie's Elegy; and Now Whistling Winds, &c. But the love affairs he was now continually getting into, and the dissipations that he became acquainted with at Kirkoswald and Irvine, at which places he spent some months, rendered his poetical growth far less than it otherwise might have been there. One incident in his life, and one of his most beautiful poems consequent on it, however, arose out of an attachment, which, though said to be formed at Mauchline, was certainly cultivated here. Just below Tarbolton lies Montgomerie Castle, beautifully situated amid its woods on the banks of the Faile, where he fell in love with Mary Campbell. Here was the house at which, according to his own beautiful poem, they used to meet, and here it was that he finally took leave of her. She was dairy-maid in the house then belonging to Colonel Hugh Montgomerie, afterward Earl of Eglinton, and grandfather of the present earl.

"Ye banks, and braes, and streams around The castle of Montgomerie, Green be your woods and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie. There summer first unfaulds her robes, And there they longest tarry, For there I took my last farewell Of my sweet Highland Mary."

There is a story mentioned in the Life of Burns of this parting being on the banks of Ayr, and Cromek repeats it, adding that "the lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook; they laved their hands in the limpid stream, and, holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other."

All this may be true, for they took a day to this final solitary enjoyment of each other's society in the woods before parting. They might wander by the Ayr, and so on up to the Faile, and at some small rivulet on the way perform this simple and affecting ceremony. Mary was going to the Western Highlands to see her friends before she married Robert Burns, but she died on her way back, and they never met again. This Bible, as we have seen, has been recovered, and is deposited in the monument at Alloway Wherever this ceremony, however, took place, the parting assuredly took place here. Burns says, not only that "there I took my last farewell," but also

"How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk, How rich the hawthorn's blossom, As, underneath the fragrant shade, I clasped her to my bosom."

There still stands the thorn, called by all the country "Highland Mary's Thorn."

The house and park are sold or leased by the Earl of Eglinton to a solicitor in Ayr. My driver appeared afraid of going into the park, saying "the writer," that is, the solicitor, was a queer fellow, and would not let any body go to the thorn, and certainly a large board at each park gate, warning all persons to avoid those hallowed precincts, appeared to confirm the man's opinion; but, having come so far, I did not mean to pass without a glance at the parting scene of Burns and Highland Mary. I bade him drive down to the house, where I was speedily assured by the servants about that I was quite at liberty to go to the tree. "How shall I know it?" "Oh! a child may know it: it is all hacked, and the twigs broken, by people who carry away some of it to keep." By these signs I readily recognized the tree. It is not far from the house, close to the carriage drive, and on the top of the slope that descends to the Faile, which murmurs on beneath its sweet woodland shade.[30]