Chapter 12

"One point must still be greatly dark, The moving why they do it; And just as lamely can ye mark How far perhaps they rue it."

He wrote a paper which he gave Jean, in the belief that it constituted a marriage between them,--a belief which was perhaps justifiable in the existing condition of Scottish laws of marriage. But he counted without his host; for instead of accepting it as a manly endeavor to shield the reputation of his daughter and divert scandal from his family, the hot-headed father of Jean denounced it and demanded its destruction,--a foolish proceeding to which his foolish daughter consented. Whether its destruction could destroy his obligation need not be curiously considered; it is enough to know that he believed that it did, and that it was a proof of perfidy on the part of Jean. But they should see! She had forsaken him, and he would forsake her. So, the old love being off, he was straightway on with a new one. Of this new love little is known, except that she was, or had been, a servant in the family of one of his friends,--a nurserymaid or something of the sort,--and that she was of Highland parentage. Her name was Mary Campbell. He transferred his affections from Jean to Mary, and his fascination was so strong that she promised to become his wife. They met one Sunday in a sequestered spot on the banks of the Ayr, where, standing on each side of a little brook, they laved their hands in its limpid waters, plighted their troth, and exchanged Bibles,--she giving him her copy, which was a small one, he giving her his copy, which was a large one in two volumes, on the blank leaves of which he had written his name and two quotations from the sacred text, one being the solemn injunction to fidelity in Leviticus:--"And ye shall not swear by my name falsely. I am the Lord." They parted. She returned to her relatives, among whom she died a few months afterward of a malignant fever; he returned to his troubles at Mossgiel. They were not all of his own making. It was not his fault that the farm was an unproductive one; he could not impart fertility to barren acres nor compel the sun to ripen scanty crops. In the hope of bettering his fortunes he resolved to expatriate himself, and entered into negotiations with a man who had an estate in the West Indies, and who agreed to employ him as his factor. He had no money and no means of getting any, except by the publication of his poems, none of which had yet appeared in print. He issued a prospectus for their publication by subscription; and such was the reputation they had made for him through their circulation in manuscript, and the activity of his friends, that the necessary number of subscribers was soon obtained. They were published at Kilmarnock in the summer of 1786, and were read by all classes,--by the plowman as eagerly as by the laird, by the milkmaid in the dairy as eagerly as by her mistress in the parlor,--and wherever they were read they were admired. No poet was ever so quickly recognized as Burns, who captivated his readers by his human quality as well as his genius. They understood him at once. He sung of things which concerned them,--of emotions which they felt, the joys and sorrows of their homely lives, and, singing from his heart, his songs went to their hearts. His fame as a poet spread along the country and came to the knowledge of Dr. Blacklock, a blind poet in Edinburgh, who after hearing Burns's poetry was so impressed by it that he wrote or dictated a letter about it, which he addressed to a correspondent in Kilmarnock, by whom it was placed in the hands of Burns. He was still at Mossgiel, and in a perturbed condition of mind, not knowing whether he could remain there, or whether he would have to go to Jamaica. He resolved at last to do neither, but to go to Edinburgh, which he accordingly did, proceeding thither on a pony borrowed from a friend.

The visit of Burns to Edinburgh was a hazardous experiment from which he might well have shrunk. He was ignorant of the manners of its citizens,--the things which differentiated them as a class from the only class he knew,--but his ignorance did not embarrass him. He was self-possessed; manly in his bearing; modest, but not humble; courteous, but independent. He had no letters of introduction, and needed none, for his poetry had prepared the way for him. It was soon known among the best people in Edinburgh that he was there, and they hastened to make his acquaintance; one of the first to do so being a man of rank, Lord Glencairn. To know him was to know other men of rank, and to be admitted to the brilliant circles in which they moved. Burns's society was sought by the nobility and gentry and by the literary lords of the period, professors, historians, men of letters. They dined him and wined him and listened to him,--listened to him eagerly, for here as elsewhere he distinguished himself by his conversation, the charm of which was so potent that the Duchess of Gordon declared that she was taken off her feet by it. He increased his celebrity in Edinburgh by the publication of a new and enlarged edition of his Poems, which he dedicated to the noblemen and gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt in a page of manly prose, the proud modesty and the worldly tact of which must have delighted them. "The poetic genius of my country found me," he wrote, "as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha, and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my native soil in my native tongue. I tuned my wild, artless notes as she inspired. She whispered me to come to this ancient metropolis of Caledonia and lay my songs under your honored protection. I now obey her dictates." His mind was not active at this time, for beyond a few trivial verses he wrote nothing worthy of him except a short but characteristic 'Epistle to the Guidwife of Wauchope House.' He spent the winter of 1786 and the spring of 1787 in Edinburgh; and summer being close at hand, he resolved to return for a time to Mossgiel. There were strong reasons for his return, some of which pertained to his impoverished family, whom he was now in a condition to assist, for the new edition of his Poems had proved profitable to himself, and others--for before his departure for Edinburgh, Jean had borne twins, a boy and a girl; and the girl was being cared for at Mossgiel. He returned therefore to his family and his child, and whether he purposed to do so or not, to the mother of his child. It was not a wise thing to do, perhaps, but it was a human thing, and very characteristic of the man, who, whatever else he was not, was very human. And the Armours were very human also, for old Armour received him into his house, and Jean received him into her arms. She was not a prudent young woman, but she was a fond and forgiving one.

The life of Burns during the next twelve months may be briefly described. He returned to Edinburgh, where in his most serious moods he held sessions of thought. It may have been a silent one, but it was not a sweet one; for while he summoned up remembrance of things past, he summoned up apprehensions of things to come. That he had won distinction as a poet was certain; what was not certain was the duration of this distinction. He was famous to-day; he might be forgotten to-morrow. But famous or forgotten, he and those dependent on him must have bread; and since he saw no reasonable prospect of earning it with his head, he must earn it with his hands. They were strong and willing. So he leased a farm at Ellisland in Dumfriesshire, and obtained an appointment from the Board of Excise: then, poet, farmer, and exciseman, he went back to Mauchline and was married to Jean. Leaving her and her child he repaired to Ellisland, where he was obliged to build a cottage for himself. He dug the foundations, collected stone and sand, carted lime, and generally assisted the masons and carpenters. Nor was this all, for he directed at the same time whatever labor the careful cultivation of a farm demanded from its tenant. He was happy at Ellisland,--happier than he had been at Mount Oliphant, where his family had been so sorely pinched by poverty, and much happier than he had been at Mossgiel, where he had wrought so much trouble for himself and others. A good son and a good brother, he was a good husband and a good father. It was in no idle moment that he wrote this stanza, which his conduct now illustrated:--

"To make a happy fireside chime To weans and wife, That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life."

His life was orderly; his wants were few and easily supplied; his mind was active, and his poetical vein more productive than it had been at Edinburgh. The best lyric that he wrote at Ellisland was the one in praise of his wife ('Of a' the airts the wind can blaw--'); the most important poem 'Tam o' Shanter.' Farmer and exciseman, he was very busy,--busier, perhaps, as the last than the first, for while his farming labors might be performed by others, his excise labors could only be performed by himself; the district under his charge covering ten parishes, the inspection of which required his riding about two hundred miles a week. The nature of his duties, and the spirit with which he went through them, may be inferred from a bit of his doggerel:--

"Searching auld wives' barrels, Och, hone, the day! That clarty barm should stain my laurels: But--what'll ye say-- These movin' things ca'd wives and weans Wad move the very hearts o' stanes!"

A model exciseman, he was neither a model nor a prosperous farmer, for here as elsewhere, mother earth was an unkind stepmother to him. He struggled on, hoping against hope, from June 1788 to December 1791; then, beaten, worn out, exhausted, he gave up his farm and removed to Dumfries, exchanging his cozy cottage with its outlook of woods and waters for a mean little house in the Wee Vennel, with its inlook of narrow dirty streets and alleys. His life in Dumfries was not what one could wish it might have been for his sake; for though it was not without its hours of happiness, its unhappy days were many, and of a darker kind than he had hitherto encountered. They were monotonous, they were wearisome, they were humiliating. They could not be other than humiliating to a man of his proud, impulsive spirit, who, schooling himself to prudence on account of his wife and children, was not always prudent in his speech. Who indeed could be, unless he were a mean, cowardly creature, in the storm and stress of the great Revolution with which France was then convulsed? His utterances, whatever they may have been, were magnified to his official and social disadvantage, and he was greatly troubled. He felt his disfavor with the people of Dumfries,--as he could not help showing to one of his friends, who, riding into the town on a fine summer evening to attend a county ball, saw him walking alone on the shady side of the principal street, while the other side was crowded with ladies and gentlemen who seemed unwilling to recognize him. This friend dismounted, and joining him, proposed that they should cross the street. "Nay, nay, my young friend," said the poet, "that's all over now." Then, after a pause, he quoted two stanzas from a pathetic ballad by Lady Grizel Bailie:--

"His bonnet stood then fu' fair on his brow, His auld are looked better than mony ane's new; But now he lets 't wear ony way it will hing, And casts himself doure upon the corn bing.

"O were we young now as we ance hae been, We should hae been galloping down on yon green, And linking it owre the lily-white lea-- And werena my heart light I wad die."

The light heart of Burns failed him at last,--failed him because, enfeebled by disease and incapacitated from performing his excise duties, his salary, which had never exceeded seventy pounds a year, was reduced to half that beggarly sum; because he was so distressed for money that he was obliged to solicit a loan of a one-pound note from a friend: failed him, poor heart, because it was broken! He took to his bed for the last time on July 21st, 1796, and two days later, surrounded by his little family, he passed away in the thirty-eighth year of his age.

Such was the life of Robert Burns,--the hard, struggling, erring, suffering, manly life, of which his poetry is the imperishable record. He was what his birth, his temperament, his circumstances, his genius made him. He owed but little to books, and the books to which he owed anything were written in his mother tongue. His English reading, which was not extensive, harmed him rather than helped him. No English author taught or could teach him anything. He was not English, but Scottish,--Scottish in his nature and genius, Scottish to his heart's core,--the singer of the Scottish people, their greatest poet, and the greatest poet of his time.

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT

My loved, my honored, much respected friend! No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride I scorn each selfish end; My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh[1]; The shortening winter day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The blackening trains o' craws to their repose The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes; This night his weekly moil is at an end; Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; The expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher[2] through To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle,[3] blinking bonnily, His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil.

Belyve[4] the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out, amang the farmers roun'; Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie[5] rin A cannie errand to a neebor town. Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's weelfare kindly speirs[6]: The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos[7] that he sees or hears: The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view. The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars[8] auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their masters' an' their mistresses' command, The yonkers a' are warnèd to obey; An' mind their labors wi' an eydent[9] hand, An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk[10] or play: "An' O! be sure to fear the Lord alway! An' mind your duty duly, morn an' night! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!"

But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins[11] is afraid to speak: Weel pleased, the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben,[12] A strappan youth; he taks the mother's eye; Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en: The father cracks[13] of horses, pleughs, and kye:[14] The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate[15] and laithfu',[16] scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.[17]

O happy love, where love like this is found! O heartfelt raptures! bliss beyond compare! I've pacèd much this weary mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare:-- "If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale."

Is there in human form, that bears a heart-- A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling, smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild?

But now the supper crowns their simple board, The halesome parritch,[18] chief o' Scotia's food: The soupe their only Hawkie[19] does afford, That 'yont the hallan[20] snugly chows her cood:[21] The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hained[22] kebbuck,[23] fell, An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, How 'twas a towmond[24] auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.[25]

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They round the ingle form a circle wide: The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride; His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets[26] wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales[27] a portion wi' judicious care; And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise, They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps 'Dundee's' wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive 'Martyrs,' worthy of the name; Or noble 'Elgin' beets[28] the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire: Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme: How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He who bore in heaven the second name Had not on earth whereon to lay his head: How his first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land; How he who, lone in Patmos banishèd, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"[29] That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.

Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: The parent pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God:"[30] And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp! a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart; Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert; But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sough.

[2] Stagger.

[3] Fire, or fireplace.

[4] By-and-by.

[5] Careful.

[6] Inquires.

[7] News.

[8] Makes.

[9] Diligent.

[10] Dally.

[11] Half.

[12] Into the spence, or parlor.

[13] Gossips.

[14] Cows.

[15] Bashful.

[16] Sheepish.

[17] Rest.

[18] Porridge.

[19] A white-faced cow.

[20] Wall.

[21] Chews her cud.

[22] Saved.

[23] Cheese.

[24] Twelvemonth.

[25] Flax was in flower.

[26] Gray locks.

[27] Chooses.

[28] Increases.

[29] Pope's 'Windsor Forest.'

[30] Pope's 'Essay on Man.'

JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO

John Anderson, my jo, John, When we were first acquent, Your locks were like the raven, Your bonnie brow was brent; But now your brow is bald, John, Your locks are like the snaw; But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither; And mony a canty day, John, We've had wi' ane anither: Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go; And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo.

MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN

A Dirge