TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.
Edinburgh.
[This characteristic letter was written during the poet’s border tour: he narrowly escaped a soaking with whiskey, as well as with water; for according to the Ettrick Shepherd, “a couple of Yarrow lads, lovers of poesy and punch, awaited his coming to Selkirk, but would not believe that the parson-looking, black-avised man, who rode up to the inn, more like a drouket craw than a poet, could be Burns, and so went disappointed away.”]
Selkirk, 13th May, 1787.
My honoured friend,
The enclosed I have just wrote, nearly extempore, in a solitary inn in Selkirk, after a miserable wet day’s riding. I have been over most of East Lothian, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk-shires; and next week I begin a tour through the north of England. Yesterday I dined with Lady Harriet, sister to my noble patron,[172] Quem Deus conservet! I would write till I would tire you as much with dull prose, as I dare say by this time you are with wretched verse, but I am jaded to death; so, with a grateful farewell,
I have the honour to be,
Good Sir, yours sincerely,
R. B.
Auld chuckie Reekie’s sair distrest,
Down drops her ance weel burnish’d crest,
Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest
Can yield ava;
Her darling bird that she loves best,
Willie’s awa.[173]