The boys had been going to Burns's birthplace in their motor-car, but they asked if they might walk round the town with us, and take to their auto later. I looked appealingly at Basil, for they were such fun, so he said, "Yes, of course"; and they were very polite, and called him "sir," as they had Mr. Somerled the night before. But each time they used the word, Basil looked as if he were swallowing bad medicine, and yet as though he were inclined to laugh. Presently, however, he went ahead with Mrs. James, following his sister and Sir S., and left me to the four boys. We laughed at everything. I'm afraid it wasn't at all the spirit to go hero-worshipping; and none of them knew anything about "The Twa Brigs" of Burns's poem. I should have liked to call Basil and ask him, but they said they should feel it would be money in their pockets never to have been born if I "shunted" them like that, so we laughed a great deal more and went on wallowing in ignorance. They seemed to take it for granted that I would rather be with them than with the others, and they paid me all sorts of funny compliments. They vowed that they had resolved to change their whole trip because of me, and wherever I was going they would go too; so, just for fun, I would tell them nothing except that it was to be Edinburgh on Monday. Cross-question as they might, I would say no more than that they must find out my hotel, and how I was related to "Mrs. Bal" (as they all called her) for themselves, if they were to find out at all.
They knew little more about Wallace than Burns. When we stopped in front of the monument in the High Street, coming back from the Auld Brig, Jack Morrison began grandly with "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," but he could get no farther, and stopped to ask helplessly, "Where did he bleed, anyhow? Was it here, and if not, why did they put up the monument?"
Even I knew that Wallace was born in Ayr; and when I impudently inquired what they came to Europe to see, if they cared more about football than history, they all answered that they came to see pretty girls. "And, by Jove, we're doing it!" added Charlie Grant.
"Can't you find pretty girls at home?" I sneered.
"We have found 'em. We're looking for new types now," said Jack. "So's the great Somerled, isn't he? He told my Cousin Marguerite that he was going a long journey in search of a model with the right shade of hair, which was hard on her, poor girl, as she's spent a pot o' money on hers. But Somerled's a sardonic sort of chap, don't you think? They say his money's spoilt him. He hardly ever paints nowadays. Too busy grubbing for millions. I've heard that you have to go on your knees to get him to do a portrait—and if he graciously consents, you can't tell but he'll bring out all that's most evil in your soul on to your face, like a rash. You never know what'll happen with him—except his fee. Nothing less than ten thousand dollars, if you get off cheap."
"I don't think he's that kind of a man at all," said I, "Why, just to prove to you that he isn't, he's offered to paint me for nothing!"
They all roared at this, and wouldn't explain why. I didn't like them much, for five minutes; but after that I couldn't help forgiving them again.
We took the Gray Dragon for Alloway and for Burns's birthplace, but the boys jumped into their car and kept close behind us. Hardly had we got into the tiny thatched house—once a mere "clay biggin"—where Burns was born, than the four appeared on the scene. Mrs. West was scarcely civil to them at first, until Basil whispered (only in fun, of course, but she took it seriously, as she often does when people think they're being humorous), "If you're nasty to those boys, it will be a bad advertisement. They won't read your books or tell their friends they're the best books going!" She was quite kind and elderly-sisterly to them after that. But nice boys as they are, it did grate on me having them make jokes every minute, even about that wonderful, pathetic little room with the railed-off furniture and curtained wall-bed.
Luckily I had been reading about the cottage and everything else concerning the Burns family while I dressed. I knew already how Burns's father built the tiny house with his own hands; how the night that Robert was born, a fearful storm came up which threatened to sweep away the whole biggin; and how the poor young mother had to be hustled off to a neighbour's cottage. How little the poor couple guessed that the baby born "in thunder, lightning and in rain" would make of the clay biggin a world's shrine, to be bought by the nation for four thousand pounds. Maybe it cost five pounds to build. How I did want to believe that from one of the bowls kept on a shelf in that room of the wall-bed Burns had eaten his porridge as a child. Of course that would be almost too good to be true; but he did eat his porridge in that room, anyhow—and often wanted more than he could get. What brains of genius have been nourished on porridge and oaten cake in this country of ours! I felt more than ever proud of my Scottish blood as I stood in that low-ceilinged cottage; and I wondered if Sir S. had the same glorious thrill. I didn't know if he had ever before come to Ayr; but I did know that his first home on our own island of Dhrum must have been much like this—just a clay biggin with a but and a ben. He, too, was born a genius. He, like Burns, knew grinding poverty. He, too, was taken up by great ones and dropped again, for he has told me so.
Once Sir S. was near me for a minute—without his Aline—and I did want some word to prove that I was still his princess, he my knight. But all I got from him on the subject was: "Well, do you think the knights 'notice' that you're a princess?"