Highland Mary: The Romance of a Poet / A Novel

by Clayton Mackenzie Legge

Let sprightly pleasure too advance,

Unveiled her eyes, unclasped her zone;

Till last in love’s delicious trance

He scorns the joys his youth has known.

When Robert reached Ellisland the evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills. Not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poet’s heart. He stopped his horse by the door of the cottage and stood silently regarding his future home. He had secured from Mr. Miller in Dumfries, the owner of the farm, the keys, and declining the company of several, who offered to show him the way to his new possession, he set out on his journey in gloomy solitude. For a few moments he listened to the birds pouring their harmony on every hand, as if to welcome the wanderer, then with a sigh he unlocked the door and went within. A few weeks passed uneventfully. Upon his arrival he had immediately begun to rebuild the dwelling house, which was inadequate to accommodate his family. It afforded his jaded senses much pleasure to survey the grounds he was about to cultivate, and in rearing a building that should give shelter to his wife and children (who were with Squire Armour in Mauchline, the stern old man having relented upon a bed of sickness), and, as he fondly hoped, to his own gray hairs; sentiments of independence buoyed up his mind; pictures of domestic content and peace rose in his imagination; and a few weeks passed away, the most tranquil, if not the happiest, which he had experienced for some time. His fame naturally drew upon him the attention of his neighbors in the district in which he lived, and he was received at the table of the gentlemen of Nithdale with welcome, with kindness and respect. It is to be lamented that at this critical period of his life he was without the restraining influences of the society of his wife, for a great change had taken place in his situation; his old habits were broken, and he brooded in melancholy abstraction upon his past glories in Edinburgh and his wrongs, while thoughts of Highland Mary constantly filled his waking hours, and caused him to forget the good resolutions he had formed, in his desire to drown recollections. The social parties to which he was invited too often seduced him from his rustic labor and his plain rustic food, and overthrew the unsteady fabric of his resolutions, inflaming those propensities which temperance might have weakened, and prudence finally suppressed. It was not long, therefore, before Robert began to view his farm with dislike and despondence, if not with disgust. Before his advent into Edinburgh society, and during his sojourn there, he had refrained from the habitual use of strong liquors. But in Dumfries the sins that so easily beset him continually presented themselves, and though he clearly foresaw the consequences of yielding to them, his appetite and sensations, which could not prevent the dictates of his judgment, finally triumphed over the power of his will.

His great celebrity made him an object of interest and curiosity to strangers, and few persons of cultivated minds passed through Dumfries without attempting to see the poet, and to enjoy the pleasure of his conversation. As he could not receive them under his own humble roof these interviews passed at the inns of the towns, and often terminated in excesses, which Robert was seldom able to resist. Indeed, there were never wanting persons to share his social pleasures, to lead or accompany him to the tavern, to partake in the wildest sallies of his wit, or to witness the strength and degradation of his genius.

Unfortunately he had for several years looked to an office in the excise as a certain means of livelihood, should his other expectations fail. He had been recommended to the Board of Excise before leaving Mossgiel, and had received the instructions necessary for such a situation. He now applied to be employed regularly, and was immediately appointed exciseman, or gauger, as it is vulgarly called, of the district in which he lived. His farm was after this, in a great measure, abandoned to servants, while he betook himself to the duties of his new appointment. To be sure he could still be seen at intervals directing his plow, a labor in which he excelled, but it was not at Ellisland that he was now in general to be found. Mounted on horseback, our hero was pursuing the defaulters of the revenue among the hills and vales of Nithdale, his roving eye wandering over the charms of nature, and muttering his wayward fancies as he moved along. Though by nature of an athletic form, Robert had in his constitution the peculiarities and delicacies that belong to the temperament of genius. Endowed by nature with great sensibility of nerves, he was in his corporeal, as well as in his mental system, liable to inordinate impressions, to fever of the body, as well as of mind. This predisposition to disease, which strict temperance in diet, regular exercise, and sound sleep might have subdued, habits of a very different nature, strengthened and inflamed.

The following year Jean and her bairns came to live at Ellisland. He received them with quiet affection, and Jean, who had grown strangely humbled and passive, did her utmost to please him at all times, never referring to the past, and tactfully avoiding all irritating subjects, and by her soothing presence, her loving words of comfort and sympathy, soon made her presence indispensable to her moody husband. Another year passed by, a year of anxiety for Jean, who was compelled to witness her husband’s lapses from sobriety, which now came so often, and to watch his health decline slowly, but surely, in consequence. In the midst of all his wanderings Robert met nothing in his domestic circle but gentleness and forgiveness, except the gnawings of his own remorse. He acknowledged his transgressions to his patient wife, promised amendment, and again received pardon for his offenses. But as the strength of his body decayed, his resolution became feebler, and habit acquired predominating strength.

All this time Robert had entertained hopes of promotion in the exercise, but circumstances occurred which retarded their fulfillment, and which in his own mind destroyed all expectation of their ever being fulfilled. His steady friend, Mr. Mackenzie, interposed his good offices in his behalf, however, and he was suffered to retain his situation, but given to understand that his promotion was deferred, and must depend on his future behavior. This circumstance made a deep impression on Robert. He fancied that everyone held him in contemptuous pity, as a man of some genius who had dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and who was slinking out the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the lowest of mankind; and for days he would sit quietly on the banks of the river plunged in the gloomiest meditation.

About this time he received word of Lord Glencairn’s death. The news plunged him into another fit of melancholy gloom, lessened somewhat, however, by the assurance that his noble benefactor had died knowing the truth, believing in Robert’s innocence, and asking his forgiveness.