Hamilton: You can trust us about that. But you mustn’t give up.
Burns: I’m old bones before my time, Mr. Hamilton, and I’ll not have another word of repining in this house.
Hamilton: There’s very widespread concern about you, Robert.
Burns: Aye? I’ll be a great ceremony, dead. Now, Mr. Hamilton, I don’t want you to talk for a little. Sit down, just there, will you, where I can look at a friend that’s never gone back on me.
[Hamilton sits opposite Burns, and Jean at her husband’s side. Burns seems for a moment to be falling asleep, then there is a sound of moving people outside.]
Burns: What’s that?
Jean (looking out of the window): It’s the emigrants. They’re leaving the town.
Hamilton: I saw them gathering outside your town hall as I came by.
Burns: Aye—they’re going to a new world. Starting a new life. If I were not the miserable disaster I am, I might be going with them. I might be going to prove myself in far lands.
[The crowd is approaching, singing on its way.]