“Fair maid, you need not take the hint,
Nor idle texts pursue:—
’Twas guilty sinners that he meant,—
Not angels such as you.”
Cromek.
[296] “This extraordinary woman then moved in a very humble walk of life:—the wife of a common working gardener. She is still living, and, if I am rightly informed, her time is principally occupied in her attentions to a little day-school, which not being sufficient for her subsistence, she is obliged to solicit the charily of her benevolent neighbours. ‘Ah, who would love the lyre!’“—Cromek.
[297] The entry made on this occasion in the Lodge-books of St Abb’s is honorable to
“The brethren of the mystic level.”
“Eyemouth, 19th May, 1787.
“At a general encampment held this day, the following brethren were made royal arch masons, viz. Robert Burns, from the Lodge of St. James’s, Tarbolton, Ayrshire, and Robert Ainslie, from the Lodge of St. Luke’s, Edinburgh by James Carmichael, Wm. Grieve, Daniel Dow, John Clay, Robert Grieve, &c. &c. Robert Ainslie paid one guinea admission dues; but on account of R. Burns’s remarkable poetical genius, the encampment unanimously agreed to admit him gratis, and considered themselves honoured by having a man of such shining abilities for one of their companions.”
Extracted from the Minute Book of the Lodge by Thomas Bowbill
THE HIGHLAND TOUR.
25th August, 1787.