Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 07

by Unknown

ROBERT BURNS.

Mount Oliphant taxed the industry and endurance of William Burness to the utmost; and what with the sterility of the soil, which was the poorest in the parish, and the loss of cattle by accidents and disease, it was with great difficulty that he managed to support his family. They lived so sparingly that butcher's meat was for years a stranger in the house, and they labored, children and all, from morning to night. Robert, at the age of thirteen, assisted in threshing the crop of corn, and at fifteen he was the principal laborer on the farm, for they could not afford a hired hand. That he was constantly afflicted with a dull headache in the evenings was not to be wondered at; nor that the sight and thought of his gray-haired father, who was turned fifty, should depress his spirits and impart a tinge of gloom to his musings. It was under circumstances like these that he composed his first song, the inspiration of which was a daughter of the blacksmith who had loaned him the 'History of Sir William Wallace.' It was the custom of the country to couple a man and woman together in the labors of harvest; and on this occasion his partner was Nelly Kilpatrick, with whom, boy-like,—for he was in his seventeenth year and she a year younger,—he liked to lurk behind the rest of the hands when they returned from their labors in the evening, and who made his pulse beat furiously when he fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. She sang sweetly, and among her songs there was one which was said to be composed by a small laird's son about one of his father's maids, with whom he was in love; and Robert saw no reason why he should not rhyme as well as he, for the author had no more school-craft than himself. Writing of this song a few years later, he called it puerile and silly; and his verdict as a poetical one was correct. Still, considered as a song, this artless effusion possessed one merit of which he himself was probably not conscious: it was inspired by his feeling and not by his reading, by the warmth and purity of his love of Nelly Kilpatrick, and not by his admiration of any amorous ditty in his collection of English songs. It was a poor thing, but it was certainly his own, and nowhere more so than in its recognition of the womanly personality of its heroine:—

"And then there's something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel."

This touch of nature, which no modish artist would have attempted, marked the hand of one who painted from the life.

William Burness struggled along for twelve years at Mount Oliphant, and then removed to Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton. Here he rented a larger farm, the soil of which promised a surer maintenance for himself and the hostages he had given to Fortune. And there these loving hostages began to put away childish things, and to become men and women. They were cheerful, in spite of the frugality which their poverty imposed upon them; and were merry in their simple homely way, singing and dancing among themselves and among their friendly neighbors. Their hearts expanded in the healthy air about them, particularly the heart of Robert, which turned to thoughts of love,—not lightly, as in his boyish fancy for Nelly Kilpatrick, but seriously, as beseemed a man; for he was now in his nineteenth year, and as conscious of what he was to woman as of what woman was to him. A born lover, and a born poet, he discovered himself and his song at Tarbolton. The custom of the country and the time sanctioned a freedom of manners, and a frequency of meeting on the part of rustic amorists, of which he was not slow to avail himself. The love affairs of the Scottish peasantry are thus described by one of his biographers:—"The young farmer or plowman, after his day of exhausting toil, would proceed to the home of his mistress, one, two, three, or more miles distant, there signal her to the door, and then the pair would seat themselves in the barn for an hour or two's conversation." Burns practiced this mode of courtship, which was the only one open to him, and among the only women whom he knew at Tarbolton. "He made no distinction between the farmer's own daughters and those who acted as his servants, the fact after all being that the servants were often themselves the daughters of farmers, and only sent to be the hirelings of others because their services were not needed at home." We should remember this habit of the Scottish peasantry if we wish to understand the early songs of Burns; for they were suggested by it, and vitalized by it, as much as by his impassioned genius. He painted what he saw; he sang what he felt. We have a glimpse of him in one of his winter courtships in 'My Nanie, O'; another and warmer glimpse of him in one of his summer courtships in 'The Rigs o' Barley'; and another and livelier glimpse of him in one of his mocking moods in 'Tibbie, I hae seen the day.' But he was more than the lover which these songs revealed: he was a man of sound understanding and fine, active intelligence, gifted with ready humor and a keen sense of wit. If he had been other than he was, he might and probably would have been elated by his poetic powers, of which he must have been aware; but being what he was, he was content to enjoy them and to exercise them modestly, and at such scanty intervals as his daily duties afforded. He composed his songs as he went about his work, plowing, sowing, reaping; crooning them as he strode along the fields, and correcting them in his head as the hours dragged on, until night came, and he could write them down in his little room by the light of his solitary candle. He had no illusions about himself: he was the son of a poor farmer, who, do what he might, was never prosperous; and poverty was his portion. His apprehension, which was justified by the misfortunes of the family at Mount Oliphant, was confirmed by their dark continuance at Tarbolton, where he saw his honored father, bowed with years of toil, grow older and feebler day by day, dying of consumption before his eyes. The end came on February 13th, 1784; and a day or two afterwards the humble coffin of William Burness, arranged between two leading horses placed after each other, and followed by relations and neighbors on horseback, was borne to Alloway and buried in the old kirkyard.

The funeral over, the family removed to Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline, where, at Martinmas, Robert and Gilbert had rented another farm. Having no means of their own, they and their sisters were obliged to rank as creditors of their dead father for the arrears of wages due them as laborers at Lochlea; and it was with these arrears, which they succeeded in wresting from their old landlord or his factor, that they stocked the new farm. The change was a beneficial one for all the family, who were now for the first time in their lives provided with a comfortable dwelling; and everything considered, especially so for their head,—which Robert, who was now in his twenty-sixth year, virtually became. He realized the gravity of the responsibility which rested upon him, and rightly judging that industry alone would not enable him to support it, resolved to work with the brains of others as well as his own hard hands. He read farming books, he calculated crops, he attended markets, but all to no purpose; for like his father before him, however much he may have deserved success, he could not command it. What he could and did command however was the admiration of his fellows, who were quick to perceive and ready to acknowledge his superiority. There was that about him which impressed them,—something in his temperament or talent, in his personality or character, which removed him from the roll of common men. What seemed to distinguish him most was the charm of his conversation, which, remarkable as it was for fluency and force, for originality and brilliancy, was quite as remarkable for good sense and good feeling. Grave or gay, as the occasion suggested and the spirit moved him, he spoke as with authority and was listened to with rapt attention. His company was sought, and go where he would he was everywhere welcomed as a good fellow. He had the art of making friends; and though they were not always of the kind that his well-wishers could have desired, they were the best of their kind in and about Mauchline. What he saw in some of them, other than the pleasure they felt in his society, it is hard to say; but whatever it was, he liked it and the conviviality to which it led,—which, occasionally coarsened by stories that set the table in a roar, was ever and anon refined by songs that filled his eyes with tears. His life was a hard one,—a succession of dull, monotonous, laborious days, haunted by anxiety and harassed by petty, irritating cares,—but he faced it cheerfully, manfully, and wrestled with it triumphantly, for he compelled it to forge the weapons with which he conquered it. He sang like a boy at Lochlea; he wrote like a man at Mossgiel. The first poetical note that he struck there was a personal one, and commemorative of his regard for two rustic rhymers, David Sillar and John Lapraik, to whom he addressed several Epistles,—a form of composition which he found in Ferguson and Ramsay, and of which he was enamored. That he thoroughly enjoyed the impulse which suggested and dictated these Epistles was evident from the spirit with which they were written. In the first of the two, which he addressed to Sillar, he discovered and disclosed for the first time the distinctive individuality of his genius. It was a charming and touching piece of writing; charming as a delineation of his character, and touching as a confession of his creed,—the patient philosophy of the poor. As his social horizon was enlarged, his mental vision was sharpened; and before long, other interests than those which concerned himself and his poetical friends excited his sympathies and stimulated his powers. It was a period of theological squabbles, and he plunged into them at once, partly no doubt because there was a theological strain in his blood, but largely because they furnished opportunities for the riotous exercise of his wit. He paid his disrespects to the fomenters of this holy brawl in 'The Twa Herds,' and he pilloried an old person who was obnoxious to him, in that savage satire on sanctimonious hypocrisy, 'Holy Willy's Prayer.' Always a poet, he was more, much more than a poet. He was a student of man,—of all sorts of men; caring much, as a student, for the baser sort which reveled in Poosie Nansie's dram-shop, and which he celebrated in 'The Jolly Beggars'; but caring more, as a man, for the better sort which languished in huts where poor men lodged, and of which he was the voice of lamentation in 'Man was Made to Mourn.' He was a student of manners, which he painted with a sure hand, his masterpiece being that reverential reproduction of the family life at Lochlea,—'The Cotter's Saturday Night.' He was a student of nature,—his love of which was conspicuous in his poetry, flushing his words with picturesque phrases and flooding his lines with the feeling of outdoor life. He was a student of animal life,—a lover of horses and dogs, observant of their habits and careful of their comfort. He felt for the little mouse which his plowshare turned out of its nest, and he pitied the poor hare which the unskillful fowler could only wound. The commoners of earth and air were dear to him; and the flower beside his path, the gowan wet with dew, was precious in his eyes. His heart was large, his mind was comprehensive, and his temper singularly sweet and sunny.

Such was Robert Burns at Mossgiel, and a very likable person he was. But all the while there was another Robert Burns at Mossgiel, and he was not quite so likable. He had a strange fascination for women, and a strange disregard of the consequences of this fascination. This curious combination of contradictory traits was an unfortunate one, as a young woman of Mauchline was destined to learn. She was the daughter of a mason, and her name was Jean Armour. He met her on a race day at a house of entertainment which must have been popular, since it contained a dancing-hall, admission to which was free, any man being privileged to invite to it any woman whom he fancied and for whose diversion he was willing to disburse a penny to the fiddler. He was accompanied on this occasion by his dog, who insisted on following him into the hall and persisted in keeping at his heels while he danced,—a proof of its fidelity which created considerable amusement, and which its master turned to his personal account by saying he wished he could get any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog. Jean heard his remark, and not long afterwards, as he was passing through the washing-green where she was bleaching clothes (from which she begged him to call off his troublesome follower), she reminded him of it by asking him if he had yet got any of the lasses to like him as well as did his dog? He got one there and then; for from that hour Jean was attached to him and he to Jean. He was reticent about his conquest, concealing it from his closest friends, and even from his dearest foe, the Muse; but however reticent, his conquest was not to be concealed, for Jean one day discovered that she was with child. What he felt when this calamity was made known to him we know not, for he kept his own counsel. What he wished his friends to feel, if they could and would, we may divine from a poem which he wrote about this time,—an address to the rigidly righteous, into whose minds he sought to instill the charity of which he and Jean were sorely in need:—

"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang
To step aside is human: