As I step from the train in Ayr, the hack-drivers gather around me like bees around the “Last Rose of Summer.” “Carriage, carriage, sir?” they cry. “I’ll be glad to show you through the city, and take you to Burns’ Monument—carriage, carriage?” Tipping my hat, I reply, “No, gentlemen, I will take a carriage some other time, when I have more leisure. I prefer walking to-day, as I am in a great hurry.” So, each with a cane in his hand and a portmanteau strapped on his back, Johnson, my pleasant traveling companion, and I set out on foot for “The Land of Burns.”
Luckily, we meet with some intelligent farmers who cheerfully give us much valuable information about the country. They, in turn, ask many questions concerning far-off America. Land in this part of Scotland is worth from two hundred to three hundred dollars per acre, and the annual rent is twenty to twenty-five dollars per acre. Most of the land in this country is owned by a few “lords” and “nobles,” and the “common people” are in bondage to them. They are in poverty and rags, as might naturally be expected from the exorbitant rents which they have to pay.
“Man’s inhumanity to man,
Makes countless millions mourn.”
The principal crops raised by the farmers of this country are wheat, oats, rye, barley and Irish potatoes. They grow no Indian corn. They do not know what corn-bread is—many of them have never heard of it.
BURNS’ COTTAGE.
After a walk of an hour and a half through a most charming country, we reach our destination. I am now sitting in the room where was born Robert Burns who, Dr. Whitsitt says, was the most important personage that the British Isles have produced since the time of Oliver Twist—oh, excuse me, I should have said, since the time of Oliver Cromwell. I would have had it right at first, if that “twist” had not gotten into my mind. This important personage was born 128 years ago. How long this cottage was standing before that time, we do not know; but, as you may imagine, it is now a rude and antique structure. It is built of stone, and the walls are about six feet high. It has an old-fashioned straw or thatched roof and a stone floor. A hundred years ago, this room had only one window. That is only eighteen inches square, and is on the back side of the house. In the time of Burns, the cottage had only two rooms, though some additions have since been made. The entire place is now owned by the “Ayr Burns’ Monument Association,” and the original rooms are used only as a museum, wherein are collected the furniture, books, manuscripts and other relics of the illustrious bard.
I have, for a long time, been somewhat familiar with the history and writings of the “Peasant Poet,” whose birthplace I now visit, and I have often read Carlyle’s caustic essay on Burns. I have just finished reading his life, written by James Currie. I have read, to-day, “The Holy Fair,” “Tam O’Shanter,” “Man Was Made to Mourn,” and “To Mary, in Heaven,” and now, as I sit in the room where this High Priest of Nature first saw light, as I sit at the table whereon he used to write, and view the relics which once belonged to him, I am carried back for a hundred years and made to breathe the atmosphere of the eighteenth century. As I sit within these silent walls, a strange feeling comes over me. I hear, or seem to hear, the lingering vibrations of that golden lyre, whose master indeed is dead, but whose music still finds a responsive echo in every human heart. Robert Burns, the man, was born of a woman but Robert Burns, the poet, was born of Nature! He stole the thoughts of Nature and told them to man. It was believed long ago that Burns was the High Priest, the interpreter, of Nature, and