Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by William Howitt

From this scene "the drowsy dungeon clock" is removed, the old jail having been pulled down; but Simpson's is still to be seen, a public house at the end of the bridge on the side most distant from the town; and Wallace Tower, I believe, however, almost wholly rebuilt since then, and presenting now a very modernized aspect, rears itself in a distant part of the town. Along the river side the "ancient burgh of Ayr" presents its antiquated houses, roofs, and gables, much as they did to the eye of Burns.

Ayr, though it stands on a flat, has still great charm of location, and this you perceive as you set out to visit the birth-place and monument of Burns, which lie about three miles south of Ayr. You may, if you please, take the way along the shore; and here you have the sea with its living billows, displaying at a distance opposite the craggy mountain heights of Arran, and the Mull of Cantire. Northward, Troon, with its new houses, may be seen standing on its naked promontory, and southward, the Tower of Dunbere is a bold but somber object on an elevated knoll on the margin of the ocean, and far out southwest, Ailsacraig is descried, towering amid the waters. It is a fine and animated scene. It was Sunday forenoon as I advanced over the very level ground near the shore, toward Alloway. People were walking on the beach enjoying the sunshine, breeze, and glittering world of waters; lovers were seated among the broomy hillocks, children were gathering flowers amid the crimson glare of the heather; all had an air of beauty and gladness. To my left lay a richly-wooded country, and before me, beyond Alloway and the Doon, stretched the airy range of the Carrick Hills. It was the direction which I was pursuing that Tam O'Shanter took from the town to Alloway, for the old road ran that way; but there is a new and more direct one now from Ayr, and into that, having been shown the cottage where Mrs. Begg, Burns's sister, still lives, I struck. This agreeable road I soon saw diverge into two, and asked a poor man which of the two led to Burns's monument. At the name of Burns, the poor man's face kindled with instant animation. "I am going part of the way, sir," he said, "and will be proud to show it you." I begged him not to put himself at all out of his way. "Oh," said he, "I am going to look at my potato plot which lies out here." We fell into conversation about Burns; the way again showed a fresh branch, which was the way to his potato field; but the poor fellow gave a hesitating look; he could not find it in his heart to give up talking about Burns, and begged that I would do him the honor to allow him to walk on with me. "But your potatoes, my friend?" "Oh! they'll tak no harm, sir. The weather's very growing weather; one feels a natural curiosity to see how they thrive, but that will do next Sunday, if you would allow me to go on with you?"

I assured him that nothing would give me greater pleasure. I only feared that I might keep him out too long, for I must see all about Burns's birth-place, Kirk Alloway, the Brig of Doon, the monument, and every thing of the kind. It was now over noon, and must be his dinner hour. He said, "No; he never had dinner on a Sunday; for years he had accustomed himself to only two meals on that day, because he earned nothing on it, and had ten children! But he generally took a walk out into the country, and got a good mouthful of fresh air, and that did him a deal of good."

I looked more closely at my new companion. He was apparently sixty, and looked like a man accustomed to dine on air. He was of a thin and grasshopper build; his face was thin and pale, his hair grizzled; yet there was an intelligence in his large gray eyes, but it was a sad intelligence, one which had long kept fellowship with patience and suffering. His gray coat, and hat well worn, and his clean but coarse shirt-collar, turned down over a narrow band of a blue cotton tie neckerchief, with its long ends dangling over his waistcoat, all denoted a poor, but a careful and superior man. I can not tell what a feeling of sympathy came over me; how my heart warmed toward the poor fellow. We went on; gay groups of people met us, and seemed to cast looks of wonder at the stranger and his poor associate; but I asked myself whether, if we could know, as God knows, the hearts and merits of every individual of those well-dressed and laughing walkers, we should find among them one so heroic as to renounce his Sunday dinner as a perpetual practice, because he "earned nothing on that day, and had ten children?" Was there a man or a woman among them who, if they knew this heroic man as I now knew him, would not desire to give him, for that one day at least, a good dinner, and as much pleasure as they could?

"My friend," said I, "I fear you have had more than your share of hardship in this life?"

"Nay," he replied, "he could not say that. He had had to work hard, but what poor man had not? But he had had many comforts; and the greatest comfort in life had been, that all his children had taken good ways; if I don't except," and the old man sighed, "one lad, who has gone for a soldier; and I think it a little ungrateful that he has never written to us since he went, three years ago. Yet I hear that he is alive and well, in Jamaica. I can not but think that rather ungrateful," he added; "but of a' Robin Burns's poems, there's none, to my thinking, that comes up to that one—Man was made to Mourn."

I could not help again glancing at the thin, pale figure, which went as softly at my side as if it were a ghost, and could not wonder that Burns was the idol of the poor throughout Scotland, and that the Sunday wanderer of his native place had clung so fondly to the southern visitor of the same sacred spot.

"Can you explain to me," I asked, "what it is that makes Burns such a favorite with you all in Scotland? Other poets you have, and great ones; out of the same class, too, you had Hogg, but I do not perceive the same instant flash, as it were, of an electric feeling when any name is named but that of Burns."

"I can tell," said he, "why it is. It is because he had the heart of a man in him. He was all heart and all man; and there's nothing, at least in a poor man's experience, either bitter or sweet, which can happen to him, but a line of Burns springs into his mouth, and gives him courage and comfort if he needs it. It is like a second Bible."

I was struck with the admirable criticism of the poor artisan. What acuteness of genius is like the acuteness of a sharp experience, after all? I found that, had I picked the whole county of Ayr, I could not have hit on a man more clearly aware of the real genius of Burns, nor a more excellent guide to all that related to him hereabouts. He now stopped me. We were on the very track of Tam O'Shanter.