BURNS' COTTAGE, BIRTH-PLACE OF ROBERT BURNS, AYR.BURNS' COTTAGE, BIRTH-PLACE OF ROBERT BURNS, AYR.
Somehow it is less of a tourist's way of forced entry, this through the barn, than the basement door at Abbotsford; and so one passes through the byre and into the kitchen, where stands the bed in which Robert Burns was born. It is all beautifully homely, as lowly as a manger; and, how the world has been filled by what was once small frail life herein!
It is difficult to divide the poet's relics among so many claimant places, but here and in the museum are many mementoes of the poet. For this as well as Kirk Alloway is a national monument, or something like.
There was a century during which this was merely a clay biggan, and a public house, and that offended no one, least of all the friends of the poet. Except Keats. He came hither in 1818. The host was drunk most of the time, and garrulous. Keats complained that it affected his "sublimity." And, for once, Keatsturned severe self-critic. "The flat dog made me write a flat sonnet."
It was while living at Mount Oliphant, two miles east of Ayr, when Burns was fifteen, that he began that long, long list of lasses whom he loved and whom he made immortal with a verse. He might have said with James V,—and much he resembled that Gudeman o' Ballangeich—"it came wi' ane lass and it will gae wi' ane lass." The first was Nelly Kilpatrick, daughter of the miller of Perclewan—
"O, ance I lov'd a bonnie lass,Ay, and I love her still."
The last was Jessie Lewars, who ministered to him in those last days in the Millhole brae in Dumfries—
"O wert thou in the cauld blastOn yonder lea, on yonder lea,My plaidie to the angry airt,I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee."
To Kilmarnock one goes for its name. But "the streets and neuks o' Killie" are changed since that Burns' day. It is a sprawling, thriving factory town, a town of weavers—and a town of poets. There is something in the whirr of wheels, to those who are within it, which establishes rhythm in the ear, and often leadsto well-measured poetry! Surely a weaver is equal to a plowman, and I fancy that many a workingman and working lass with lines running through the head walk this Waterloo street, pass Tam o' Shanter's arms, and looks above the Loan Office at the attic where that precious first edition was printed in 1786. Poems and pawn broking—Waterloo Street is a suggestive Grub street.
From Kilmarnock to Dumfries by train is a Burns pilgrimage, even though it be taken without break, and in seventy-seven minutes! And interspersed are other memories. It is entirely what Burnsland should be, nothing set down in high tragedy, but all lyrical, with gentle hills, whispering rivers, and meadows and woodlands all the way.
Mauchline, where the burst of song was like that of a skylark, the very outpouring of the man's soul; here lies the field where he turned up the daisy and found an immortal lyric.
Auchinleek, where Boswell and Dr. Johnson paused on their journey and where to the hot-flung query of the Doctor, "Pray, what good did Cromwell ever do the country?" the judicial and wrathful father of our Boswell flung the hotter retort—"He gart kings ken they had a lith in their necks." The Scottish tongue isthe tongue of rebellions. Should we stay in this corner of the world longer we might turn covenanting and Cromwellian!
Cumnock, which William Wallace made his headquarters between the battle of Stirling bridge and that of Falkirk.
New Cumnock, whence the Afton so sweetly falls into the Nith—
"Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."
Kirkconnel, which is said not to be the Kirkconnel where Fair Helen lies—but like the blasted heath, will it not serve?
"I wish I were where Helen lies,Baith night and day on me she cries."
And in any event "The Bairnies cuddle doon at Nicht" were "waukrife rogues" in Kirkconnel.
Sanquhar to Thornhill, with rounding green hills along the Nith, with memories of Old Queensberry and Defoe and Wordsworth and Coleridge and Allan Ramsay and Dr. John Brown, and Carlyle. Thornhill is Dalgarnock, where fairs were held—
"But a' the niest week, as I petted wi' care,I gaed to the tryste o' Dalgarnock,And wha but my fine, fickle lover was there?I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock,I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock."
Dunscore lies to the right with "Redgauntlet" memories, and a few miles farther on is Craigenputtock.
Ellisland a brief moment, where immortal "Tam" was written as under the spell of a warlock.
It is a proud little city, more than a bit self-satisfied. It realizes that its possession of the mortal remains of Burns gives it large claim in his immortality, and the Burns monument is quite the center of the town.
Yet Dumfries is well satisfied from other argument. Historically, it goes back to Bruce and Comyn, and even to a Roman beyond. But there is nothing left of old Greyfriars where the killing of Comyn took place. Dumfries had its moment in the Forty Five, for the Bonnie Prince was here as he went down to the invasion of England, and his room in what is now the Commercial Hotel may be looked into but not lodged in; Dumfries, in spite of Covenant, has its modicum of Jacobitism.
It is in "Humphrey Clinker" that Smollettcompels some one to say "If I was confined to Scotland I would choose Dumfries as my place of residence." Confined to Scotland, forsooth!
CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE.CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE.
Dumfries is larger than it was in the days of Burns, and very busy withal, in factories and railroads. But it is still a country town, still hints at something of dales and woods and streams, even on High Street. The land about is true Burnsland; low, gentle hills closing in the horizon in a golden sea of warmth and sunlight, and the Nith a pleasant stream. It makes a great bend about Dumfries, with Maxwelltown across the water, and still
"Maxwellton's braes are bonnyWhere early fa's the dew."
Farther a-field there lies Sweetheart Abbey, built by the Lady Devorgilla, widow of John Balliol, and founder of Balliol at Oxford; one of the most beautiful ruins not only in Scotland but in the Kingdom. Caerlaverock castle, the Ellangowan of "Guy Mannering," stands on the Solway, which still, like love, ebbs and flows. Ecclefechan lies east. "O, wat ye wha's in yon toun," Burns sang from here, but later it was made a place of pilgrimage, with its immortal dust come back from London for Scottish rest.
And in St. Michael's Burns was laid to rest in 1796, and twenty years later was placed in this mausoleum in the corner of the churchyard. A sumptuous monument for so simple a man.
"He came when poets had forgotHow rich and strange the human lot;How warm the tints of Life; how hotAre Love and Hate;And what makes Truth divine, and whatMakes Manhood great."A dreamer of the common dreams,A fisher in familiar streams,He chased the transitory gleamsThat all pursue;But on his lips the eternal themesAgain were new."
The road leads southward, the Via Dolorosa Mary took after Langside, the Via Victoriosa which Prince Charles took—
"Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',We'll up and gie them a blaw, a blaw,Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'.Oh, it's ower the Border awa', awa',It's ower the Border awa', awa',We'll on an' we'll march tae Carlisle Ha'Wi' its yetts and castles an' a', an' a'.Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'."
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