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FROM KILMARNOCK TO MOSSGIEL--NOTES
BY THE WAY--MOSSGIEL--A NOISY RECEPTION--THE DWELING-HOUSE--THE SPENCE--AN
INTERESTING RELIC--THE “MOUSE” AND “DAISY”--JOHN BLANE’S
RECOLLECTIONS--THE OLD DWELLING-HOUSE--THE POET’S STUDY--THE SCENE OF “THE
VISION”--THE POET’S PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND MISFORTUNES WHEN IN THE FARM.
Having roved by bonnie Doon
and winding Ayr, and sketched the town of Kilmarnock, I would now,
courteous reader, ask you to accompany me in a ramble to Mossgiel and the
places of interest in its vicinity, which are inseparably associated with
the poet’s name, for he removed there in May, 1784, and with his brother
Gilbert began life anew with the little the family had been able to wrench
from the avaricious grasp of the Lochlea landlord.
The day set apart for the
journey being favourable, I left Kilmarnock at an early hour, and after a
pleasant walk reached Crookedholm, an unpretentious hamlet chiefly occupied
by miners, who find employment in numerous coalpits in its vicinity.
Unimportant as it is now, it was at one time a place of some note, and,
according to a work lately published,* possessed a “flour mill, a cloth
factory, and a place of worship near the beginning of the eighteenth
century.” Beyond it I passed two handsome Churches, crossed a substantial
stone bridge, and entered Hurlford, another mining settlement which has
assumed the proportions of a town within the memory of persons still
living. This transition is owing to the presence of rich seams of coal in
the vicinity, to the opening of the Portland Ironworks, and to its
connection with a line of railway which bears away the produce, and brings
the village into direct communication with the large centres of industry.
The village possesses the churches referred to, a mechanics’ institute, a
Post and Telegraph Office, a flourishing co-operative store, a commodious
police station, and a fair sprinkling of public houses and places of
business. According to the work already quoted, “the inhabitants are a
very mixed race, and a large proportion of them are either Irish or
descendants of Irish. Of the exotic element of the population, a portion
are Catholics, while those who are Protestants are Orangemen. Hence
frequent quarrels leading to breaches of the peace arise between these two
irreconcilable sections of Irishmen.” From this it may be inferred that
renewals of the obsolete sports of Donnybrook Fair are of common
occurrence on pay nights, and that “a party man” need have no anxiety
about the turning blue-moulded for want of a sound thrashing.
The road to Mauchline
branches off what may be termed Hurford Cross. It was the way Burns came
to and returned from Kilmarnock when residing at Mossgiel. Allan
Cunningham states that John Wilson suggested the propriety of placing a
piece of a grave nature at the beginning of the poems he printed, and that
acting on the hint the bard composed or completed “The Twa Dogs” when
walking home to Mossgiel. The local work quoted states that “the first
wayside inn was kept by James Aiton; it was on the western side of the
Mauchline Road, and he occupied it at the Burns was in Mossgiel, and was
having his poems printed by Wilson in Kilmarnock. He was acquainted with
Burns, and being--like many Scotchmen of that era--an inveterate snuffer,
was presented by the bard with a snuff-box. This box Aiton long retained,
but after Burns had grown famous, he was often asked by his visitors for a
pinch of snuff from the poet’s box, and at last it was stolen from him.”
This is a very pleasing reminiscence, but the following is more so: An old
man named Andrew Howat who “had wrought a good deal about coal-pits, which
were then being worked at Norris bank, about two miles on the road to
Mauchline and about four miles from Mossgiel, remembered Burns, and
related that most of the farmers in the district were known to him as
coming to the heugh for coals. Burns, he said, came frequently and
generally carried a book with him which he red by the way.” How
characteristic! “Some book he always carried and read,” says David Sillars,
and another writer records that he wore out two copies of “The Man
of Feeling” by carrying them about in his pocket --he walked like a
thoughtful man and was always meditative when alone.
A short walk along
Mauchline Road brought me to a bridge which spans the Cessnock--a
streamlet celebrated by our poet in an early love song. It takes its rise
at Auchmanoch Moor in the parish of Sorn, and forms some fantastic
windings in which it serves as the boundary line between the parished of
Mauchline, Galston, and Riccarton, and empties itself into the Irvine a
mile or so above Hurlford. Ellison Begbie, the heroine of the song
referred to, was the daughter of a small farmer in the parish of Galston,
but was a servant in a family on the banks of the Cessnock when Burns made
her acquaintance. This attachment is spoken of as one of the purest he
ever engaged in, and he declared in mature years, after he had visited
Edinburgh, that of all the women he had ever seriously addressed, she was
the one most likely to have formed an agreeable companion for life. He
addressed a series of letters to her, and employs a song of thirteen
stanzas to describe her personal charms, which tradition states were few
in the eyes of her neighbours. Although his passion was not reciprocated,
the poet maintained his suit with considerable, warmth, and in addition to
that dangerous mode of courtship--letter-writing--visited the fair one at
her home, and “beneath the moon’s unclouded light” poured in her ear the
language of love. Mrs Begg had a distinct recollection of this attachment,
and related that her brother went frequently in the evenings to pay
his addressed to the damsel, and generally returned home at a late hour;
and Chambers tells us that “the old man resolved to administer to his son
the practical rebuke of sitting up to let him in, and also to give him a
few words of gentle admonition. When Robert returned that night the father
was there to administer the intended correction, but the young bard
defeated his plan. On being asked what had detained him so long, be began
a whimsical narration of what he had met with and seen of the natural and
supernatural on his way home, concluding with the particulars afterwards
wrought up in the well-known verses his ‘Address to the Deil’:--
‘Ae dreary, windy, wintry
night,
The starts shot down wi’ sklentin light,
Wi you sysel’ I got a fright,
Ayonst the lough;
Ye like a rash bush stood in sight,
Wi’ waving sough.
The cudgel in my nieve did shake,
Each bristled hari stood like a stake,
When wi’ an eldritch, stoor quaick--quaick--
Amang the springs,
Awa’ ye squattered like a drake,
On whistling wings!’
The old man was in spite of
himself so much interested and amused by this recital as to forget the
intended scolding, and the affair ended in his sitting for an hour or two
by the kitchen fire enjoying the conversation of his gifted son.”
Beyond the bridge referred
to a long stretch of road, which winds through an agreeably diversified
landscape of gently rising grounds, lay before me. The walk proved lengthy
and lonely, but the glorious sights and sounds of nature ministered
delightfully to my eye and ear. I entered into conversation with a
countryman driving a horse and cart in the direction I was pursuing. He
was well acquainted with the district, and entertained the highest
veneration of the Poet’s memory, and seemed to dwell with fondness upon
every little trait and anecdote associated with his name. When we came to
Cross hands, where there is a school and a smith’s shop, he said-- “Robin
was often here about, and in a corner o’ a park ahent the wood there a
horse o’ his lies buried that dee’d wi’ him when ploughin’; but haud on
an’ ye’ll see Mossgiel in a wee.” The “wee” soon passed, and from the brow
of a brae over which the road passes he pointed with his whip to a farm-steading
on the summit of a swelling piece of ground, an in a self-satisfied manner
added-”There it is. The parks are the same, but the hoose is a’ changed.
Yonder’s the ane he turned up the mousie’s nest in ; but haud on a wee an’
I’ll set you doun at the yett o’ the ane whaur he ploughed down the daisy.
Haud alang the side o’t--it’s the nearest way into the farm.” Upon
arriving at the yett I took leave of my rough good-natured friend and
entered the field. A number of cows were browsing in it, and myriads of
daisies sprangled it surface. As I pensively gazed on the scene the
following from the pen of William Scott Douglas, of Edinburgh, came to
mind:--
“The warblers around me
seem proud to repeat
The wild notes that gave rapture to him;
And the daisies that spangle the ground at my feet
Have their birth from the one of his theme;
There’s a boast from yon belfry-tower borne on the breeze
That it caught Robin’s ear every day;
And the murmuring waters and whispering trees
Can but sigh that their minstrel’s away!”
My arrival in Mossgiel
farm-yard was announced by a demonstrative collie dog, whose “bow-wows”
not only startled but caused me to think seriously about taking to my
heels Finding, however, that it kept at a respectful distance, I ventured
forward, and as unconcernedly as possible addressed a sturdy servant girl
and enquired for her master. “Just bide ye a wee, sir,” and she, when she
had left off scolding the guardian of the steading for kicking up such a
row, “and I’ll find him for you.” Off she went on her mission, and left me
to watch the dog and the dog to watch we, but he proved a good-natured
brute and offered no further molestation. The dwelling-house is a
substantial two-storeyed slated building, and bears no resemblance
whatever to “the auld clay biggin’” which rises before the mind’s eye when
perusing “The Vision,” while the offices which form an angle round the
paved court are all modern and roofed in the same manner. The master soon
made his appearance, and, in answer to my request, led the way into the
house and began to show the little about the place which is associated
with the poet’s name. “This, “ said he, as he opened the door of a
neatly-furnished room, “is ‘the spence,’ but the roof, as you will
observe, is heightened, and the set-in beds which occupied the apartment
when the Poet lived here are torn out.” Yes, torn out and the place
spoiled, thought I, but nevertheless I felt gratified to stand within the
walls which had sheltered the most wonderful peasant that ever lived. On
the walls the original copy of “The Lass o’ Ballochmyle,” and the letter
which accompanied it, hang in separate frames, having been kindly placed
there by the late Boyd Alexander, Esq. of Ballochmyle, for the inspection
of visitors. The documents are somewhat faded and aged looking, but
the bold vigorous writing of the poet is still legible, and almost as
clear as it was when it left his pen. On the table lay a bulky visitor’s
book, which I was informed might have been filled over and over again had
a tithe of the pilgrims recorded their names. The first entry is dated
“August 30, 1872,” and is as follows:--”W.H. Glen, Melbourne, Australia,
and Mrs W.H. Glen, Melbourne, Australia--both delighted with Mossgiel and
country round.” Not a few are those of person of distinction, and very
many names belong to individuals who have travelled long distances to
visit the lone farm steading. After a pleasant chat my cicerone next lead
me to the front of the house and pointed out a tall neatly-cut hedge,
which the poet had planted with his own hands, and afterwards the fields
wherein he turned up the “wee sleekit, cow’rin’, timorous beastie’s” nest,
and turned down the “modest crimson-tipped flower’ with the plough. These
fields adjoin each other, and are in much the same con- dition as they
were when the poet traversed them. An old man named John Blane, who had
served in Mosgiel when a boy, told Robert Chambers that he had a distinct
recollection of the mouse’s nest. “Burns was holding the plough,with Blane
for his driver, when the little creature was observed running off across
the field. Blane, having the pettle, or plough-cleaning utensil, in his
hand at the moment, was thoughtlessly running after it to kill it, when
Burns checked him, but not angrily, asking what ill the poor mouse had
ever done him. The poet then seemed to his driver to turn very thoughtful,
and during the remainder of the afternoon he spoke not. In the night-time
he awoke Blane, who slept with him, and reading the poem which had in the
meantime been composed, asked what he thought of the mouse now.”
The incident was trivial,
but it formed the groundwork of a beautiful and interesting poem, and
evidenced his tenderness of heart: he saw in the smallest of all
quadrupeds an “earth-born companion and fellow-mortal,” and felt equally
for a pet ewe, an auld mare, and a wounded limping hare.
The lines to “The Daisy”
were composed while the poet was ploughing, but I am not aware of any
anecdote associated with the incident. “These two poems,” says a
celebrated write, “derive additional interest from the attitude in which
the poet is himself presented to our view. We behold him engaged in the
labours of the field, and moving in his humble sphere with all dignity of
honest independence and conscious genius.”
The view from the height on
which the farm-steading stands is well described by William Wordsworth in
the following sonnet:--
“’There,’ said a
stripling, pointing with much pride,
Towards a low roof, with green trees half-concealed,
‘Is Mossgiel far; and that s the very field
Where Burns plough’d up the daisy! Far and wide
A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried
Above sea clouds, the peaks of Arran rose;
And by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air was vivified.
Beneath the random bield of clod or stone,
Myriads of daisies have shown forth in flower
Near the lark’s nest, and in their nature’d hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.”
Mossgiel possesses very
many interesting associations, but the only thing pertaining to the
original steading is the walls. When they were heightened and repaired,
every scrap of wood about the roof and floor was purchased by a boxmaking
firm in Mauchline and converted into fancy ornaments, “warranted from the
farm of Mossgiel.” When the Burns family dwelt in it, it was a simple
thatched cottage of one storey, which afforded the limited accommodation
of a room and kitchen and a small garret which was reached by a trap
stair. It contained a bed and a small table, which stood under a sloping
window in the roof, and there Burns committed to paper the verses he
composed during the day. John Blane, the gandsman or driver, already
referred to, shared the bed with the poet, and in after years told of his
services to him in amorous nocturnal visits to farm steadings, and how he
was often roused from sleep to listen to new-composed poems. These
effusion were stored in a little drawer, and Chambers relates that the
poet’s young sister often stole up after he had gone to his afternoon
labour to search it for verses he had just written off.
“When my father’s affairs
grew near a crisis,” says the stolid, worldly-wise Gilber in his memoir of
the Poet, “Robert and I took the farm of Mossgiel, consisting of 118
acres, at the rent of £90 per annum (the farm on which I live at present),
from Mr Gavin Hamilton, as an asylum for the family in case of the worst.
It was stocked by the property and individual savings of the whole family,
and was a joint concern amongst us. Every member of the family was allowed
ordinary wages for the labour he performed on the farm. My brother’s
allowance and mine was seven pounds per annum each, and during the whole
time this family conconcern lasted, which was four years, as well as
during the preceding period at Lochlea, his expenses never in any one year
exceeded his slender income. As I was entrusted with the keeping of the
family accounts, it is not possible that there can be any fallacy in this
statement in my brother’s favour. His temperance and frugality were
everything that could be wished.” Really! and so they might, for whatever
charges may be brought against the poet, his bitterest traducer cannot add
that of extravagance to the list. Seven pounds a year! Egad, the sum is
barely sufficient now-a-days to keep some of our young men in pipes and
tobacco.
The room, or “spence” as it
was termed, was the scene of “The Vision.” To its seclusion the bard often
withdrew of an evening when tired with “the thresher’s weary flingin-tree.”
“Ben I’ the spence right
pensivelie,
I gaed to rest.”
“There, lanely, by the ingle cheek
I sat, and e’ed the spewin’ reek,
That filled, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin’;
And heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin’.
“A’ in this motty, misty clime,
I backward mused on wasted time;
How I had spent my youthful prime,
And done nae thing,
But stringing blethers up in rhyme,
For fools to sing.
……………………………….......
“When, click! the string the sneck did draw,
And jee! the door gaed to the wa’,
And by my ingle-lowe I saw,
Now bleezing bright,
A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,
Come full in sight.
………………………………........
“With musing deep, astonished stare,
I viewed the heavenly-seeming fair,
A whispering throb did witness bear
Of kindred sweet,
When, with an elder sister’s air,
She did me greet.
“’All hail! my own inspired bard,
In me thy native muse regard!
Nor longer mourn thy fate as hard,
Thus poorly how!
I came to give thee such reward
As we bestow.
………………………………..........
“’And wear thou this,’ she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head;
The polished leaves and berries red
Did rustling play,
And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.”
His father’s death and
parting words seem to have made a deep impression on the poet’s heart.
When he entered Mossgiel he did so with the determination of becoming
wise, He read farming books, calculated crops, attended markets, and
believed that “in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil” he would
succeed; but alas! the first year he purchased bad seed and the second
lost half his crops in inclement weather and a late harvest. Things were
trying enough, but when they were at their worst he solaced himself with
song, and laid the foundation of his fame by composing the very cream of
his poetry.
The four years the bard
spent on this farm may be considered the most eventful of his chequered
career. What agony of mind, what cares, troubles, and disappointments he
experienced in the brief period, and what scenes of social enjoyments and
literary triumphs he passed through! From obscurity he rose to flame, and
from abject poverty to comparative affluence--an affluence, however, of
short duration.
After lingering about the
celebrated and now classic spot, and gazing upon some stately plane trees
beneath which the poet loved to recline, I took leave of my cicerone, and
in passing the front of the house plucked a sprig from off the thorn
hedge and carried it away as a keepsake. It lies on my desk withered and
dry, but serves as a memento of a visit to the farm wherein Burns composed
his keenest satires and most beautiful poems and songs. Passing along a
narrow unfenced road, I soon reached the highway, and after a walk of
something like a mile entered Mauchline--a place to which Burns was often
decoyed on “a nicht at e’en” to “pree the clachan yill” or perchance “the
mou’ o’ some bonnie lass”-- but more of him and it in next Chapter. |
