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MAUCHLINE--THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE BOX-MAKING
TRADE--NANSE TANNOCK’S HOUSE--THE HOUSE IN WHICH BURNS LIVED AFTER THE
MARRIAGE--GAVIN HAMILTON’S HOUSE--THE PARISH CHURCH--THE KIRK-YARD--THE
HOLY FAIR--JOHN DOO AND POOSIE NANSIE--THE PUBLIC GREEN AND MARTYRS’
STONE: A WORD ABOUT THEM--AN ANECDOTE OF BURNS AND JEAN ARMOUR --THE AULD
MANSE AND WHO WAS SEEN IN ITS HAUNTED ROOM --THE HAGGIS.
MAUCHLINE is situated in a beautiful district, and
although somewhat scattered and irregularly built is a town of neat
appearance and considerable bustle. Like many places in the shire it owes
its origin to its church and priority, of which the tower behind the
burying ground is the remnant. “In 1510 a charter, erecting Mauchline
into a free burgh of barony, was granted by James IV.; and by the act of
1606 it will be observed that Mauchline was again constituted a free burgh
of barony. The charters, however, are said to have been destroyed at the
burning of the Register Office in Edinburgh, upwards of a hundred years
ago, and they have never been renewed.”* Otherwise, there is nothing of
historical interest connected with the place. The weaving of cotton goods
at one time formed the chief support of the inhabitants, but, alas! that
trade has received an irreparable shock, and the sound of the shuttle is
no longer heard in the streets. The staple industry at present is the
manufacture of fancy ornaments, snuff boxes, card cases, &c. It is
curious how this industry originated, and still more so how it has
developed itself, and mad Mauchline known throughout Great Britain,
America, and the Continent of Europe. A French gentleman, on a visit to
Sir Alexander Boswell at Auchinleck House, having the misfortune to bread
a handsome curiously-hinged snuff-box, sent it to the late Mr Wyllie, the
village watch-maker, to be repaired. During the process, the workman into
whose hands it was given inadvertently allowed some solder to run into the
joint, and consequently rendered it useless. To remedy the mishap he
taxed his ingenuity, and tried every possible means to remove the
obstruction, but without success. Latterly he succeeded in making an
instrument that answered the purpose so well that the difficulty was
overcome, and the hinge put in working order. Being pleased with his
success in repairing, the workman--a Mr Crawford--next conceived the idea
of making a fac simile of the Frenchman’s box and presenting it to
Sir Alexander. The magical or secret hinge taxed his mechanical skill,
but by the aid of the instrument he had made he succeeded in imitating it,
and that so well that ordered flowed in, and the manufacture of such boxes
became his sole occupation. To monopolise the trade, both master and man
kept the formation of the hinge a secret, and that for twelve years; but a
misunderstanding arising between them, they separated, and each carried on
the box-making business on his own account. Crawford settled in Cumnock,
and introduced the trade there; but, having employed a watchmaker to make
a hinge-forming instrument like unto what he made himself, its use was
suspected, and the secret in a short time ceased to be private: one firm
after another sprang up in neighbouring towns until the industry assumed
considerable proportions. On this hinge--of which a bed-redden
Laurencekirk cripple named Steven is said to have been the inventor--the
fancy wood trade in Mauchline is founded; but the honour of its
introduction belongs to the late Andrew Smith, a genius who, though bred a
stone-mason, raised himself by energy, self-culture, and perseverance to a
very respectable position. Having, like others, discovered the secret of
the snuff-box hinge, he put it to practical use, and opened a small manufactory
in the village, in which he employed three men as box-makers. This
venture proving a success, Andre took his brother William into
partnership, and his business habits, combined with his own creative
genius, did much to make the industry the staple of the place. It is now
fully sixty years since this species of manufacture was introduced into
Mauchline, but during that period it has undergone many changes, and
snuff-boxes are now the least of its products--beautifully-fashioned
articles or ornament and use being turned out in great variety. The trade
is so far developed by the application of steam and mechanical science
that an article can now be purchased for a couple of shillings which at
one time would have cost as many pounds. There are at present three
factories in the place, and close on 400 people find constant employment
in them.
When residing in Mossgiel, Burns found many attractions
in Mauchline, not the least of which were the lasses, the Masonic Lodge,
the debating society, and the delusive pleasures of the ale-house. But at
this stage it will be as well to resume the narrative and call attention
to what is deemed worthy of regard.
The walk from Mossgiel to Mauchline proved pleasant and
enjoyable. Upon entering the town I passed up a long street of clean,
comfortable dwelling-houses, and in a very short time arrived in what may
be appropriately termed the Cross, but not without being honored with many
a “glower” from chatty village belles, gossiping wives, and garrulous
dames of one description and another who idled at doors in the seemingly
earnest discussion of some all-important subject. Many of the houses in
the vicinity of the local centre are modern; but one old-fashioned
thoroughfare which branches off it and steals between two rows of
venerable thatched cottages is of peculiar interest, being associated with
the Poet’s name. Accosting a middle-aged man, he kindly, and in a somewhat
self-satisfied maner, pointed to an old house on the left, in which there
is at present a tinsmith’s shop, and said, “This was Nanse Tannock’s
place, and that two-storeyed red-stone building on the other side is the
one in which Burns began housekeeping with his Jean; that is the auld Kirk
yard in which the ’Holy Fair’ was held, and yonder is the house in
which Gavin Hamilton lived, and the window of the office in which Burns
and Jean were married.” What was at one time the howf of Nanse Tannock is
a rickety thatched building of two stories, with a wooden stair going up
from the street door to the upper apartments--which, by the bye, have an
entrance into a small yard adjoining the burying-ground, which was at one
time unenclosed. Nothing remains to indicate this judicious ale wife’s
residence but the nails which secured her signboard above the door, and
these are pointed to as objects of curiosity by the residents--a
circumstances certainly which indicates that the most is made of
everything pertaining to the poet.
It is pretty evident that Burns frequented Nanse
Tannock’s change-house, and that its walls have often rung with the
laughter which followed his sallies of wit. In it he promised to drink
the health (“nine times a week”) of those M.P.’s who would devise some
scheme to remove the “curst restriction on aqua vitae;” but when Nanse
heard of it she is reported to have said “that he might be a very clever
lad, but he certainly was regardless, as, to the best of her belief
he had never taken three half-munchkins in her house in all his life.”
This may be, but facts are very much against her. The Rev. P. Hately
Waddell says--”Mrs Nelly Martin or Miller, who died December 22, 1858,
aged 92, and was originally sweetheart to the Poet’s brother William, was
intimately acquainted also with the Poet himself, and confirmed in the
most earnest and emphatic manner, as if living ever again in his society
the scenes of her youth, the rumours of the extraordinary gift of
eloquence with which he was even then endowed. According to her account,
to escape from his tongue, if once entangled by it, was almost an
impossibility. ‘He was unco, by-ordinar engaging’ in his talk.’ For which
reason he was an invaluable visitor at the change-house, where Nanse
Tannock had a Jesuitical device of her own for detaining him.. Nanse
carried a huge leather pouch at her side, slung from her wait (as old
Scotch land-ladies used to do), filled with keys, pence, ‘change’ and
et
ceteras.
When application for Burns was made at her door--as
was often the case, ‘for atweel he was uncolie in demand’-- by personal
friends of his or rivals of her own--’Is Rab here? or ‘Is Mossgiel her?’--Nanse
would thrust her hand into her capacious leather pouch, and, jingling
ostentatiously among keys and coppers, would solemnly and fraudulently
declare ‘that he wasna there (in her pouch) that night!’ --Rab, in
reality, being most probably engaged at the very moment in rehearsing his
last poetical effusion, ‘The Holy Fair’ or ‘The Twa Herds,’ to an ecstatic
audience in the par- lour.” The same writer goes on to say that it was in
Nanse Tannock’s parlour that “the first reading of ‘The Holy Fair’ took
place, when there were present Robert and his sweet-heart, Jean Armour;
William and his sweetheart, Nelly Miller; and ‘anither lad or twa and
their sweethearts. Robin himself’ was in unco glee. He kneelit until a
chair in the middle o’ the room, wi’ his elbows on the back o’t, and read
owre “The Holy Fair” frae a paper i’ his han’ I never saw himself’ in sic
glee.’ It must be observed, however, that both the quantity and the
quality of ‘refreshment’ on this, as on other similar occasions, were very
moderate indeed--‘three ha’ penny yill, twa or three bottles for the
company’ being the average reckoning, with a glass or two of whisky at
most…….Miss Brown, Mauchline, states that her father well remembered
Robert Burns, and has seen him frequently at Nanse Tannock’s after his
marriage, carrying his eldest son aloft on his hand, balancing and tossing
the child in paternal pride towards the kitchen ceiling. Very beautiful
indeed is this homely picture; and Jean herself undoubtedly would be
there.”
The house in which Burns resided is nearly opposite
that of Nanse Tannock. It is a substantial two-storied thatched
building containing several apartments. The one up stairs on the left is
that in which the Poet and his darling Jean spent their honeymoon--a fact
which induces many visitors to call and stare with a kind of reverence at
the walls of the room and at the set-in-bed in which the happy pair slept;
indeed some strangers--but more especially American-- are so enthusiastic
that they beg pieces of the wood, and several, I was informed, were so
foolish as to get into it altogether.
Holding along a path which skirts the churchyard wall,
and winds round the back row what was the residence of Gavin Hamilton, the
early friend and patron of the poet, I crossed a rude bridge which spans a
trickling narrow stream at the base of the hoary remnant of the priority
already mentioned, and after some little difficulty entered a shady lane.
This brought me to the gate of the neatly laid out grounds which
front the now celebrated and almost classic abode which is quaint and
old-fashioned in appearance and highly picturesque from its situation.
Gavin Hamilton was a legal practitioner of high
respectaability, and is described as having been a “man of spirit and
intelligence--generous, affable, and enlightened.” Gilbert Burns
says--”The farm of Mossgiel, at the time of our coming to it, was the
property of the Earl of Loudoun, but was held in tack by Mr. Gavin
Hamilton, writer in Mauchline, from whom we had our bargain; who had thus
an opportunity of knowing and showing a sincere regard for my brother
before he knew he was a poet. The Poet’s estimation of him, and the
strong outlines of his character, may be collected from the dedication to
this gentleman. When the publication was begun, Mr. H. entered very
warmly into its interests and promoted the subscription very extensively.”
It is almost unnecessary to add that he and Burns were on the most
intimate terms, and that he had the poet’s warmest sympathy when subjected
to the petty annoyances of the kirk-session for digging a few potatoes in
his garden on a Sabbath morning. In his office--which is still
shown--Burns was married to Jean Armour, not in a ceremonial way, but
according to the law of the land and as surely as if the contract had
received the sanction of a benchful of bishops. It appears from the
session record that the ceremony was performed on the 3rh August, 1788,
and also that the poet generously gave a guinea to the poor of the parish
on being told that it was customary for the bridegroom to pay a small fine
when an irregular marriage was contracted. This room is also memorable as
that in which “The Calf” was committed to paper. Burns called on his
friend one day when going to church, and finding him suffering from gout,
jocularly promised to return and give him the text. He did so, and the
humorous satire was the result.
Upon leaving what is commonly termed “Gavin Hamilton’s
house,” I found my way to the gate of the churchyard, which is close by,
and luckily found it open. The church is a handsome edifice in the Gothic
style, with a turreted square tower ninety feet in height. It occupies
the site of the old barn-looking building in which “Daddy Auld” held
forth. Hew Ainslie describes it in his Pilgrimage to the Land of
Burns as having been
as ugly an old lump of consecrated
stone as ever cumbered the
earth. “It seems,” he says, (“if one might judge by the arched lintels
that attempted to peep through the rough plaster to have been set up by
Gothic hands; and if so, Presbyterianism has really been tolerably
successful in beating it into its favourite model--a barn. The interior
is, if possible, more dismal. Cold, damp, dark, and dirty, looking
dissolution, and smelling decay, and a fitter place one could hardly
imagine for crying ‘tidings of damnation’ in. Besides the ground floor in
contains two wonderful looking things called lofts. One stretches from
the east gable down into the body of the kirk; the other sticks out from
the wall opposite the pulpit, supported by two wooden pegs, which gives it
quite the dangerous look of that cunning engine, the mouse trap. Beneath
this queer canopy, Jasper pointed out the “cutty stool” where Burns sat
when ‘Mess John, beyond expression, fell foul o’ him; ‘But,’ said the
bellman, ‘tho’ that’s the bit whar he sat, it’s no the seat. It’s been
made into a twa-armed chair, for behoof o’ a society here wha haud his
birthday.’”
It is stated in Spottiswood’s Church History that
George Wishart, the celebrated martyr of the Scottish Reformation, was
invited to preach in Mauchline Church in 1554. “On his arriving at the
place it was found that the Sheriff of Ayr, an enemy to the new faith, had
placed a guard of soldiers in the church to keep him out. Some of the
country people offered to force an entrance for him, but he would not
suffer them, saying: ‘It is the word of peace I preach unto you; the blood
of no man shall be shed for it this day; Christ, is as mighty as the
fields as in the church; and he himself, when in the flesh, preached
oftener in the desert and upon the sea shore than in the temple of
Jerusalem.’ Then walking along to the edge of the moor, on the south side
of Mauchline, he preached for three hours and upwards to the multitude
that flocked about him.”
At one time “tent preachings” and common fairs were
held in the churchyard of Mauchline, but it has undergone an alteration
for the better, and is now enclosed by a high wall, and compares favorably
with the best kept village burying-grounds in the shire. After inspecting
the church, I began to stray among the grass-covered graves, and conjure
up the scene so graphically described by the poet--a by no means difficult
task when one is acquainted with the incidents of The Holy Fair and
remaining landmarks. The back of Gaving Hamilton’s house forms parts of
the boundary. A little further along, the upper portion of Nanse
Tannock’s house, and two or three old rickets, serve the same purpose; but
the first has the accommodations of a back door which, in the good dame’s
time, opened into the courtyard, and through which droves of drouthy
saints poured,
“To gie the jars and barrels
A lift that day.”
In front, the Cowgate retains a streak or two of its
original appearance, for the house which Poosie Nansie occupied is but
little changed, and that in which Jean Armour’s father lived has undergone
no very great alteration. The same, however, cannot be said of “the holy
spot,” for it is thickly studded with modern tombstones, and very few
specimens of ancient sculpture are to be met with. Despite this it is
interesting to ramble among the hillocks and scan the memorials of
individuals who were associates of the bard or themes of his muse.
Entering a gravelled walk that winds round the church, I turned to the
left, and at a short distance from the tower paused before a plain upright
stone which bears the following inscription:--”IN MEMORY OF A.D.J. JOHN
MORRISON, OF THE 104TH REGIMENT, WHO DIED AT MAUCHLINE, 16TH
APRIL, 1804, IN THE 80TH YEAR OF HIS AGE. ALSO, HIS DAUGHTER,
MARY, THE POET’S BONNIE MARY MORRISON, WHO DIED 29TH JUNE,
1791, AGED 20; AN DHIS SECOND SPOUSE, ANN THOMLIESON, WHO DIED SEPTEMBER,
1831, AGED 76.” So this is the resting place of the amiable girl who made
such an impression on the youthful poet’s heart when attending the dancing
school at Tarbolton, thought I, and yet she is pronounced unknown. The
song in Mary’s honour was a juvenile production, but notwithstanding it is
considered to be the most pathetic of the poet’s love effusions.
“Oh Mary, at they window be,
It is the wished, the trusted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see,
That make the miser’s treasure poor.
How blithely wad I bid the stoure,
A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison.”
A little to the south of the church “Holy Willie’s weel-worn
clay” has “at’en up its last abode.” Nothing marks the spot, but the best
and most enduring memorial of this individual is his well-known prayer; it
will survive the wreck on many things, and keep his memory green when
obliteration has wiped the inscription off every stone in the yard. The
holy man was no better than the poet said he was: that he was an arrant
hypocrite the events of his life testify. After being convicted of
pilfering money from the church offerings, his morals did not improve, and
he ultimately ended his days in a roadside ditch, having been jolted out
of a cart which was conveying him and other inebriates home from a country
fair. The carter--who appears not to have been altogether compos
mentis himself--never missed Willie, or knew of the accident, until
the dead body of the unfortunate man was discovered next morning. So ended
the life of a practical dissembler; but, unfortunately, specimens of his
class are not rare, for individuals are still to be found who
“-----display to congregations wide,
Devotion’s every grace, except the heart.”
A short distance from Willie’s narrow bed the remains
of Nanse Tannock and Racer Jess are stowed away under the sward. The
first died in comfortable circumstances, and, like a judicious browster
wife, maintained to the last that Burns never drank twa half-munchkins in
her house in a’ his life, and that what he stated in his poems was just a
wheen “leein’ blethers.” Perhaps she was right after all, for it is
evident--at least to the writer--that he exercised the poetic license in
the matter of dram-drinking. Jess, poor lass, closed her mortal race
somewhat suddenly on the 15th February, 1813. She was the
daughter of Poosie Nansie, a dame of whom something will be presently
said, and was remarkable for her pedestrian powers and the running of
errands: hence her cognomen.
In an out-of-the -way corner of the churchyard, which
appears to be a repository for rubbish, I stumbled across a massive stone
tablet. Having my attention attracted by the name Auld, I set to work and
cleared the moss and dirt from the inscription and made out the following:
--”THE REVER- END MR. WILLIAM AULD, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT MAUCHLINE,
DIED 12TH DECEMBER, 1791, IN THE 50TH YEAR OF HIS
MINISTRY, AND THE 81ST OF HIS AGE.” Little need be said
regarding Daddy Auld. That Burns satirized him, and that he rebuked Burns
before the congregation for a certain moral lapse, is well known. He was
a good man, but somewhat over zealous, and doubtless too sever on Gavin
Hamilton for digging a few potatoes on the Sabbath; but what else could he
be when hounded on by men like Holy Willie? Holding along the back of the
church, I came to the burying-place of the Armour family. At its head
there is a very handsome tombstone, and over the grace a common flag, much
worn and scratched, which bears the following faded
inscription:--”ELIZABETH RIDDLE, DAUGHTER OF ROBERT BURNS AND JEAN ARMOUR,
BORN AT DUMFRIES 21ST NOVEMBER, 1793, DIED AT MAUCHLINE IN THE
AUTUMN OF 1795.” A short distance from this buying place there is a humble
tombstone to the memory of an obscure Covenanter, which states that ‘HERE
LIES INTERRED THE CORPSE OF JAMES SMITH, WHO WAS WOUNDED BY CAPTAIN INGLIS
AND HIS DRAGOONS AT THE BURN OF ANN IN KYLE, AND THEREAFTER DIED OF HIS
WOUNDS IN MAUCHLINE PRISON, FOR HIS ADHERENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD AND
SCOTLAND’S COVENANTED WORK OF REFORMATION.--A.D. 1682.”
Every reader is, or at least should be, aware that
Mauchline Churchyard is the scene of The Holy Fair. On it the poet
met Fun, his cronie dear, and in “fine remarkin’” put an effectual stop to
practices which where a disgrace to Scotland. “Holy Fairs” have happily
passed away, but Robert Burns, by his “priest-skelping turns,” and the
scathing, withering sarcasm of the poem referred to, caused their
explusion, and worked a much needed reformation in the ecclesiastical
affairs of Mauchline parish. In his day, the time appointed for the
dispensation of the Lord’s Supper was looked forward to by the peasantry
as a kind of festival, and farm servants, when taking “a fee,” were in the
habit of making an agreement that they would be allowed to “gang to the
preaching” on such an occasion during their period of service. All this
wanted reforming, and it was only a satirist like our poet who could apply
the lash and make the victim writhe under every stroke. This he did; but,
to the eternal honour of his name, he never ridicules the ordinance
itself, nor utters a sneer at the “worship of God in spirit and in
truth.” No. Although often
“Mislead by Fancy’s meteor ray.”
he had a sincere regard for religion, and believed--in
fact, he states in a letter to Mrs Dunlop that
“’Tis this that streaks our morning bright,
‘Tis this that gilds the horror of our night.
When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few,
When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue,
‘Tis this that wards the blow or stills the smart,
Disarms affliction or repels his dart,
Within the breast bids purest raptures rise,
Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies.”
Mauchline Holy Fair was an event of no small importance
in the district. People came long distances to be present at it, and
while it lasted the public houses did a thriving business.
‘Now but and ben the change-house fills
Wi’ yill-caup commentators,
Here’s crying out for bakes and gills,
And there the pint-stoup clatters;
While thick and thrang, and loud and land,
Wi’ logic and wi’ Scripture,
They raise a din that in the end
Is like to breed a rupture
O’ wrath that day.”
The Communion was celebrated in the church, but the
churchyard, in which there was a rostrum or moveable pulpit an “a shed to
find the showers and screen the country gentry,” presented an animated
appearance. The scene is graphically described by the Poet, but a still
more racy picture is given in a pamphlet bearing date 1759, which purports
to be A Letter from a Blacksmith to the Ministers and Elders
of the Church of Scotland, in which the
manner of public worship in that church is considered, its inconveniences
and defects pointed out, and methods for removing them humbly
proposed.
“At the time of the
administration of the
Lord’s Supper upon the Thursday, Saturday, and Monday,”
says the writer, “we have preaching in the fields near the church. At
first you find a great number of men and women lying together upon the
grass; here they are sleeping and snoring, some with their faces towards
heaven, others with faces turned downwards, or covered with their bonnets;
there you find a knot of young fellows and girls making assignations to go
home together in the evening or meet in some alehouse; in another place
you see a pious circle sitting round an ale-barrel, many of which stand
ready upon carts for the refreshment of the saints. The heat of the summer
season, the fatigue of travelling, and the greatness of the crowd
naturally dispose them to drink, which inclines some of them to sleep,
works up the enthusiasm of others, and contributes not a little to produce
those miraculous conversions that sometimes happen at these occasions--in
a word, in this sacred assembly there is an odd mixture of religion,
sleep, drinking, courtship, and a confusion of sexes, ages, and
characters. When you get a little nearer the speaker, so as to be within
reach of the sound though not the sense of the words--for that can only
reach a small circle --you will find some weeping and others laughing,
some pressing to get nearer the tent or tub in which the parson is
sweating, bawling, jumping, and beating the desk; others fainting with the
stifling heat, or wrestling to extricate themselves from the crowd; one
seems very devout and serious, and the next moment is scolding or cursing
his neighbour for squeezing or treading on him; in an instant after his
countenance is composed to the religious gloom, and he is groaning,
sighing, and weeping for his sins--in a word, there is such an absurd
mixture of the serious and comic that were we convened for any other
purpose than that of worshipping the God and Governor of Nature the scene
would exceed all power of face.” How like the poet’s description!
From this we know he did not exaggerate, but drew his picture from the
life, and poured our the phials of his indignation against the cant and
hypocritical humbug of his time.
“Here sits a raw of tittling jades
Wi’ heaving breasts and bare neck,
And there a batch o’ wabster lads
Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock,
For fun this day.
“Here some are thinking on their sins,
And some upon their claes;
Ane curses feet that fyl’d his shins
Anither sighs and prayers;
On this hand sit’s a chosen swatch
Wi’ screwed-up, grace-proud faces;
On that a set o’ chaps at watch,
Thrang winking on the lasses
To chairs that day.
“O happy is that man and blest!
(Nae wonder that it pride him!)
Wha’s ain dear lass that he like best
Comes clinkin’ on the chair back,
He sweetly does compose him;
Which, by degrees, slips around her neck,
An’s loof upon her bosom,
Unkenned that day.
“Now a’ the congregation o’er
Is silent expectation:
For Moodie speels the holy door
Wi’ tidings o’d----tion.
Should Hornie, as in ancient days,
‘Mang sons o’ God present him,
The vera sight o’ Moodie’s face
To’s ain het hame had sent him
Wi fright that day.
“Hear how he clears the points o’ faith
Wi’ rattlin’ an’ wi’ thumpin’!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He’s stampin’ an’ he’s jumpin’!
His lengthen’d chin, his turn’d-up snout,
His eldritch squeal and gestures,
Oh, how they fire the heart devout,
Like cantharidian plasters,
On sic a day!”
Opposite the churchyard gate is the street along which
“Common Sense too the road” on a certain minister making his appearance at
The Holy Fair. At one corner is the house in which “Poosie Nansie”
resided, and the entry at which “Racer Jess,” and two or three ladies of
questionable virtue, stood “blinking,” while the people were gathering to
celebrate “the Fair,” and at the other a substantial building with the
following inscribed on its front chimney:--
This is the house, though built anew,
Where Burns came weary frae the plough,
To ha’e a crack wi’ Johnny Doo
On nicht at e en,
Or whiles to taste his mountain dew
Wi’ bonnie Jean.”
Why a house can be the same after being rebuilt is
difficult to understand, but I suppose the poet must be awarded the usual
license. The building, however, which occupied the site when Burns walked
the streets of Mauchline, was an inn, and if tradition is to be trusted,
it was a favourite resort of his. On the back window of an upper room he
scribbled the following amusing epitaph on John Down, the landlord, which
was doubtless more truthful than pleasing to that worthy:--
“Here lies Johnny Pidgeon;
What was his religion?
Whae’er desires to ken,
To some ither warl’
Maun follow the carl,
For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane.
“Stron ale was ablution,
Small beer persecution,
A dram was mementi mori;
But a full flowing bowl
Was the joy of his soul,
And port was celestrial glory.”
The gable of Jean Armour’s father’s house adjoined the
back of the premises, and Burns, it is said, often sat at the win- dow
referred to and conversed with her in the language of the eyes--a
language, by the by, which lovers aptly under- stand and appreciate.
The house in which Jean’s parents resided is a lowly
thatched cottage, but from the fact that it sheltered her and
them, it possesses
peculiar interest.
Observing that the house celebrated by the residence of
“Poosie Nansie” is “licensed to retail spirits, porter, and ales,” I
entered for the double purpose of weetin’ my whistle and seeing the relics
in possession of the occupants. I was shown a caup supposed to have
been used by the “randie gangrel bodies” who
“held the splore
To drink their orra duddies,”
and also an old engraving representing the merry crew
in the midst of their festivities.
Poosie Nansie was a Mrs. Gibson, who lodged vagrants
and other questionable characters. The halt, the blind, and the lame
found shelter beneath her roof, and her kitchen was not infrequently the
scene of frantic mirth and bouts of drunkenness. Here Burns studied
humanity in its lowest forms, and his “Jolly Beggars” in supposed to have
been founded on a scene which he witnessed in the establishment. Chambers
says--”In company with his friends, John Richmond and James Smith, he
dropped accidentally at a late hour into the humble hostelry of Mrs.
Gibson………… After witnessing much jollity among a company who by day
appeared abroad as miserable beggars, the three young men came away, Burns
professing to have been greatly amused with the scenes, but particularly
with the gleesome behaviour of an old maimed soldier. In the course of a
few days he recited a part of the poem to Richmond, who informed me that,
to the best of his recollection, it contained, in its original complete
form, songs by a sweep and a sailor which did not afterwards appear.”
Having strolled to the Cross, I turned up a lane which
terminates at the public green--a triangular piece of ground on which the
seven annual fairs of the district are held. It is memorable on
account of the five martyrs “who suffered for Christ and their adherence
to the Covenanted work of Reformation” buried in it, and also for being
the spot where Burns had his second interview with Jean Armour. “There
was a race at the end of April,” says Robert Chambers, “and there it was
customary for the young men, with little ceremony, to invite such girls as
they liked off the street into a humble dancing hall, where a fiddler had
taken up his station to give them music. The payment of a penny for a
dance was held by the minstrel as guerdon sufficient. Burns and Jean
happened to be in the same dance, but not as partners, when come confusion
and little merriment was exited by his dog tracking his footsteps through
the room. He playfully remarked to his partner that ‘he wished he could
get any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog did.’ A short while
after, he passed through Mauchline washing green, where Jean, who had
overheard the remark, was bleaching clothes. His dog running over the
clothes, the young maiden desired him to call it off, and this led them
into conversation. Archly referring to what had passed at the dance, she
asked ‘if he had yet got any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog
did?’ From that time their intimacy commenced.” Of course, Jean was one
of the “Mauchline belles,” and according to the poet’s notion was “the
flower o’ them a’.” After he was married to her, he very sensibly and
justly said, that he could easily fancy a more agreeable companion
in his journey through life, but had never seen the individual
instance.
From the public green I strolled down an avenue and
paused before the old manse. It is a quaint, curiously formed building,
and was the residence of the celebrated Daddy Auld. Daddy’s wife was
supposed to be a witch, and according to tradition kept queer
company--indeed, it is handed down that a servant girl saw the devil
warming his hoofs at a fire in one of the rooms. The old gentleman sat
with his tail twisted over his knee, but the moment the maid screamed and
let fall the shovel full of fuel she carried, he vanished. Perhaps it was
wrong, but I went up and saw “the haunted room,” and the spot where his
devilship enjoyed a short respite from
“Spairgin about the brunstance cootie
To scaud poor wretches,”
but beheld nothing remarkable, and came away somewhat
disappointed, for instead of it being clad with cobwebs and dust, like the
haunted chambers we read about, it was scrupulously clean, and wore an air
of quiet comfort.
From the old manse, a short walk brought me to
Ballochmyle road, and ultimately to the upper end of the Cowgate. Here I
again paused, and while thinking on the flight of “Common Sense” from the
“Holy Fair,” looked upon a snug thatched cottage with a porched doorway,
which stands near some mean buildings a little way down the celebrated
thorughfare. It is pointed to as the house in which Burns composed his
exquisite address to ‘a Haggis,” and on this account possesses a peculiar
interest in the eyes of those who see a charm in everything associated
with the poet’s name. It was at one time occupied by a Mr. Robert Morrison,
a great crony of the poet when he resided at Mossgiel, and it is said that
he was in the habit of spending the interval between the church services
on the Sabbath-day at this gentleman’s fireside. On one of these
occasions, Mrs. Morrison invited the bard to partake of a haggis “whose
hurdies like a distant hill” almost concealed ‘the groaning trencher.”
Having don so to his evident delight and inward satisfaction, he wrote the
“address,” and well he might, for a proper haggis is worthy of a “grace as
lang’s my arm” at any time.
From Mauchline I pushed on to Ballochmyle, but what was
seen and heard there and at Barskimming will be reserved for next chapter. |
