|
BALLOCHMYLE--THE BRAES--THELASS O’ BALLOCHMYLE--HER
ACCOUNT OF MEETING WITH THE POET--BURNS’ SEAT--THE POET’S LETTER TO MISS
ALEXANDER--APOLOGIES FOR HER SILENCE--THE BOWER --CAUGHT BY THE
GAMEKEEPER--CATRINE--AN EXCURSION PARTY--THE RIVER AYR--BALLOCHMYLE
BRIDGE--HAUGH--BARKSIMMING BRI--”MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN”--THE RAILWAY
STATION--BACK TO KILMARNOCK.
BALLOCHMYLE, the seat of Colonel Claud Alexander M.P.
for South Ayrshire, is situated on the Catrine Road, some mile and a half
from Mauchline. Although the scenery through which the road winds cannot
be termed enchanting, it is at least pleasing, and I enjoyed it and the
fragrance of the hay and flowers which the breeze bore from the uplands
and wafted across the fields as I strolled on my way. Groups of happy,
brown-faced, bare-legged children, who seemingly were returning from
school, were gathering posies of daisies and golden dandelions here and
there along the wayside in the vicinity of the town, and it made my heart
glad to watch them and listen to their innocent laughter as it waked the
echoes and mingled with the music of the birds. When I reached the
entrance to the estate I found the gate fast, and it was not until I gave
a few authorities raps with my stick that a maiden issued from an antique
flower-embowered cot, which nestles beautifully beneath some old trees, to
admit me. With many thanks for her courtesy, I passed along the fine drive
which winds through dense masses of woods and shrub bery, and in due time
arrived in front of the mansion. All was quiet, and save the birds that
flitted and chirruped in the trees or sought food on the lawn, no sign of
life was to be witnessed. Although surrounded by a scene of bewildering
beauty, a sense of loneliness weighed me down, for as yet I was an
unauthorized visitor. To remedy this I set off in quest of my friend the
keeper, and in my explorations stumbled into a secluded path in the
shrubbery which leads down to the river Ayr. The solitude was peculiarly
impressive. There was a cloudless sunshine, but nothing was heard save
the murmuring of the current as it made its way among stones and pieces of
rock impeding its progress. Steep banks and precipices, draped in most
luxuriant natural wood, rose from the water edge in majestic loveliness,
and cast long shadows on the ripples and smooth glassy spaces of the
stream. Here the grass and herbage extended close to the brink, and trees
bent over and laved the tips of their boughs in the current; there a wall
of rock rose from the bed, which looked as if it had been hewn by rough,
careless workmen, who in their haste had left many a shelf protruding. On
these, and in the intervening spaces, ferns and shrubs grew, and far up on
the top of all, on the very brink of the chasm, trees clung to crag and
tightly grasped pieces of rock with their knotty fingers. It is
never-to-be-forgotten scene, and I am not at all surprised that the poetic
fancy of Burns was roused by witnessing it. Following the path, I entered
the thicket, and in is intricate windings over the braes was soon lost
among confused stems, bushes, branches, and clustering green leaves which
had succeeded those which lay withered and dead on the verge of the rustic
footway. Several times I was nearly tripped up by moss-grown tree roots,
and more than once startled by rabbits which my unexpected appearance had
surprised while bask- ing in gleams of sunshine which fell on the green
sward through openings in the trees.
Having threaded this narrow path for some considerable
distance, I cam to a broader but not less romantic one, for the leafy
canopy of interlaced branches continued, and the wild grandeur of the
scene, if possible, became more fascinating. Having followed it a short
distance, I reached a rustic bower or grotto of ornamental twig work and
moss. It was familiar object, and I at once knew that I had reached the
spot where Burns unexpectedly met “The Lass o’ Ballochmyle,” who, as the
reader is probably aware, was a Miss Wilhelmina Alexander, a sister of Mr
Claud Alexander, a gentleman who had realized a fortune in India and
purchased the estate from Sir John Whiteford, the friend of Burns, and the
representative of a once powerful Ayrshire family. The bard sung the
departure of the kind gentleman in a set of plaintive verses, in which he
makes his daughter Maria take farewell of the lovely braes.
“Through faded groves Maria sang,
Hersel’ in beauty’s bloom the while,
And aye the wildwood echoes rang,
Fareweel the braes o’ Ballochmyle.”
These lovely braes were a favourite resort of the poet
when residing in the farm of Mossgiel. One July evening, when walking on
them, he somewhat suddenly met Miss Alexander. The lady’s account of the
interview--if inter- view it can be called--is that he encountered the
poet, whom she describes as “a plain-looking man,” musing with his
shoulder against one of the trees, and that the evening being far advanced
and the grounds forbidden to strangers, she was startled, but recovering
herself, passed on and thought no more of the matter. Burns, however, was
impressed with the glimpse he got of the beauty, and according to the
tradition of the district, remained and composed the song in which her
charms are celebrated. The place where he is said to have sat and strung
the lovely lyric is only a few paces from the grotto. It is situated at
the extreme end of a narrow neck of land, jutting out into the ravine
through which the river flows, and is in every way a lovely situation for
poet or painter to muse in. A few old trees cluster together, and by
their interlaced branches form a kind of bower over “the seat,” while down
below the river joins in chorus with the song of the birds. When I stood
there, I did so with a deep sense of enjoyment to the soft buzzing of the
insects around and of the myriads of blue-bells which dyed the dell as
they kept nodding in the balmy breeze that swayed their fragile stems.
All around was life--fresh, delightful, enjoyable life --and as I stood
motionless,
“The merry, young rabbits came leaping
Over the crest of the hill,
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
Under the sunlight still.”
Some months after the incident, Burns wrote the lady,
and in a very beautiful letter asked permission to publish the song he had
composed in her honour. He says:--”I had roved out, as chance directed,
in the favourite haunts of my muse on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature
in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the
distant western hills; not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom,
or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic
heart. I listened to the feathered warblers pouring their harmony on
every hand, with a congenial, kindred regard, and frequently turned out of
my path lest I should disturb their little songs, or frighten them to
another station. ‘Surely,’ said I to myself, ‘he must be a wretch indeed,
who, regardless of your harmonious endeavours to please him, can eye your
elusive flights to discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all
the property nature gives you--your dearest comforts, your helpless
nestlings.’ Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, what
heart at such time but must have been interested in its welfare, and
wished it preserved from the rudely browsing cattle or the withering
eastern blast? Such was the scene, and such was the hour, when , in a
corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of nature’s
workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape or met a poet’s eye;
those visionary bards excepted who hold commerce with aerial beings! Had
Calumny and Villainy taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal
peace with such an object. What an hour of inspiration for a poet! It
would have raised plain, dull, historic prose into metaphor and measure.”
To this letter--of which the above is a portion--the
bard received no reply. Dr. Currie says:--”Her modesty might prevent her
from perceiving that the muse of Tibullus breathed in this nameless poet,
and that her beauty was awakening strains destined to immortality on the
banks of the Ayr. It may be conceived also that, supposing the verse duly
appreciated, delicacy might find it possible to express its
acknowledegments.” Chambers, on the other hand, says:-- “The apology now
presented by the family for Miss Alex- ander’s conduct is, that she
unfortunately fell amongst those who entertained an unfavorable opinion of
his character. Feeling it to be necessary to decline yielding to his
request, she thought that that resolution would be intimated most deli-
cately towards him, as well as in the manner most agree- able to herself,
by simply allowing the letter to remain unanswered. It is easy to enter
into the feelings of a sensible woman of thirty in adopting this course,
and even to make some allowance for others not acknowledged, which might
cause her to shrink from the acquaintance of a humble tenant of her
brother (for Mossgiel now belonged to Mr. Alexander) who, in the exercise
of an assumed poetic privilege, dared to imagine her as his mistress.
However this might be, Miss Alexander and her kindred leaned afterwards to
think the woods of Ballochmyle classic, and herself immortal through the
genius of Burns. On a question occurring many years after as to the
disposal of the original manuscript of the song, Miss Alexander said that
there could be no dispute on that point: ‘wherever she went it must go.’”
Miss Alexander died unmarried in 1843, in the eighty-ninth year of her
age.
The rustic bower, erected in commemoration of the
abrupt meeting, is a neat circular erection with an open front. It
contains a row of seats and an oaken board, on which the following is
inscribed in fac simile of the poet’s hand- writing:--
“’Twas even, the dewy fields were green,
On every blade the pearls hang,
The zephyr wantoned round the bean,
And bore its fragrant sweets alang:
In every glen the mavis sang,
All Nature listening seemed the while,
Except where greenwood echoes rang
Amang the braes o’ Ballochmyle.
“With careless step I onward strayed,
My heart rejoiced in Nature’s joy,
When, musing in a lonely glade,
A maiden fair I chanced to spy:
Her look was like the morning’s eye,
Her air like Nature’s vernal smile;
Perfection whispered passing by,
Behold the lass o’ Ballochmyle!”
After sitting in the bower listening to the music of
the woods and holding communion with my thoughts, I rose to depart, but
had not taken many steps when I was confronted by a man with a
double-barreled gun under his arm. “Hp,” said, “what are you doing here?”
A glance was sufficient to show that I stood face to face with the
vigilant head keeper, and that a prompt answer was absolutely necessary.
This I made, and drew his attention to the fact that we had met before.
In an instant he was at my service, and proffered to assist me in any way.
Being now an authorised visitor, I took leave of my
friend after some pleasant conversation, and commenced the journey to
Mauchline railway station. As I moved forward I had an excellent view of
the wooded precipitous bank of the Ayr, and of the village of Catrine--a
circumstance which brought to min the fact that it was there that
Professor Dugald Stewart, the expositor of the Scottish system of
metaphysics, had his residence, and that it was at his table Burns “dinner’d
wi’ a lord.” The professor narrates that the manners of the poet on the
occasion were “simple, manly, and independent; strongly expressive of
conscious genius and worth, but without anything that indicated
forwardness, arrogance, or vanity.”
The small but startling incidents of the route added a
sort of piquancy to the enjoyment of the scene. At one time I startled a
partridge, at another a blackbird, which flew with a sudden flutter and a
wild cry from a thicket where its nest was hid. The rustling grass, and
fern fronds, too, bespoke the sudden flight of rabbits--indeed, numbers of
them hurried off in timorous haste at my approach, while almost
unconsciously muttering--
“Tell me, fellow-creatures, why
At my presence thus you fly?
Why disturb your social joys,
Parent, filial, kindred ties?
Common friend to you and me,
Nature’s gifts to all are free.”
A sudden turn in this secluded walk brought me to a
neat foot-bridge which spans a broad macadamized road. Here I paused and
listened to a party of homeward-bound excursionists who mad the wildwood
echoes ring, as the stentorian voices they bade a heart-fond adieu to the
lovely scenes they were leaving behind. The words of their song were
peculiarly appropriate, and, as the sound of their voices became faint by
distance, the following snatch smote my ear:--
‘But here, alas! for me nae mair
Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile;
Fareweel the bonnie banks of Ayr,
Fareweel, fareweel! sweet Ballochmyle!”
Upon crossing the bridge I found myself on the verge of
the rive and near to a vast wall of red sandstone towering from its
channel. The scene is most imposing, but why the stream is thus imbedded
I am unable to say--possibly the rock has been rent asunder by some great
convulsion, or (though very doubtful) the water has worn a passage for
itself. Upon descending some steps cut in the rock, I came upon an angler
straying along the brink of the water casting and trailing his line in
hopes to catch a trout, but, although he tried every artifice, the finny
tribe remained shy, and he disappointed. However, it was not for want of
fish, for several rose farther down the stream in a dark, deep pool to
snap at unwary flies hovering near the glassy surface.
Keeping in the shade of the massive rocks which rise
from the river bed, I soon reached the stupendous erection called
Ballochmyle Bridge. It makes a gigantic sweep across the ravine through
which the Ayr flows, and rises to a height of 184 feet above its channel.
It has an imposing appearance, and eclipses everything of the kind in
Great Britain in point of magnitude and elegance. Its foundation stone
was laid with Masonic honours on the 10th of September, 1846,
and the structure was completed in the month of August, 1848. Near it is
the celebrated quarry from which the beautiful red sandstone is procured
that makes buildings throughout Ayshire so conspicuous. The stone is
worked to a great depth, but its bottom has not been reached, and the
supply appears to be as inexhaustible as it was when operations first
began.
Beyond the bridge a beautiful path winds along the foot
of the verdant precipices and steep descents which line the river bank.
Holding along it, I soon reached “the never-failing brook” which propels
the wheel of “the busy mill,” and entered Haugh, a very small village
consisting of a group of cottages, an agricultural implement maker’s shop,
a woollen and a curling stone factory.
Finding nothing here worth a sentence, I enquired my
way to Barkskimming Bridge, and was directed to a small roadway at the end
of the village. Out of it, according to instructions, I entered a stile
road or beaten track which winds through a couple of fields. Cattle were
browsing in them. At my approach they lifted their heads and looked at me
with long and wary observation; but being satisfied that my mission was
peace, they again bent their heads and began to crop the pasture.
At the termination of the carpet-like path, I found
myself in the highway between Mauchline and Stair, and close at the old
bridge of Barskimming, a spacious structure of one arch which spans the
Ayr a little below the confluence of the Lugar. Its situation is
peculiarly romantic and pleasing. Immediately above it, on the south side
of the stream, Bar- skimming Mill nestles beneath the shade of an immense
wall of sandstone, which appears to have been hewn by the hand of man to
make room for the diminutive structure. Below, a curve conceals the river
from sight, but beyond it, it flows through a perfect chasm of towering
rocks which are decked and crowned by the most luxuriant vegetation. Over
this wildly romantic gulf, a bridge connects the lands of Barskimming and
gives access to the princely mansion, which nestles in the beautifully
laid off grounds of the estate.
While leaning on the parapet of the bridge enjoying the
scenery, I accosted a passing wayfarer, and asked to be shown the holm
where Burns composed, “Man was mad to Mourn.” “Man it’s no here,” said he,
“its on the Doon.” “Na, na, John,” said a middle-sized, pleasant-featured
old woman who was standing near with a bundle of faggots in her apron,
“you are wrong, far, it was no such thing, but it was owre in that holm
there, where my key are, that the poet made ‘Man was made to Mourn.”
Often have I heard my old father speak about if; he knew Burns and them
all, but they are all gone.” “And what were the circumstances?” said I,
for I must confess that I was somewhat fascinated with her tragic manner
and fluent language. “Well, young man,” she continued, “I will tell you,
for I love to speak about the Burns. That is my house at the end of the
brig there. Well, in Burn’s time, a man lived in it o’ the name o’ Kemp,
wha had a daughter ca’d Kate--Kate Kemp. Well, you know, Burns had an e’e
to Kate, and came from Mauchline ae afternoon to see her, but it so
happened that the coo was lost and she had gone to look for’t. Well, you
see, the poet made up his mind to go and look for them baith, but he had
gotten no farther than the other side of the brig there when he met the
miller. ‘Well, Miller, what are you doing her? said he. ‘Deed,’ said the
miller, ‘I was gaunt to speer that question at you.’ ‘Well, then,’ said
Burns, ‘I was doon to see Kate Kemp, but she and the coo’s lost.’ Weel,
ye ken, they cracket awa’, but Burns began to get fidgety an’ left the
miller like a knotless thread, an’ gaed awa doon the holm there. But the
next time they met he said, ‘Miller, I owe you an apology for leaving you
so suddenly when we last met.’ ‘Oh, there’s nae need o’ that!’ said the
miller, ‘for I suppose something was rennin’ in your head.’ ‘You are
right,’ said Burns, ‘and here it is;’ an’ sae wi’ that he read ‘Man was
made to mourn.’ Yes, John, that is the Holm where Burns made ‘Man was
made to mourn,’ I can assure you.” John heard here statement, intimated
his surprise, and moved off, and left the old lady and I to ourselves.
She informed me that she had spent the whole of her life in the locality,
and entertained me with many reminiscences of her early years. “In the
days of Burns,” she said, “aye, and in my day to,” she added with a sigh,
“all round by the holm there was covered with beautiful trees in which the
craws biggit their nests, but they are all down; and a beautiful oak that
stood’ yont the road a bit, which was admired by everybody, and was drawn
by many an artist, is down too. My heart bled to see the noble monarch
lying low--but it was not so in the days of Lord Glenlee. No, he would
not allow a tree on the estate to be touched, and when one at the big
house was blown down, he said ‘if a ten pound not will put it up I will
gladly pay down the money.’” After enjoying a hearty draught of milk in
this intelligent lady’s dairy--which, by the by, is cut out of the solid
rock--I reluctantly bade her good-bye and pushed on to Mauchline, for
train time was nigh, and my step was not so elastic as it was in the
morning. The scenery on the road be- tween Barkskimming bridge and
Mauchline is romantic enough, but it is tame, tame, when compared with the
wooden slopes of Ballochmyle. When I reached Mauchline station the train
was due. It is needless to add that Kilmarncok was speedily and safely
reached. |
