The author of "Rustic Lays," an interesting volume of lyric poetry,
Margaret Crawford was born on the 4th February 1833, at Gilmerton, in
the parish of Liberton, Mid-Lothian. With limited opportunities of
attending school, she was chiefly indebted for her elementary training
to occasional instructions communicated by her mother. Her father, an
operative gardener, removed in 1842 to Torwoodlee, Roxburghshire. It was
while living there, under her parents' roof, that, so early as her
thirteenth year, she first essayed to write verses. Through the
beneficence of Mrs Meiklam of Torwoodlee, whose husband her father
served, she was taught dress-making. She subsequently accepted the
situation of nurse-maid at Craignish Castle, Argyllshire. In 1852, her
parents removed to the village of Stow, in the upper district of
Mid-Lothian. An inmate of their humble cottage, she has for some years
been employed as a dress-maker. Her "Rustic Lays" appeared in 1855, in
an elegant little volume. Of its contents she thus remarks in the
preface: "Many of these pieces were composed by the authoress on the
banks of the Gala, whose sweet, soft music, mingling with the melodies
of the woodland, has often charmed her into forgetfulness of the rough
realities of life. Others were composed at the fireside, in her father's
cottage, at the hours of the _gloamin'_, when, after the bustle of the
day had ceased, the clouds and cares of the present were chased away by
the bright dreams of the past, and the happy hopes of the future, till
she found that her musings had twined themselves into numbers, and
assumed the form in which they now appear."