We left Carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half-hour
were at Gretna Green. Thence we rushed onward into Scotland through a
flat and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog,
where probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after
their raids into England. Anon, however, the hills hove themselves up
to view, occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called
mountainous. In about two hours we reached Dumfries, and alighted at
the station there.
Chill as the Scottish summer is reputed to be, we found it an awfully
hot day, not a whit less so than the day before; but we sturdily
adventured through the burning sunshine up into the town, inquiring
our way to the residence of Burns. The street leading from the station
is called Shakspeare Street; and at its farther extremity we read
"Burns Street" on a corner house,--the avenue thus designated having
been formerly known as "Mill Hole Brae." It is a vile lane, paved with
small, hard stones from side to side, and bordered by cottages or mean
houses of white-washed stone, joining one to another along the whole
length of the street. With not a tree, of course, or a blade of grass
between the paving-stones, the narrow lane was as hot as Tophet, and
reeked with a genuine Scotch odor, being infested with unwashed
children, and altogether in a state of chronic filth; although some
women seemed to be hopelessly scrubbing the thresholds of their
wretched dwellings. I never saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a
poet's residence, or in which it would be more miserable for any man
of cleanly predilections to spend his days.
We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across the street
to a two-story house, built of stone, and white-washed, like its
neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most
of them, though I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate
structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. There was
an inscription on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but
indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial
school. On knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who
smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low
and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square.
A young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon
appeared, and told us that this had been Burns's usual sitting-room,
and that he had written many of his songs here.
She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bed-chamber over
the parlor. Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or
windowed closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber
itself was the one where he slept in his latter life-time, and in
which he died at last. Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable
place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,--even more
unsatisfactory than Shakspeare's house, which has a certain homely
picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness
of the abode before us. The narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the
contiguity of wretched hovels are depressing to remember; and the
steam of them (such is our human weakness) might almost make the
poet's memory less fragrant.
As already observed, it was an intolerably hot day. After leaving the
house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which,
it may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched
outskirt above described. Entering a hotel, (in which, as a Dumfries
guide-book assured us, Prince Charles Edward had once spent a night,)
we rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the
mausoleum of Burns.
Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave; and,
scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was
crowded full of monuments. Their general shape and construction are
peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other
stone, within a frame-work of the same material, somewhat resembling
the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these
sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty
feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed
with names of small general significance. It was easy, indeed, to
ascertain the rank of those who slept below; for in Scotland it is the
custom to put the occupation of the buried personage (as "Skinner,"
"Shoemaker," "Flesher") on his tombstone. As another peculiarity,
wives are buried under their maiden names, instead of their husbands;
thus giving a disagreeable impression that the married pair have
bidden each other an eternal farewell on the edge of the grave.
There was a footpath through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently
well-worn to guide us to the grave of Burns; but a woman followed
behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key of the mausoleum, and was
privileged to show it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian
temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty
feet square. It was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the
Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares
of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the
structure. The woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the
interior. Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of
Burns,--the very same that was laid over his grave by Jean Armour,
before this monument was built. Stuck against the surrounding wall is
a marble statue of Burns at the plough, with the Genius of Caledonia
summoning the ploughman to turn poet. Methought it was not a very
successful piece of work; for the plough was better sculptured than
the man, and the man, though heavy and cloddish, was more effective
than the goddess. Our guide informed us that an old man of ninety, who
knew Burns, certifies, this statue to be very like the original.
The bones of the poet, and of Jean Armour, and of some of their
children, lie in the vault over which we stood. Our guide (who was
intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal)
said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of
the burial of the eldest son of Burns. The poet's bones were
disturbed, and the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful
thought and bright and tender fantasies, was taken away, and kept for
several days by a Dumfries doctor. It has since been deposited in a
new leaden coffin, and restored to the vault. We learned that there is
a surviving daughter of Burns's eldest son, and daughters likewise of
the two younger sons,--and, besides these, an illegitimate posterity
by the eldest son, who appears to have been of disreputable life in
his younger days. He inherited his father's failings, with some faint
shadow, I have also understood, of the great qualities which have made
the world tender of his father's vices and weaknesses.
We listened readily enough to this paltry gossip, but found that it
robbed the poet's memory of some of the reverence that was its due.
Indeed, this talk over his grave had very much the same tendency and
effect as the home-scene of his life, which we had been visiting just
previously. Beholding his poor, mean dwelling and its surroundings,
and picturing his outward life and earthly manifestations from these,
one does not so much wonder that the people of that day should have
failed to recognize all that was admirable and immortal in a
disreputable, drunken, shabbily clothed, and shabbily housed man,
consorting with associates of damaged character, and, as his only
ostensible occupation, gauging the whiskey which he too often tasted.
Siding with Burns, as we needs must, in his plea against the world,
let us try to do the world a little justice too. It is far easier to
know and honor a poet when his fame has taken shape in the
spotlessness of marble than when the actual man comes staggering
before you, besmeared with the sordid stains of his daily life. For my
part, I chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so brightly while
he was still living. There must have been something very grand in his
immediate presence, some strangely impressive characteristic in his
natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like a demigod so soon.
As we went back through the churchyard, we saw a spot where nearly
four hundred inhabitants of Dumfries were buried during the cholera
year; and also some curious old monuments, with raised letters, the
inscriptions on which were not sufficiently legible to induce us to
puzzle them out; but, I believe, they mark the resting-places of old
Covenanters, some of whom were killed by Claverhouse and his
fellow-ruffians.
St. Michael's Church is of red freestone, and was built about a
hundred years ago, on an old Catholic foundation. Our guide admitted
us into it, and showed us, in the porch, a very pretty little marble
figure of a child asleep, with a drapery over the lower part, from
beneath which appeared its two baby feet. It was truly a sweet little
statue; and the woman told us that it represented a child of the
sculptor, and that the baby (here still in its marble infancy) had
died more than twenty-six years ago. "Many ladies," she said,
"especially such as had ever lost a child, had shed tears over it." It
was very pleasant to think of the sculptor bestowing the best of his
genius and art to re-create his tender child in stone, and to make the
representation as soft and sweet as the original; but the conclusion
of the story has something that jars with our awakened sensibilities.
A gentleman from London had seen the statue, and was so much delighted
with it that he bought it of the father-artist, after it had lain
above a quarter of a century in the church-porch. So this was not the
real, tender image that came out of the father's heart; he had sold
that truest one for a hundred guineas, and sculptured this mere copy
to replace it. The first figure was entirely naked in its earthly and
spiritual innocence. The copy, as I have said above, has a drapery
over the lower limbs. But, after all, if we come to the truth of the
matter, the sleeping baby may be as fitly reposited in the
drawing-room of a connoisseur as in a cold and dreary church-porch.
We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without
altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly
wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the
side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family-pew,
showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so
situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the
minister's eye; "for Robin was no great friends with the ministers,"
said she. This touch--his seat behind the pillar, and Burns himself
nodding in sermon-time, or keenly observant of profane things--brought
him before us to the life. In the corner seat of the next pew, right
before Burns, and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on
whom the poet saw that unmentionable parasite which he has
immortalized in song. We were ungenerous enough to ask the lady's
name, but the good woman could not tell it. This was the last thing
which we saw in Dumfries worthy of record; and it ought to be noted
that our guide refused some money which my companion offered her,
because I had already paid her what she deemed sufficient.
At the railway-station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for
the train, which at last came up, and took us to Mauchline. We got
into an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile
to the village, where we established ourselves at the Loudoun Hotel,
one of the veriest country-inns which we have found in Great Britain.
The town of Mauchline, a place more redolent of Burns than almost any
other, consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly
white-washed, and with thatched roofs. It has nothing sylvan or rural
in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could
contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy
generations. The fashion of paving the village-street, and patching
one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all
verdure and pleasantness; but, I presume, we are not likely to see a
more genuine old Scotch village, such as they used to be in Burns's
time, and long before, than this of Mauchline. The church stands about
midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in
its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred
edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most
characteristic productions,--"The Holy Fair."
Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village-street, stands
Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter
is a two-story, redstone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means
venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned
windows, and may well have stood for centuries,--though, seventy or
eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it
might have been something better than a beggars' alehouse. The whole
town of Mauchline looks rusty and time-worn,--even the newer houses,
of which there are several, being shadowed and darkened by the general
aspect of the place. When we arrived, all the wretched little
dwellings seemed to have belched forth their inhabitants into the warm
summer evening; everybody was chatting with everybody, on the most
familiar terms; the bare-legged children gambolled or quarrelled
uproariously, and came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of
our parlor. When we ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the
whole town: people standing in their door-ways, old women popping
their heads from the chamber-windows, and stalwart men--idle on
Saturday at e'en, after their week's hard labor--clustering at the
street-corners, merely to stare at our unpretending selves. Except in
some remote little town of Italy, (where, besides, the inhabitants had
the intelligible stimulus of beggary,) I have never been honored with
nearly such an amount of public notice.
The next forenoon my companion put me to shame by attending church,
after vainly exhorting me to do the like; and, it being Sacrament
Sunday, and my poor friend being wedged into the farther end of a
closely filled pew, he was forced to stay through the preaching of
four several sermons, and came back perfectly exhausted and desperate.
He was somewhat consoled, however, on finding that he had witnessed a
spectacle of Scotch manners identical with that of Burns's "Holy
Fair," on the very spot where the poet located that immortal
description. By way of further conformance to the customs of the
country, we ordered a sheep's head and the broth, and did penance
accordingly; and at five o'clock we took a fly, and set out for
Burns's farm of Moss Giel.
Moss Giel is not more than a mile from Mauchline, and the road extends
over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes
on either side. Just before we reached the farm, the driver stopped to
point out a hawthorn, growing by the way-side, which he said was
Burns's "Lousie Thorn"; and I devoutly plucked a branch, although I
have really forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been
celebrated. We then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately
came to the farm-house of Moss Giel, standing some fifty yards removed
from the high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably
overshadowed by trees. The house is a whitewashed stone cottage, like
thousands of others in England and Scotland, with a thatched roof, on
which grass and weeds have intruded a picturesque, though alien
growth. There is a door and one window in front, besides another
little window that peeps out among the thatch. Close by the cottage,
and extending back at right angles from it, so as to inclose the
farm-yard, are two other buildings of the same size, shape, and
general appearance as the house: any one of the three looks just as
fit for a human habitation as the two others, and all three look still
more suitable for donkey-stables and pig-sties. As we drove into the
farm-yard, bounded on three sides by these three hovels, a large dog
began to bark at us; and some women and children made their
appearance, but seemed to demur about admitting us, because the master
and mistress were very religious people, and had not yet come back
from the Sacrament at Mauchline.
However, it would not do to be turned back from the very threshold of
Robert Burns; and as the women seemed to be merely straggling
visitors, and nobody, at all events, had a right to send us away, we
went into the back-door, and, turning to the right, entered a kitchen.
It showed a deplorable lack of housewifely neatness, and in it there
were three or four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years
old, held a baby in her arms. She proved to be the daughter of the
people of the house, and gave us what leave she could to look about
us. Thence we stepped across the narrow mid-passage of the cottage
into the only other apartment below-stairs, a sitting-room, where we
found a young man eating bread and cheese. He informed us that he did
not live there, and had only called in to refresh himself on his way
home from church. This room, like the kitchen, was a noticeably poor
one, and, besides being all that the cottage had to show for a parlor,
it was a sleeping-apartment, having two beds, which might be curtained
off, on occasion. The young man allowed us liberty (so far as in him
lay) to go upstairs. Up we crept, accordingly; and a few steps brought
us to the top of the staircase, over the kitchen, where we found the
wretchedest little sleeping-chamber in the world, with a sloping roof
under the thatch, and two beds spread upon the bare floor. This, most
probably, was Burns's chamber; or, perhaps, it may have been that of
his mother's servant-maid; and, in either case, this rude floor, at
one time or another, must have creaked beneath the poet's midnight
tread. On the opposite side of the passage was the door of another
attic-chamber, opening which, I saw a considerable number of cheeses
on the floor.
The whole house was pervaded with a frowzy smell, and also a
dunghill-odor, and it is not easy to understand how the atmosphere of
such a dwelling can be any more agreeable or salubrious morally than
it appeared to be physically. No virgin, surely, could keep a holy awe
about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy with coarse-natured rustics
into this narrowness and filth. Such a habitation is calculated to
make beasts of men and women; and it indicates a degree of barbarism
which I did not imagine to exist in Scotland, that a tiller of broad
fields, like the farmer of Mauchline, should have his abode in a
pig-sty. It is sad to think of anybody--not to say a poet, but any
human being--sleeping, eating, thinking, praying, and spending all his
home-life in this miserable hovel; but, methinks, I never in the least
knew how to estimate the miracle of Burns's genius, nor his heroic
merit for being no worse man, until I thus learned the squalid
hindrances amid which he developed himself. Space, a free atmosphere,
and cleanliness have a vast deal to do with the possibilities of human
virtue.
The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as being damp and
unwholesome; but I do not see why, outside of the cottage-walls, it
should possess so evil a reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge,
enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and
sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. The high
hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant
aspect enough to one who does not know the grimy secrets of the
interior; and the summer afternoon was now so bright that I shall
remember the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it.
Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told
us was that in which Burns turned up the mouse's nest. It is the
inclosure nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a
rather remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was
whitened with an immense number of daisies,--daisies, daisies,
everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was
the field where Burns ran his ploughshare over the daisy. If so, the
soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he
bestowed on that first immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole
handful of these "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be
precious to many friends in our own country as coming from Burns's
farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he
turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it.
From Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of
which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns. We skirted,
too, along a portion of the estate of Auchinleck, which still belongs
to the Boswell family,--the present possessor being Sir James Boswell,
[Sir James Boswell is now dead.] a grandson of Johnson's friend, and
son of the Sir Alexander who was killed in a duel. Our driver spoke of
Sir James as a kind, free-hearted man, but addicted to horse-races and
similar pastimes, and a little too familiar with the wine-cup; so that
poor Bozzy's booziness would appear to have become hereditary in his
ancient line. There is no male heir to the estate of Auchinleck. The
portion of the lands which we saw is covered with wood and much
undermined with rabbit-warrens; nor, though the territory extends over
a large number of acres, is the income very considerable.
By-and-by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass
of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge
that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from
bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the
young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth
and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest
truth, the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her
womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her.
Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle,
through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it
seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no
such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could
desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river
flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine,
sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the
foot of high and precipitous cliffs. This beautiful estate of
Ballochmyle is still held by the family of Alexanders, to whom Burns's
song has given renown on cheaper terms than any other set of people
ever attained it. How slight the tenure seems! A young lady happened
to walk out, one summer afternoon, and crossed the path of a
neighboring farmer, who celebrated the little incident in four or five
warm, rude,--at least, not refined, though rather ambitious,--and
somewhat ploughman-like verses. Burns has written hundreds of better
things; but henceforth, for centuries, that maiden has free admittance
into the dream-land of Beautiful Women, and she and all her race are
famous! I should like to know the present head of the family, and
ascertain what value, if any, they put upon the celebrity thus won.
We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of
Scotland." Certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly
the advantage of Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing
anything else worth writing about.
There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the
rusty, old, sloping street of Mauchline was glistening with wet, while
frequent showers came spattering down. The intense heat of many days
past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a
stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought to be. We found,
after breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by,
and that we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely
ventured out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through
the village, in which I have left little to describe. Its chief
business appears to be the manufacture of snuff-boxes. There are
perhaps five or six shops, or more, including those licensed to sell
only tea and tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of
village-stores in the United States, dealing in a small way with an
extensive variety of articles. I peeped into the open gateway of the
churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead
people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular
and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless
there, and the Armours among them, except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by
her poet's side. The family is now extinct in Mauchline.
Arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely
gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. He proved to
be a Mr. Alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the Alexander of
Ballochmyle, a blood-relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy
of a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago on this old
gentleman's white hair! These Alexanders, by-the-by, are not an old
family on the Ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a
fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed
proprietor of his name in these parts. The original family was named
Whitefoord.
Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a
cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a
woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we
see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly
direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to
the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the
town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices;
although there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking
houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place.
The town lies on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and
stately, and bordered with dwellings that look from their windows
directly down into the passing tide.
I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and
recrossed it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four
gray arches, which must have bestridden the stream ever since the
early days of Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr,"
whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other
auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream
among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved
like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at
the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the
pathway to creep between. Nothing else impressed me hereabouts, unless
I mention, that, during the rain, the women and girls went about the
streets of Ayr barefooted to save their shoes.
The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined
to be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch
breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and
started at a little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at
about two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a road-side cottage, on which
was an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its
walls. It is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and
entered its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a
neat apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls
are much over-scribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of
a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other wood-work of the
room, is cut and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two
tables, which, having received a coat of varnish over the
inscriptions, form really curious and interesting articles of
furniture. I have never (though I do not personally adopt this mode of
illustrating my humble name) felt inclined to ridicule the natural
impulse of most people thus to record themselves at the shrines of
poets and heroes.
On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait
of Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of
this apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute
for the ordinary flag-stones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one
other room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is
the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones,
even ruder than those of Shakspeare's house,--though, perhaps, not so
strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of
Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been
opened through the wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is
the little original window, of only four small panes, through which
came the first daylight that shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side
of the room, opposite the fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed,
which can be hidden by curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in
the world, Providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest
human life which mankind then had within its circumference.
These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance
of Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics;
and the thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and
sitting-room, the height of which was that of the whole house. The
cottage, however, is attached to another edifice of the same size and
description, as these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a
splendid addition has been made to it, since the poet's renown began
to draw visitors to the way-side ale-house. The old woman of the house
led us through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast
dimensions, to be sure, but marvellously large and splendid as
compared with what might be anticipated from the outward aspect of the
cottage. It contained a bust of Burns, and was hung round with
pictures and engravings, principally illustrative of his life and
poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant
with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whiskey is here
quaffed to the memory of the bard, who professed to draw so much of
his inspiration from that potent liquor.
We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the
Monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A
very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and
to the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds
within which the former is inclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of
the inclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because
the old man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to
assist at the laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared
anon, and admitted us, but immediately hurried away to be present at
the concluding ceremonies, leaving us locked up with Burns.
The inclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an
ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and
shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an
elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided,
above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple,--a mere dome,
supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The
edifice is beautiful in itself; though I know not what peculiar
appropriateness it may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet.
The door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a
bust of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so
warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness
cannot be good. In the centre of the room stood a glass case, in which
were reposited the two volumes of the little Pocket-Bible that Burns
gave to Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another.
It is poorly printed, on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture, referring
to the solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of
each volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers
is a lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried
to America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly
treasured here.
There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the
top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon; the scene of Tam
O'Shanter's misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered
through the inclosed garden, and came to a little building in a
corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor
Wat,--ponderous stone-work enough, yet permeated in a remarkable
degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. From this part of the
garden, too, we again beheld the old Brigg of Doon, over which Tam
galloped in such imminent and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in
the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed
all over and around with foliage.
When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us
that he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of
the new kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out
from his pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway,
which is within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few
steps ascend from the road-side, through a gate, into the old
graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk. The edifice is
wholly roofless, but the side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire,
though portions of them are evidently modern restorations. Never was
there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural
pretension; no New England meeting-house has more simplicity in its
very self, though poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so
wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually
exists. By-the-by, I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of
witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but
the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative
faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of
rule and reason to the contrary. Possibly, some carnal minister, some
priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the
consecration of the holy edifice by his pretence of prayer, and thus
made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils.
The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent
a purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for
it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone-masonry, and each
compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on
one of the monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is
impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be,
had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs
to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they
sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from
our own precincts, too,--from that inalienable possession which Burns
bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth
and annexing it to the domain of imagination. And here these wretched
squatters have lain down to their long sleep, after barring each of
the two doorways of the kirk with an iron grate! May their rest be
troubled, till they rise and let us in!
Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it
fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside
of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more
than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few
windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with
mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the
eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with
devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is
a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he
might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have
looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been
walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the
gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that
I remember of Kirk Alloway, except that the stones of its material are
gray and irregular.
The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a
modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach
the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing
the kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river. The new
bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither,
and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing
wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a
lovelier scene; although this might have been even lovelier, if a
kindly sun had shone upon it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its
high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green
banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet
and gentle way, that ever blessed my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded
banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at
this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns crooning
some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody.
It was impossible to depart without crossing the very bridge of Tam's
adventure; so we went thither, over a now disused portion of the road,
and, standing on the centre of the arch, gathered some ivy-leaves from
that sacred spot. This done, we returned as speedily as might be to
Ayr, whence, taking the rail, we soon beheld Ailsa Craig rising like a
pyramid out of the sea. Drawing nearer to Glasgow, Ben Lomond hove in
sight, with a dome-like summit, supported by a shoulder on each side.
But a man is better than a mountain; and we had been holding
intercourse, if not with the reality, at least with the stalwart ghost
of one, amid the scenes where he lived and sung. We shall appreciate
him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as
a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary
light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, there will be a
personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his
countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had
shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice.
* * * * *