Having occasion to spend a few days of the beautiful July of the
present year in the lower part of Nithsdale, I felt tempted to bestow
a forenoon upon an effort to discover and examine a particular spot in
the district connected with the history of the poet Burns, but
respecting which a doubt has till lately existed. The subject was the
more excitingly placed before me, by my seeing every morning, from my
bedroom windows, the smiling farmstead of Ellisland, which the poet
built, and where he spent more than four years of his life. Daily
beholding his simple home, and the fields he had tilled, I felt a
revived interest in his sad history and everything associated with it.
All the readers of Burns are of course acquainted with his extravagant
Bacchanalian lyric, beginning--
O Willie brewed a peck o' maut,
And Rab and Allan cam to prie;
Three blither hearts that lee-lang night
Ye wadna find in Christendie.
It was well known that the affair described was a real one--that the
Willie who gave the entertainment was Mr William Nicol, a master in
the High School of Edinburgh--Rab, the poet himself--and Allan, a
certain Mr Masterton, likewise of the Edinburgh High School: three
merry-hearted men, of remarkable talents and many other good
properties, but who, unfortunately, were all of them too liable to the
seductions of the 'barley-bree.' That such was the scene, and such the
actors, we had learned from Burns himself, who thus annotated the song
in a musical collection: 'This air is Masterton's; the song mine. The
occasion of it was this: Mr William Nicol, of the High School,
Edinburgh, during the autumn vacation being at Moffat, honest
Allan--who was at that time on a visit to Dalswinton--and I went to
pay Nicol a visit. We had such a joyous meeting, that Mr Masterton and
I agreed, each in our own way, that we should celebrate the business.'
That is to say, Burns undertook to compose a song descriptive of the
merry encounter, while Mr Masterton, who was an amateur musician,
should compose an appropriate air. So far there seems to be little
obscurity about the matter. The locality pointed out is the well-known
spa village of Moffat, situated among the hills of Annandale, about
twenty miles from Ellisland. Nicol had had a lodging there, in which
to enjoy his few weeks of autumn vacation; Burns and Masterton--the
one from Ellisland, the other from Dalswinton--had journeyed thither
in company; and there, probably in some small cottage room, had the
strength of the peck o' maut been tried. Most likely, as Moffat is so
far on the way from Dalswinton to Edinburgh, Mr Masterton would part
with his two friends next day, and proceed on his way to the city,
while Burns returned to his farm, lone-meditating on the song in which
he was to make the frolic immortal.
With so explicit a statement from the poet, we never should have had
occasion to feel any doubt about the circumstances referred to in
'Willie brewed a peck o' maut,' had not Dr Currie, the editor of the
posthumous collection of Burns's works, inserted therein a note,
stating that the merry-meeting 'took place at Laggan, a farm purchased
by Mr Nicol in Nithsdale, on the recommendation of Burns.' Currie,
proceeding upon the undoubted fact of Nicol having purchased such a
farm, seems to have imagined that the meeting was what is called in
Scotland a _house-heating_, or entertainment given to celebrate the
entering upon a new domestic establishment, Laggan itself being of
course the scene. To add to the perplexity thus created, Dr Currie's
assumptions were taken up by a subsequent editor, who ought to have
known better--the late Allan Cunningham. He gives the whole affair
with daring circumstantiality. The song, he says, 'was composed to
commemorate the _house-heating_--as entering upon possession of a new
house is called in Scotland. William Nicol made the brewst strong and
nappy; and Allan Masterton, then on a visit at Dalswinton, crossed the
Nith, and, with the poet and his celebrated punch-bowl, reached Laggan
"a wee before the sun gaed down." The sun, however, rose on their
carousal, if the tradition of the land may be trusted.' Thus, as
Laggan is on the right bank of the Nith, while Dalswinton is on the
left, we have Masterton crossing the river to join Burns at Ellisland,
which is the converse of the procedure necessary on the supposition of
Moffat being the locality. A place called Laggan, about two miles from
Ellisland, being further assumed as the seat of Nicol, we have the
poet marching along to it bearing his punch-bowl as an essential of
the frolic!--a particular which this biographer would have probably
suppressed, if he had known that the real Laggan of William Nicol is
eight or nine miles from Ellisland, in a part of the country naturally
so difficult of access, that a visitor might be glad to get there
himself without any such nice burden as a punch-bowl to carry.
In a more recent edition of the poet's life and writings--where at
length an effort is made to illustrate both, by documentary and other
exact evidence[1]--the affair is set in such a light as to throw a
ludicrous commentary on such testimony as the 'tradition of the land.'
It appears, from a letter of Burns in which two verses of the song are
transcribed, that it was written before 16th October 1789; while it
equally appears that Mr Nicol did not purchase Laggan till March 1790:
_ergo_, the maut was not brewed at Laggan; Masterton did not cross the
Nith; and the punch-bowl is a myth, which most likely originated in
editorial fancy.
Laggan is, nevertheless, a remarkable place, for Burns and Nicol must
have been there together in some fashion, if not a Bacchanalian one,
since it was upon the recommendation of the former that the latter
became its proprietor. There are, however, two Laggans--one in
Dunscore parish, about two miles from Ellisland; the other in
Glencairn parish, a comparatively remote situation; and the latter was
the Laggan of Nicol. Mr M----, of A----, who now lives near Ellisland,
remembers, while living in his father's house, Laggan of Dunscore--the
place erroneously assumed by Cunningham--that Burns and Nicol came
there rather late one evening, and induced his father to accompany
them to the town of Minniehive, whence he did not return home till
next day at three o'clock. Laggan of Glencairn being on the way to
Minniehive, and near it, and there being no other imaginable reason
for Nicol going to such an out-of-the-way place, it seems a very
reasonable supposition, that the pair of friends were on their way to
see the property which Nicol thought of purchasing; and that Burns,
knowing Mr M---- to be well skilled in land, had thought of asking his
advice on its value. The junior Mr M---- adds a reminiscence, too
characteristic, we fear, to be much doubted, that Burns and Nicol on
that occasion were for a whole week engaged in merry-making.
We had, therefore, a half-melancholy interest in seeing Laggan--a
name, we felt, associated with reckless gaieties, but then they were
the gaieties of genius, and well had they been moralised in the
punishments which they drew down--for, as Currie remarks in 1799,
these 'three merry boys' were already all of them under the turf. Our
kind host, the successor of Masterton's, took us in his carriage
across the Nith, through a scene of natural luxuriance and beauty not
to be surpassed, and under a sun of as intense brilliancy as ever
shone in these climes. Passing into a high side-valley, we soon left
the glowing plains of Nithsdale behind. We passed under the farmstead
of Laggan of Dunscore, and thought of Burns and Nicol coming there to
seduce the worthy farmer away to partake of their festivities at
Minniehive. By and by we came to Dunscore kirk, which Burns used to
attend with his family while resident at Ellisland--a gloomy-looking
man, the people thought him, all the time that he, with his generous,
benevolent nature, was in reality groaning over the stern Calvinistic
theology of the preacher. It is a tract of country which has but
recently been reclaimed from a marshy and moorish state, and which
still shews only partial traces of decoration and high culture. In a
gloomy recess among the hills, we caught a glimpse of the situation of
the old castle of Lagg, a fortalice surrounded by bogs, the ancient
residence of the persecutor Grierson of Lagg, and fit scene to be
connected with the history of a man who could coolly stand to see
innocent women drowned at a stake in the sea for conscience' sake. The
name of the place is pure Norwegian, expressing simply _water_, such
being, no doubt, the predominating feature of the scenery in its
original state--while Laggan merely gives the article _en_ (the) in
addition. Soon after passing Dunscore, we entered the valley of the
Cairn, which, with its chalet-like farmhouses far up the slopes on
both sides, reminded us much of Switzerland. Here, a few miles onward,
we saw Maxwellton House, surrounded by those slopes so warmly spoken
of in Scottish song--
Maxwellton braes are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew;
Where I and Annie Laurie,
Made up the promise true, &c.
Of this estate, the Laggan of William Nicol was originally a part,
being sold in 1790 by Sir Robert Laurie of Maxwellton, a gentleman
whom Burns has celebrated in his famous poem of 'The Whistle.' Even in
this splendid summer-day, the whole vale has a rude and triste
appearance, somewhat at issue with the declaration of the old song
just quoted, and not likely, one would have thought, to attract the
regard of such men as William Nicol and Robert Burns.
We had inquired, as we came along, as to the place of which we were in
quest; and finding nobody with a very clear or ready conception of it
or its whereabouts, began to feel as if it were of a half-fabulous
character. At length, however, at a place called Crossford, we were
told we should have to leave our carriage and the road, and ascend the
side of the valley to the northward, where, about a mile and a half
onward, we should find a small farm called Laggan Park. This we hoped
to find to be the true place. To walk a mile and a half up hill on a
roasting July day was not a task to be encountered on light grounds;
however, we had resolved to make out our point if possible. Behold a
couple of wayfarers, then, pursuing their way along the skirts of
turnip-fields, through slight coppices, and along various clayey
braes, with this unseen place of Laggan Park still keeping wonderfully
ahead, long after it ought to have been reached. We wondered how the
Ayrshire bard would have looked carrying a punch-bowl along our
present path, after a journey of eight miles similarly loaded; and
whether he would have thought any amount of the 'barley bree' during
'the lee-lang night' a fair recompense for his toils. At length, we
arrived at the spot, but in a state of deliquescence and exhaustion
not to be described. It is a small farm-establishment, nestling in a
bosom of the hills, with some shelter and good exposure, making up for
elevation of position, so that its few fields of growing grain, of
potatoes, and meadow grass, have a tolerably good appearance. Some
patches of ancient coppice at the base of the barish hills behind,
give it even a smiling aspect. The farmer, seeing us approach, left
his people in the field, and came to greet us. We entered a neat clean
room, and met a kind reception from 'the Mistress,' who was as trigly
dressed as if she had been expecting company. It soon became clear,
from our conversation with the good couple, that our toils were
crowned with success. This really had been Nicol's property; it still
belonged to a member of his family. That line of gray heights seen
from the door was what Burns alluded to when he facetiously dubbed his
friend 'Illustrious lord of Laggan's many hills.' This cottage had
been the retreat of the High School master in his hours of rustic
vacation. There was a difficulty, which we discussed over a glass of
most welcome spirits and water furnished by the farmer: Did this neat
room form a part of the dwelling of Nicol? It appeared not. It was a
modern addition. The original house, to which it adjoined upon a
different level of flooring, was the merest hut, of one room, with a
line of box-beds dividing the sitting-place from a small space, which,
being rudely causewayed like a cow-house, had probably been employed
in keeping animals of some kind. Such was the humble _tuguriolum_ of
Willie Nicol of the 'peck o' maut'--an interesting memorial of the
simplicity of country life in Scotland at the close of the eighteenth
century. We did not venture to indulge in any dreamings as to festive
meetings between Burns and Nicol in this humble shed; for we felt that
here there was no certain ground to go upon. Enough that we could be
assured of Burns and Nicol having been together here; two most
singular examples of the peasant class of their country, and one of
them an unapproached master of his country's lyre, whose strains have
floated to the ends of the earth, and promise to last through many
ages.
The elements of the place, and the ideas connected with it were, after
all, too simple to detain us long. We only waited to snatch a slight
pencil sketch of the house and its adjuncts; and then, having taken
leave of the farmer and his wife, we retraced our steps to the road.
Somewhat unexpectedly, and not at all in keeping with the idea of
either Maxwellton braes or Laggan's many hills, we discovered in our
walk that the rough terrace-like ground over which we had passed
before coming in sight of Nicol's estate, was a _moraine_, or mass of
_débris_, produced and left there by a glacier. Its surface, thickly
covered with loose blocks of rock different from that of the district,
first fixed our attention; then looking into some openings which had
been made in the earth for building materials, we readily observed
that the internal constitution of the mass was precisely like that of
the moraines of the existing glaciers of the Alps, and of the similar
masses of drift scattered over Sweden--a confused mixture of angular,
slightly-worn blocks of all sizes, bedded in clayey gravel of a brown
colour. Such objects are rare in Scotland; but here is undoubtedly
one, though we cannot pretend to tell from what quarter it has come.
The thing most nearly resembling it in general appearance, which we
have ever seen, is an undoubted ancient moraine at a place called
Mosshuus, in the Valley of the Laug, in Norway.
One reflection arises at the conclusion of this trivial investigation,
and it is this--If so much doubt and obscurity have already settled on
circumstances which took place scarcely beyond the recollection of
living people, can we wonder at that which invests the events of a
more remote epoch? If editors in our enlightened time have contrived
so soon to give the history of Burns a mythical character, what safety
have we in trusting to such ancient narrations as those of Plutarch or
Thucydides? On the other hand, where even such a biography as that of
Burns is placed by sound and carefully-examined evidence upon an
irrefragable basis, a service is rendered to the public beyond the
merits of any immediate question that may be under discussion, in the
encouragement which it gives to historical inquirers of all grades, to
rest satisfied with nothing on vague assertion, but to sift everything
to the bottom.