sunshine, of gentle dale and savage scaur, brings us past historic
Closeburn to the neighborhood of Thornhill. Here at the Buccleuch Arms
the illegitimate daughter of Burns was for thirty years a servant, and
boasted of having had a chat with Scott among the burnished utensils of
her kitchen. Two miles eastward Scott found the Balfour's Cave and Leap
described in "Old Mortality." Middle Nithsdale expands into a broad
valley, commanded by lofty Queensberry and lower green hills and
diversified with upland brae, shadowy copse, sunny mead, and opulent
plantation. This lovely region, dotted with pretty hamlets, embowered
villas, and moss-grown ruins, and teeming with the charming associations
of history and sentiment, holds for us a crowning interest which has
drawn our steps into its romantic haunts: it was the birthplace and
life-long home of Annie Laurie. On the right of the Nith, among the
bonnie braes of the song, we find the ancient manor-house of Maxwelton,
where the heroine was born. The first of her race to reside here was her
great-grandfather, who in 1611 built additions to the old tower already
existing. The marriage-stone of Annie Laurie's grandparents, John Laurie
and Agnes Grierson, is set in the massive walls and graven with their
initials, crest, and date. This Agnes was daughter of the bloody
persecutor who figures in "Redgauntlet," and whose ashes lie in Dunscore
kirk-yard, not far distant. Another stone in the Maxwelton house
commemorates the marriage of Robert Laurie and Jean Riddel, the parents
of the heroine of the song,--this Robert being the champion of Bacchus
who won the Whistle from the noble Danish toper. In this ancient abode,
according to a record made by her father, "At the pleasure of the
Almighty God, my daughter Anna Laurie was born upon the 16th day of
Decr., 1682 years, about six o'clock in the morning;" here the bonnie
maiden grew to womanhood; here occurred the episode to which the world
is indebted for the sweet song; from here she married and went to her
future home, but a few miles away. In the last century much of the
venerable edifice was destroyed, but the older portion, which had been
part of a stronghold in the time of the border wars, remains intact
since Annie dwelt within. This part is still called The Tower, and
consists of a large rectangular structure, with a ponderous
semi-circular fabric abutting it at one end, its fortress-like walls
being five feet in thickness and clothed by a luxuriant growth of ivy.
Newer portions have been added in varying styles, and the mansion is now
an elegant and substantial seat. All about it lie terraced lawns, with
parterres of flowers, noble trees, and banks of shrubbery: lovely
grounds slope away from the house and command an enchanting view which
must often have delighted the vision of the fair Annie. Her boudoir is
in the second story of The Tower; it is a corner room, forming now an
alcove of the drawing-room; it has a vaulted ceiling of stone, and its
windows, pierced in the ponderous walls, look out through the ivy and
across an expanse of sward, flower, and foliage to the wooded braes
where she kept tryst with her lover. Among the treasures of the old
house is a portrait of the bonnie heroine which shows her as an
impressively beautiful woman, of lissome figure, large and tender eyes,
long oval face with Grecian features, wide forehead framed by a
profusion of dark-brown hair. Her hands, like her "fairy feet," were of
exceptional smallness and beauty. The present owner of Maxwelton, to
whom the writer is indebted for many courtesies, is Sir Emilius Laurie;
from him and from the lineal descendants of the widely-sung Annie who
still inhabit Nithsdale are derived the materials for this account of
that winsome lady. The lover who immortalized her was William Douglas of
Fingland, and she requited him by breaking "her promise true" and
marrying another man. Douglas is said to have been the hero of the song
"Willie was a Wanton Wag;" he was one of the best swordsmen of his time,
and his personal qualities gained him the patronage of the Queensberry
family and secured him social advantages to which his lower rank and
poverty constituted no claim. He and Annie met at an Edinburgh ball, and
seem to have promptly become enamoured of each other. To separate them,
Sir Robert quickly carried his family back to Nithsdale, but Douglas as
quickly followed, and lurked in the vicinage for some months,
clandestinely meeting his love among "Maxwelton's bonnie braes." Here the
pair plighted troth, and when Douglas returned to Edinburgh, to assist
in a projected Stuart uprising, he took with him the promise which he
celebrated in the tender melody. The song was published in an Edinburgh
paper and attracted much notice. Douglas's devotion to the Jacobites
cost him his sweetheart; his political intrigues being suspected, he was
forced to fly the country, and when, after some years passed in France,
he secured pardon and returned, she was the wife of another. After
giving "her promise true" to some other lovers, she married in 1709
Alexander Fergusson, a neighboring laird, who could not write poetry but
had "muckle siller an' lan'" and a genealogy as long as Leviticus.
Douglas and Annie never met again, and she makes but a single reference
to him in her letters: being told of his return, she wrote to her
sister, Mrs. Riddel, grandmother of Burns's friend, "I trust he has
forsaken his treasonable opinions and is content."
[Sidenote: Her Later Home]
A stroll of but a few miles along a delightful way, fanned by the sweet
summer winds, brings us to Craigdarrock, Annie Laurie's home for more
than half a century. It is a spacious and handsome edifice of three
stories, with dormer-windows in the hip-roof; a conservatory is
connected at one end, bow-windows project from either side, and
clambering vines cover the walls of the lower stories.
[Illustration: HOME OF ANNIE LAURIE]
It is beautifully placed in a vale overlooking the winding stream, with
the rugged Craigdarrock looming steeply in the background. Most of the
mansion was built under the direction of Annie Laurie, and the gardens
were laid out by her in their formal style: a delightful walk beneath
the trees on the margin of the water was her favorite resort, and is
still known by her name. Within the spacious rooms are preserved many
of her belongings: curious furniture and hangings, quaint fineries of
dress, her porcelain snuff-box, her will, a package of her letters
written in the prim fashion of her time and signed "Anna." Through these
epistles we look in vain for indications of the wit and genius which one
naturally attributes to the possessor of the bright face which inspired
a deathless song. In this house she lived happily with her husband, and
was at once the Lady Bountiful and the matchmaker-in-ordinary for the
whole countryside; here she died, aged seventy-nine. This estate has
been handed down from father to son for fifteen generations, the present
urbane laird, Captain Cutlar Fergusson, being a great-great-grandson of
Annie Laurie and grandson of the hero of Burns's "Whistle." This famous
trophy--a plain object in dark wood--is preserved here at Craigdarrock,
and has not been challenged for since the bout which Burns witnessed.
[Sidenote: Burial-place]
In the now ruined church of Glencairn, hardly a mile from her
birthplace, and not far from her later home, Annie Laurie worshipped,
and in its yard, which has been a place of burial for a thousand years,
she was laid with her husband, among the many generations of his
kindred, by the gable-end of the ancient church. Her sepulchre was not
marked, and it is to be feared the bones of the erst beauteous lady have
been more than once disturbed in excavating for later interments in the
crowded plot. From the summit of Craigdarrock we look upon the wilder
beauty of the upper Nith, a region of moorland hills and dusky glens,
where we may find the birthplace of "the Admirable Crichton," and beyond
it the bleak domain where the poet Allan Ramsay first saw the light.
Beyond this, again, the sweet Afton "flows amang its green braes," and
we come to the Ayrshire shrines of Burns.
A few miles westward from Craigdarrock, and not so far from Carlyle's
lonely den, is Fingland farm, the birthplace and home of Annie's
poet-lover. It lies among sterile hills in the wild Glenkens of ancient
Galloway, near the source of Ken water. From neighboring elevations we
see Craigenputtock and the swelling Solway, and westward we look, across
the dark fens and heathery hills of the region "blest with the smell of
bog-myrtle and peat," almost to the Irish Sea. In this region Crockett
was reared, and he pictures it in his charming tales "The Raiders" and
"The Lilac Sunbonnet."
No trace of the peel-tower in which Douglas dwelt remains, but we know
that it stood within an enclosing wall twenty yards square and one yard
in thickness. The tower had projecting battlements; its apartments,
placed above each other, were reached by a narrow, easily defended
stair. In such a home and amid this most dismal environment Douglas grew
to manhood, his poetic power unsuspected until it was called forth by
the love and beauty of Annie Laurie. Later he wrote many poems, but
diligent inquiry among the families of Buccleuch and Queensberry shows
that few of his productions are now extant save the famous love-song. It
is notable that he did not "lay doun his head and die" for the faithless
Annie; instead, he made a runaway marriage with Elizabeth Clerk, of
Glenborg, in his native Galloway, subsided into prosy country life, and
reared a family of six children, of whom one, Archibald, rose to the
rank of lieutenant-general in Brittany.
[Sidenote: Annie Laurie--The Singer and the Song]
Douglas's song was revised by Lady Scott, sister of the late Duke of
Buccleuch, and published by her for the benefit of the widows and
orphans made by the Crimean War. Lines of the original, for which the
writer is indebted to a descendant of Annie Laurie, are hereto appended,
that the reader may appreciate how much of the tender beauty of the
popular version of the song is attributable to the poetic talent of Lady
Scott.
"Maxwelton banks are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew,
Where me and Annie Laurie
Made up the promise true:
Made up the promise true,
And ne'er forget will I:
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay doun my head and die.
"She's backit like a peacock;
She's breastit like a swan;
She's jimp about the middle;
Her waist ye weel may span:
Her waist ye weel may span,--
She has a rolling eye;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay doun my head and die."
A NIECE OF ROBERT BURNS
_Her Burnsland Cottage--Reminiscences of Burns--Relics--Portraits--
Letters--Recitations--Account of his Death--Memories of his Home--Of
Bonnie Jean--Other Heroines._
In the course of a summer ramble in Burnsland we had sought out the
homes, the haunts, the tomb of the ploughman poet, and had bent at many
a shrine hallowed by his memory or his song. From the cottage of "Bonnie
Jean" and the tomb of "Holy Willie," the field of the "Mountain Daisy"
and the church of the "Holy Fair," the birthplace of "Highland Mary" and
the grave of "Mary Morison," we came to the shrines of auld Ayr, beside
the sea. Here we find the "Twa Brigs" of his poem; the graves of the
ministers satirized in "The Kirk's Alarm;" the old inn of "Tam
O'Shanter," and the very room, with its ingle, where Tam and Souter
Johnny "got fou thegither," and where we may sip the nappy from the
wooden caup which Tam often drained. From Ayr a delightful stroll along
the highway where Tam made his memorable ride, and where William Burns
carried the howdie upon the pillion behind him on another stormy
winter's night when the poet was born, brought us to the hamlet of
Alloway and the place of Burns's early life. Here are the auld clay
biggin, with its rude stone floor and roof of thatch, erected by the
unskilled hands of his father, where the poet first saw the light, and
where he laid the scene of the immortal "Cotter's Saturday Night;" the
fields where his young hands toiled to aid his burdened sire; the
kirk-yard where his kindred lie buried, some of their epitaphs written
by him; the "auld haunted kirk,"--where Tam interrupted the witches'
dance,--unknown save for the genius of the lad born by its roofless
walls; the Burns monument, with its priceless relics; the ivy-grown
bridge, four centuries old, whose arch spans the songful stream and
across which Tam galloped in such sore peril, and its "key-stane," where
Meg lost "her ain gray tail" to Nannie, fleetest of the pursuers; the
enchanting "banks and braes of bonnie Doon," where Burns wandered a
brown-eyed boy, and later found the inspiration of many of his exquisite
strains. We have known few scenes more lovely than this in which his
young life was passed: long and delightful is our lingering here, for
interwoven with the many natural beauties are winsome memories of the
bard whose spirit and genius pervade all the scene.
[Sidenote: Miss Burns Begg--Bridgeside Cot]
[Sidenote: Recitations--Bonnie Jean]
Returning thence past the "thorn aboon the well" (the well is closed
now) and the "meikle-stane" to the ancient ford "where in the snaw the
chapman smoor'd," we made a detour southward, and came by a pleasant
way--having in view on the right the picturesque ruin of Greenan Castle
upon a cliff overhanging the sea--to Bridgeside cottage, the home of
Miss Isabella Burns Begg, niece of the poet and long his only surviving
near relative. We found a cottage of stone, from whose thatched roof a
dormer-window, brilliant with flowers, peeped out through the foliage
which half concealed the tiny homelet. The trimmest of little maids
admitted us at the gate and led along a path bordered with flowers to
the cottage door, where stood Miss Begg beaming a welcome upon the
pilgrims from America. We were ushered into a prettily furnished little
room, upon whose walls hung a portrait of Burns, one of his sister Mrs.
Begg, and some framed autograph letters of the bard, which the niece
"knew by heart." She was the daughter and namesake of Burns's youngest
and favorite sister, who married John Begg. We found her a singularly
active and vivacious old lady, cheery and intelligent, and more than
pleased to have secured appreciative auditors for her reminiscences of
her gifted uncle. She was of slender habit, had a bright and winning
face, soft gray hair partially concealed by a cap, and when she was
seated beneath the Burns portrait we could see that her large dark
eyes--now sparkling with merriment or misty with emotion, and again
literally glowing with feeling--were like those on the canvas. Among the
treasures of this room was a worn copy of Thomson's "Seasons," a
favorite book of Burns, which he had freely annotated; his name in it is
written "Burnes," as the family spelled it down to the publication of
the bard's first volume. In the course of a long and pleasant chat we
learned that Miss Begg had lived many years in the cottage, first with
her mother and later with her sister Agnes,--named for Burns's
mother,--who died before our visit and was laid beside her parents and
the father of Burns in the kirk-yard of auld Alloway, where Miss Begg
expected "soom day, please God an it be soon," to go to await the
resurrection, thinking it an "ill hap" that she survived her sister. She
innocently inquired if we "kenned her nephew Robert in America," and
then explained that he and a niece of hers had formerly lived with her,
but she had discovered that "they were sweetheartin' and wantin' to
marry, which she wouldna allow, so they went to America," leaving her
alone with her handmaiden. Most of her visitors had been Americans. She
remembered the visits of Hawthorne, Grant, Stanley, and Helen Hunt
Jackson,--the last with greatest pleasure,--and thought that "Americans
care most about Burns." She mentioned the visit of a Virginian maid,
who by rapturous praise of the uncle completely won the heart of the
niece. The fair enthusiast had most of Burns's poems at her tongue's
end, but insisted upon having them repeated by Miss Begg, and at parting
exclaimed, after much kissing, "Oh, but I always pray God that when he
takes me to heaven he will give me the place next to Burns." Apparently,
Robin still has power to disturb the peace of "the lasses O." Yet we can
well excuse the effusiveness of our compatriot: to have listened to the
old lady as she sat under his portrait, her eyes twinkling or softening
like his own, her voice thrilling with sympathetic feeling as she
repeated in his own sweet dialect the tender stanzas, "But pleasures are
like poppies spread," "My Mary! dear departed shade!" and "Oh, happy
love, when love like this is found," and others of like pathos and
beauty, is a rapture not to be forgotten. She spoke quickly, and the
Scottish accent kept one's ears on the alert, but it rendered the lines
doubly effective and melodious. Many of the poems were inspired by
special events of which Miss Begg had knowledge from her mother, which
she recalled with evident relish. She distinctly remembered the bard's
widow, "Bonnie Jean," and often visited her in the poor home where he
died. Jean had a sunny temper, a kind heart, a handsome figure, a fine
voice, and lustrous eyes, but her brunette face was never bonnie. While
she lacked intellectual appreciation of his genius, she was proud of and
idolized him, finding ready excuse and forgiveness for his failings.
When the frail "Anna with the Gowden Locks" bore him an illegitimate
child, Jean cradled it with her own, and loyally averred to all
visitors, "It's only a neebor's bairn I'm bringin' up." ("Ay, she must
'a' lo'ed him," was Miss Begg's comment on this part of her narrative.)
Jean had told that in his last years the poet habitually wore a blue
coat, with nankeen trousers (when the weather would allow), and his
coat-collar was so high that his hat turned up at the back. Her account
of the manner of his death is startling, and differs from that given by
the biographers. He lay apparently asleep when "sweet Jessy"--to whom
his last poem was written--approached, and, to remind him of his
medicine, touched the cup to his lips; he started, drained the cup, then
sprang headlong to the foot of the bed, threw his hands forward like one
about to swim, and, falling on his face, expired with a groan. Jean saw
him for the last time on the evening before his funeral, when his wasted
body lay in a cheap coffin covered with flowers, his care-worn face
framed by the wavy masses of his sable hair, then sprinkled with gray.
At his death he left MSS. in the garret of his abode, which were
scattered and lost because Jean was unable to take care of them,--a loss
which must ever be deplored.
[Sidenote: Reminiscences--Burns' Youth]
[Sidenote: Mossgiel--Recollections]
One of the delights of Miss Begg's girlhood was the converse of Burns's
mother concerning her first-born and favorite child, the poet, a theme
of which she never tired. Miss Begg remembered her as a "chirk" old lady
with snapping black eyes and an abundant stock of legends and ballads.
She used to declare that Bobbie had often heard her sing "Auld Lang
Syne" in his boyhood; hence it would appear that, at most, he only
revised that precious old song. Miss Begg more than once heard the
mother tell, with manifest gusto, this incident of their residence at
Lochlea. Robert was already inclined to be wild, and between visiting
his sweetheart Ellison Begbie--"the lass of the twa sparkling, roguish
een"--and attending the Tarbolton club and Masonic lodge was abroad
until an unseemly hour every night, and his mother or Isabella sat up to
let him in. His anxious sire, the priest-like father of the "Cotter's
Saturday Night," determined to administer an effectual rebuke to the
son's misconduct, and one night startled the mother by announcing
significantly that he would wait to admit the lad. She lay for hours
(Robert was later than ever that night), dreading the encounter between
the two, till she heard the boy whistling "Tibbie Fowler" as he
approached. Then the door opened: the father grimly demanded what had
kept him so late; the son, for reply, gave a comical description of his
meeting auld Hornie on the way home,--an adventure narrated in the
"Address to the De'il,"--and next the mother heard the pair seat
themselves by the fire, where for two hours the father roared with
laughter at Robert's ludicrous account of the evening's doings at the
club,--she, meanwhile, nearly choking with her efforts to restrain the
laughter which might remind her husband of his intended reproof.
Thereafter the lad stayed out as late as he pleased without rebuke. The
niece had been told by her mother that Burns was deeply distressed at
his father's death-bed by the old man's fears for the future of his
wayward son; and when his father's death made Robert the head of the
family, he every morning led the household in "the most beautiful
prayers ever heard;" later, at Ellisland and elsewhere, he continued
this practice, and on the Sabbath instructed them in the Catechism and
Confession. Mrs. Begg's most pleasing recollections of her brother were
associated with the farm-life at Mossgiel, where he so far gave her his
confidence that she was allowed to see his poems in the course of their
composition. He would ponder his stanzas during his labors afield, and
when he came to the house for a meal he would go to the little garret
where he and his brother Gilbert slept and hastily pen them upon a table
which stood under the one little window. Here Isabella would find them,
and, after repeated perusals, would arrange them in the drawer; and so
it passed that her bright eyes were the first, besides his own, to see
"The Twa Dogs," "Winter's Night," "The Bard's Epitaph," "The Cotter's
Saturday Night," the satirical poems, and most of the productions which
were published in his Kilmarnock volume. His sister testified that he
was always affectionate to the family, and that after his removal to a
home of his own he invariably brought a present for each when he
revisited the farm, the present for his mother being always, despite his
poverty, a costly pound of tea. Most of the receipts from his publishers
were given to the family at Mossgiel. Miss Begg intimated that Burns's
mother did not at first like his wife, because of the circumstances of
the marriage, but Jean's stanch devotion to her husband won the heart of
the doting mother, and they became warm friends and spent much time
together after Burns's death. The niece believed that the accounts of
his intemperance are mostly untrue. Her mother, who was twenty-five
years old at the time of his decease, always asserted that she "never
saw him fou," and believed it was his antagonism to the "unco' guid"
that made them ready to believe and circulate any idle report to his
discredit.
Mrs. Begg saw and liked "Highland Mary" at the house of Gavin Hamilton,
and knew Miss Dunlop, the blooming Keith of Burns's "New-Year Day."
Another of his heroines the niece had herself visited with her mother;
this was Mrs. Jessy Thompson, _nee_ Lewars, who was a ministering angel
in his final illness, and was repaid by the only thing he could
bestow,--a song of exquisite sweetness, "Here's a health to ane I lo'e
dear." Our informant had seen in that lady's hands the lines beginning
"Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair," which the poet gave her with a
present of books within a month of his death. Many other reminiscences
related by the niece are to be found in the biographies of the bard, and
need not be repeated. The letters which hung upon her walls are not
included in any published collection. She assisted us in copying the
following to Burns's youngest brother:
[Sidenote: A Letter of Burns]
"ISLE, Tuesday Evening.
"DEAR WILLIAM,--In my last I recommended that valuable apothegm, Learn
taciturnity. It is certain that nobody can know our thoughts, and yet,
from a slight observation of mankind, one would not think so. What
mischiefs daily arise from silly garrulity and foolish confidence! There
is an excellent Scots saying that a man's mind is his kingdom. It is
certainly so, but how few can govern that kingdom with propriety! The
serious mischiefs in Business which this Flux of language occasions do
not come immediately to your situation, but in another point of
view--the dignity of man--now is the time that will make or mar. Yours
is the time of life for laying in habits. You cannot avoid it, tho' you
will choose, and these habits will stick to your last end. At
after-periods, even at so little advance as my years, 'tis true that one
may still be very sharp-sighted to one's habitual failings and
weaknesses, but to eradicate them, or even to amend them, is quite a
different matter. Acquired at first by accident, they by-and-by begin to
be, as it were, a necessary part of our existence. I have not time for
more. Whatever you read, whatever you hear of that strange creature man,
look into the living world about you, look to yourself, for the
evidences of the fact or the application of the doctrine. I am ever
yours,
"ROBERT BURNS.
"MR. WILLIAM BURNS, Saddler, Longtown."
The sentiment and style of this epistle are suggestive of the stilted
conversations of Burns, recorded in Hugh Miller's "Recollections." Miss
Begg was pleased by some account we could give her of American Burns
monuments and festivals; she seemed reluctant to have us leave, called
to us a cheery "God keep ye!" when we were without the gate, and stood
looking after us until the intervening foliage hid her from our sight.
As we walked Ayr-ward, while the sun was setting in a golden haze behind
the hills of Arran, we felt that we had been very near to Burns that
day,--had almost felt the thrill of his presence, the charm of his
voice, and had in some measure made a personal acquaintance with him
which would evermore move us to a tenderer regard for the man and a
truer appreciation of his verse, as well as a fuller charity for his
faults:
We know in part what he has done,
God knows what he resisted.
[Sidenote: Death of Burns's Niece]
For some months after our visit to Bridgeside, quaint letters--one of
them containing a portrait of the worthy occupant of the
cottage--followed us thence across the sea. These came at increasing
intervals and then stopped; the kindly heart of the niece of Burns had
ceased to beat on her eightieth birthday.
A recent pilgrim in Burnsland found an added line on the gravestone in
the old kirk-yard, to tell that Isabella Burns Begg rests there in
eternal peace. At Bridgeside, her once cherished garden is a waste and
her tiny cottage has wholly disappeared. "So do things pass away like a
tale that is told."
HIGHLAND MARY: HER HOMES AND GRAVE
_Birthplace--Personal Appearance--Relations to Burns--Abodes: Mauchline,
Coilsfield etc.--Scenes of Courtship and Parting--Mementos--Tomb by
the Clyde._
There is no stronger proof of the transcending power of the genius of
Burns than is found in the fact that, by a bare half dozen of his
stanzas, an humble dairy servant--else unheard of outside her parish and
forgotten at her death--is immortalized as a peeress of Petrarch's Laura
and Dante's Beatrice, and has been for a century loved and mourned of
all the world. We owe much of our tenderest poesy to the heroines whose
charms have attuned the fancy and aroused the impassioned muse of
enamoured bards; readers have always exhibited a natural avidity to
realize the personality of the beings who inspired the tender
lays,--prompted often by mere curiosity, but more often by a desire to
appreciate the tastes and motives of the poets themselves. How little is
known of Highland Mary, the most famous heroine of modern song, is shown
by the brief, incoherent, and often contradictory allusions to her which
the biographies of the ploughman-poet contain. This paper,--prepared
during a sojourn in "The Land o' Burns,"--while it adds a little to our
meagre knowledge of Mary Campbell, aims to present consecutively and
congruously so much as may now be known of her brief life, her relations
to the bard, and her sad, heroic death.
[Sidenote: Birthplace--Early Home]