miles northward from the "auld town of Ayr." Her parentage was of the
humblest, her father being a sailor before the mast, and the poor
dwelling which sheltered her was in no way superior to the meanest of
those we find to-day on the narrow streets of her village. From her
birthplace we see, across the Firth of Clyde, the beetling mountains of
the Highlands, where she afterward dwells and southward the great mass
of Ailsa Craig looming, a gigantic pyramid, out of the sea. Mary was
named for her aunt, wife of Peter McPherson, a ship-carpenter of
Greenock, in whose house Mary died. In her infancy her family removed to
the vicinage of Dunoon, on the western shore of the Firth, eight miles
below Greenock, leaving the oldest daughter at Ardrossan. Mary grew to
young womanhood near Dunoon then returned to Ayrshire, and found
occupation at Coilsfield, near Tarbolton, where her acquaintance with
Burns soon began. He told a lady that he first saw Mary while walking in
the woods of Coilsfield: and first spoke with her at a rustic
merrymaking, and "having the luck to win her regards from other
suitors," they speedily became intimate. At this period of life Burn's
"eternal propensity to fall into love" was unusually active, even for
him, and his passion for Mary (at this time) was one of several which
engaged his heart in the interval between the reign of Ellison
Begbie--"the lass of the twa sparkling, roguish een"--and that of
"Bonnie Jean." Mary subsequently became a servant in the house of Burn's
landlord, Gavin Hamilton, a lawyer of Mauchline, who had early
recognized the genius of the bard and admitted him to an intimate
friendship, despite his inferior condition....
Within a stone's-throw of Mary dwelt Jean Armour, and when the former
returned to Coilsfield, he promptly fell in love with Jean, and solaced
himself with her more buxom and compliant charms. It was a year or so
later, when his intercourse with Jean had burdened him with grief and
shame, that the tender and romantic affection for Mary came into his
life. She was yet at Coilsfield, and while he was in hiding--his heart
tortured by the apparent perfidy of Jean and all the countryside
condemning his misconduct--his intimacy with Mary was renewed; his
quickened vision now discerned her endearing attributes, her trust and
sympathy were precious in his distress, and awoke in him an affection
such as he never felt for any other woman. During a few brief weeks the
lovers spent their evenings and Sabbaths together, loitering amid the
"Banks and braes and streams around
The Castle of Montgomery,"
talking of the golden days that were to be theirs when present troubles
were past; then came the parting which the world will never forget, and
Mary relinquished her service and went to her parents at Campbelltown--a
port of Cantyre behind "Arran's mountain isle." Of this parting Burns
says, in a letter to Thomson, "We met by appointment on the second
Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot on the Ayr, where we spent the day
in taking farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands to
prepare for our projected change of life." Lovers of Burns linger over
this final parting, and detail the impressive ceremonials with which the
pair solemnized their betrothal: they stood on either side of a brook,
they laved their hands in the water and scattered it in the air to
symbolize the purity of their intentions; clasping hands above an open
Bible, they swore to be true to each other forever, then exchanged
Bibles, and parted never to meet more.
It is not strange that when death had left him nothing of her but her
poor little Bible, a tress of her golden hair, and a tender memory of
her love, the recollection of this farewell remained in his soul
forever. He has pictured it in the exquisite lines of "Highland Mary"
and "To Mary in Heaven." In the monument at Alloway--between the "auld
haunted kirk" and the bridge where Maggie lost her tail--we are shown a
memento of the parting; it is the Bible which Burns gave to Mary and
above which their vows were said. At Mary's death it passed to her
sister, at Ardrossan, who bequeathed it to her son William Anderson;
subsequently it was carried to America by one of the family, whence it
has been recovered to be treasured here. It is a pocket edition in two
volumes, to one of which is attached a lock of poor Mary's shining
hair....
A visit to the scenes of the brief passion of the pair is a pleasing
incident of our Burns pilgrimage. Coilsfield House is somewhat changed
since Mary dwelt beneath its roof--a great rambling edifice of gray
weather-worn stone with a row of white pillars aligned along its façade,
its massive walls embowered in foliage and environed by the grand woods
which Burns and Mary knew so well. It was then a seat of Colonel Hugh
Montgomerie, a patron of Burns. The name Coilsfield is derived from
Coila, the traditional appellation of the district. The grounds comprise
a billowy expanse of wood and sward; great reaches of turf, dotted with
trees already venerable when the lovers here had their tryst a hundred
years ago, slope away from the mansion to the Faile and border its
murmuring course to the Ayr. Here we trace with romantic interest the
wanderings of the pair during the swift hours of that last day of
parting love, their lingering way 'neath the "wild wood's thickening
green," by the pebbled shore of Ayr to the brooklet where their vows
were made, and thence along the Faile to the woodland shades of
Coilsfield, where, at the close of that winged day, "pledging oft to
meet again, they tore themselves asunder." Howitt found at Coilsfield a
thorn-tree, called by all the country "Highland Mary's thorn," and
believed to be the place of final parting; years ago the tree was
notched and broken by souvenir seekers; if it be still in existence the
present occupant of Coilsfield is unaware.....
Mary remained at Campbelltown during the summer of 1786. Coming to
Greenock in the autumn, she found her brother sick of a malignant fever
at the house of her aunt; bravely disregarding danger of contagion, she
devoted herself to nursing him, and brought him to a safe convalescense
only to be herself stricken by his malady and to rapidly sink and die, a
sacrifice to her sisterly affection. By this time the success of his
poems had determined Burns to remain in Scotland, and he returned to
Moss Giel, where tidings of Mary's death reached him. His brother
relates that when the letter was handed to him he went to the window and
read it, then his face was observed to change suddenly, and he quickly
went out without speaking. In June of the next year he made a solitary
journey to the Highlands, apparently drawn by memory of Mary. If,
indeed, he dropt a tear upon her neglected grave and visited her humble
Highland home, we may almost forgive him the excesses of that tour, if
not the renewed liaison with Jean which immediately preceded, and the
amorous correspondence with "Clarinda" (Mrs. M'Lehose) which
followed it.....
Poor Mary is laid in the burial-plot of her uncle in the west kirk-yard
of Greenock, near Crawford Street; our pilgrimage in Burns-land may
fitly end at her grave. A pathway, beaten by the feet of many reverent
visitors, leads us to the spot. It is so pathetically different from the
scenes she loved in life--the heather-clad slopes of her Highland home,
the seclusion of the wooded braes where she loitered with her
poet-lover. Scant foliage is about her; few birds sing above her here.
She lies by the wall; narrow streets hem in the enclosure; the air is
sullied by smoke from factories and from steamers passing within a
stone's throw on the busy Clyde; the clanging of many hammers and the
discordant din of machinery and traffic invade the place and sound in
our ears as we muse above the ashes of the gentle lassie.
For half a century her grave was unmarked and neglected; then, by
subscription, a monument of marble, twelve feet in height, and of
graceful proportions, was raised. It bears a sculptured medallion
representing Burns and Mary, with clasped hands, plighting their troth.
Beneath is the simple inscription, read oft by eyes dim with tears:
Erected over the grave of
Highland Mary
1842
"My Mary, dear departed shade,
Where is thy place of blissful rest?"
THROUGH THE CALEDONIA CANAL TO INVERNESS [Footnote: From "Notes on
England." Published by Henry Holt & Co.]
BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
In the luminous morning mist, amid a line of masts and rigging, the
steamboat sailed down the Clyde to the sea. We proceeded along the
indented and rugged coast from one bay to another. These bays, being
almost entirely closed in, resemble lakes, and the large sheets of water
mirror an amphitheater of green hills. All the corners and windings of
the shore are strewn with white villas; the water is crowded with ships;
a height was pointed out to me whence three hundred sail may often be
counted at a time; a three-decker floats in the distance like a swan
among sea-mews. This vast space spread forth and full of life, dilates
the mind, one's chest expands more freely, one joyfully inhales the
fresh and keen breeze. But the effect upon the nerves and the heart does
not resemble that of the Mediterranean; this air and country, instead of
pre-disposing to pleasure, dispose to action.
We enter a small vessel drawn by three horses, which transports us along
the Crinan canal, between two banks of green turf. On the one side are
rocks covered with brushwood; on the other, steep declivities of a gray
or reddish tinge; this, indeed, is color at least, a pleasure for the
eye, well mingled, matched, and blended tints. On the bank and amid the
bushes are wild roses, and fragile plants with white tufts smile with a
delicate and charming grace.
At the outlet from the canal we go on board a large steamer, and the sea
opens out wider than ever. The sky is exceedingly clear and brilliant,
and the waves break in the sunlight, quivering with reflections of
molten tin. The vessel continues her course, leaving in her track a
bubbling and boiling path; sea gulls follow unweariedly behind her. On
both sides, islands, rocks, boldly-cut promontories stand in sharp
relief in the pale azure; the scene changes every quarter of an hour.
But on rounding every point the infinite ocean reappears, mingling its
almost flat line with the curve of the white sky.
The sun sets, we pass by Glencoe, and Ben Nevis appears sprinkled with
snow; the bay becomes narrower, and the mass of water, confined amid
barren mountains, assumes a tragic appearance. Human beings have come
hither to little purpose. Nature remains indomitable and wild; one feels
oneself upon a planet.
We disembark near Fort William; the dying twilight, the fading red rays
on the horizon enable us to get a glimpse of a desolate country; acres
of peat-bog, eminences rising from the valley between two ranges of huge
mountains. A bird of prey screams amid the stillness. Here and there we
see some wretched hovels; I am told that those on the heights are dens
without windows, and from which the smoke escapes through a hole in the
roof. Many of the old men are blind. What an unpropitious abode for man!
On the morrow we voyaged during four hours on the Caledonian canal
amidst solitudes, a monotonous row of treeless mountains, enormous green
eminences, dotted here and there with fallen stones. A few sheep of a
dwarf breed crop the scanty herbage on the slopes; sometimes the winter
is so severe that they die; in the distance we perceive a shaggy ox,
with savage eyes, the size of a small ass. Both plants and animals
perish, or are stunted. In order to make such a land yield anything it
must first be replanted with trees, as has been done in Sutherlandshire;
a tree renews the soil; it also shelters crops, flocks and herds, and
human beings.
The canal terminates in a series of lakes. Nothing is more noble than
their aspect, nothing more touching. The water, embrowned by the peat,
forms a vast shining plain, surrounded by a circle of mountains. In
proportion as we advance each mountain slowly grows upon us, becomes
more conspicuous, stands forth with its form and physiognomy; the
farther blue peaks melt the one behind the other, diminishing toward the
horizon, which they enclose. Thus they stand in position like an
assemblage of huge, mournful beings around the black water wherein they
are mirrored, while above them and the lake, from time to time, the sun
flashes through the shroud of clouds.
At last the solitude becomes less marked. The mountains are half-wooded
at first, and then wholly so; they dwindle down; the widening valleys
are covered with harvest; the fresh and green verdure of the herbage
which supplies forage begins to clothe the hollows and the slopes. We
enter Inverness, and we are surprised to find at almost the extreme
north of Scotland, on the border of the Highlands, a pretty and lively
modern town. It stretches along the two banks of a clear and rapid
river. Many houses are newly-built; we note a church, a castle, an iron
bridge. In every part are marks of cleanliness, forethought, and special
care. The window-panes shine, the frames have been painted; the
bell-handles are of copper; there are flowers in the windows; the
poorest nouses are freshly whitewashed. Well-drest ladies and carefully
drest gentlemen walk along the streets. Even a desire to possess works
of art is shown by Ionian pillars, specimens of pure Gothic, and other
architectural gimcrackery, and these prove at least the search after
improvement. The land itself is clearly of inferior quality; industry,
order, economy and labor have done everything. How great the contrast
between all this and the aspect of a small town on the shores of the
Mediterranean, so neglected and filthy, where the lower middle class
exist like worms in a worm-eaten beam!
THE SCOTCH HIGHLANDS [Footnote: From "Notes on England." Published by
Henry Holt & Co.]
BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
On the slopes the violet heaths are spread like a silken carpet under
the scanty firs. Higher still are large patches of evergreen wood, and,
as soon as the mountain is approached, a brown circle of barren
eminences may be discerned toward the horizon. At the end of an hour the
desert begins; the climate is inimical to life, even to that of plants.
A tarn, the tint of burned topaz, lies coldly and sadly between stony
slopes whereon a few tufts of fern and heather grow here and there. Half
a league higher is a second tarn, which appears still more dismal in the
rising mist. Around, patches of snow are sprinkled on the peaks, and
these descending in rivulets produce morasses. The small country ponies,
with a sure instinct, surmount the bog, and we arrive at an elevation
whence the eye, as far as it can reach, embraces nothing but an
amphitheater of desolate, yet green summits; owing to the destruction of
timber, everything else has perished; a scene of ruined nature is far
more melancholy a spectacle than any human ruins. On our return across
the lake, a bag-piper played his instrument. The music is strange and
wild, its effects harmonizing with the aspect of the bubbling streams,
veined with striking or somber reflections. The same simple note, a kind
of dance music, runs through the whole piece in an incorrect and odd
manner, and continually recurs, but it is always harsh and rough; it
might be likened to an orange shriveled with the cold and
rendered bitter.
These are the Highlands. From Braemar to Perth we journey through them
for many long miles. It is always a solitude; sometimes five or six
valleys in succession are wholly bare, and one may travel for an hour
without seeing a tree; then for another hour it is rare merely to see in
the distance a wretched twisted birchen-tree, which is dying or dead. It
would be some compensation if the rock were naked, and exhibited its
mineral structure in all its fulness and ruggedness. But these
mountains, of no great elevation, are but bosses with flabby outlines,
they have fallen to pieces, and are stone heaps, resembling the remains
of a quarry. In winter, torrents of water uproot the heather, leaving on
the slopes a leprous, whitened scar, badly tinted by the too feeble sun.
The summits are truncated, and want boldness. Patches of miserable
verdure seam their sides and mark the oozing of springs; the remainder
is covered with brownish heather. Below, at the very bottom, a torrent
obstructed by stones, struggles along its channel, or lingers in
stagnant pools. One sometimes discerns a hovel, with a stunted cow. The
gray, low-lying sky, completes the impression of lugubrious monotony.
Our conveyance ascends the last mountain. At length we see a steep
declivity, a great rocky wall; but it is unique. We descend again, and
enter a habitable tract. Cultivation occurs first on the lower parts,
then on the slopes; the declivities are wooded, and then entire
mountains; forests of firs spread their somber mantle over the crests;
fields of oats and barley extend on all sides; we perceive pretty clumps
of trees, houses surrounded by gardens and flowers, and then culture of
all descriptions upon the lessening hills, here and there a park and a
modern mansion. The sun bursts forth and shines merrily, but without
heat; the fertile plain expands, abounding in promises of convenience
and pleasure, and we enter Perth thinking about the historical
narrations of Sir Walter Scott, and the contrast between the mountain
and the plain, the revilings and scornings interchanged between the
inhabitants of the Highlands and the Lowlands.
BEN LOMOND AND THE HIGHLAND LAKES [Footnote: From "Views Afoot."
Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.]
BY BAYARD TAYLOR
It was indeed a glorious walk from Dumbarton to Loch Lomond through this
enchanting valley. The air was mild and clear; a few light clouds
occasionally crossing the sun chequered the hills with sun and shade. I
have as yet seen nothing that in pastoral beauty can compare with its
glassy winding stream, its mossy old woods and guarding hills and the
ivy-grown, castellated towers embosomed in its forests or standing on
the banks of the Leven--the purest of rivers. At the little village
called Renton is a monument to Smollett, but the inhabitants seem to
neglect his memory, as one of the tablets on the pedestal is broken and
half fallen away. Farther up the vale a farmer showed us an old mansion
in the midst of a group of trees on the banks of the Leven which he said
belonged to Smollett--or Roderick Random, as he called him. Two or three
old pear trees were still standing where the garden had formerly been,
under which he was accustomed to play in his childhood.
At the head of Leven Vale we set off in the steamer "Watch-Witch" over
the crystal waters of Loch Lomond, passing Inch Murrin, the deer-park of
the Duke of Montrose, and Inch Caillaeh,
"where gray pines wave
Their shadows o'er Clan Alpine's grave."
Under the clear sky and golden light of the declining sun we entered the
Highlands, and heard on every side names we had learned long ago in the
lays of Scott. Here was Glen Fruin and Bannochar, Ross Dhu and the pass
of Beal-ma-na. Farther still we passed Rob Roy's rock, where the lake is
locked in by lofty mountains. The cone-like peak of Ben Lomond rises far
above on the right, Ben Voirlich stands in front, and the jagged crest
of Ben Arthur looks over the shoulder of the western hills....
When we arose in the morning, at four o'clock, to return with the boat,
the sun was already shining upon the westward hills; scarcely a cloud
was in the sky and the air was pure and cool. To our great delight, Ben
Lomond was unshrouded, and we were told that a more favorable day for
the ascent had not occurred for two months. We left the boat at
Rowardennan, an inn, at the southern base of Ben Lomond. After
breakfasting on Loch Lomond trout I stole out to the shore while my
companions were preparing for the ascent, and made a hasty sketch of
the lake.
We proposed descending on the northern side and crossing the Highlands
to Loch Katrine; tho it was represented as difficult and dangerous by
the guide who wished to accompany us, we determined to run the risk of
being enveloped in a cloud on the summit, and so set out alone, the path
appearing plain before us. We had no difficulty in following it up the
lesser heights, around the base. It wound on over rock and bog, among
the heather and broom with which the mountain is covered, sometimes
running up a steep acclivity and then winding zigzag round a rocky
ascent. The rains two days before had made the bogs damp and muddy; but,
with this exception, we had little trouble for some time.
Ben Lomond is a doubly-formed mountain. For about three-fourths of the
way there is a continued ascent, when it is suddenly terminated by a
large barren plain, from one end of which the summit shoots up abruptly,
forming at the north side a precipice five hundred feet high. As we
approached the summit of the first part of the mountain the way became
very steep and toilsome, but the prospect, which had before been only on
the south side, began to open on the east, and we saw suddenly spread
out below us the vale of Monteith, with "far Loch Ard and Aberfoil" in
the center and the huge front of Ben Venue filling up the picture.
Taking courage from this, we hurried on. The heather had become stunted
and dwarfish, and the ground was covered with short brown grass. The
mountain-sheep which we saw looking at us from the rock above had worn
so many paths along the side that we could not tell which to take, but
pushed on in the direction of the summit, till, thinking it must be near
at hand, we found a mile and a half of plain before us, with the top of
Ben Lomond at the farther end. The plain was full of wet moss crossed in
all directions by deep ravines or gullies worn in it by the
mountain-rains, and the wind swept across with a tempest-like force.
I met near the base a young gentleman from Edinburgh who had left
Rowardennan before us, and we commenced ascending together. It was hard
work, but neither liked to stop; so we climbed up to the first
resting-place, and found the path leading along the brink of a
precipice. We soon attained the summit, and, climbing up a little mound
of earth and stones, I saw the half of Scotland at a glance. The clouds
hung just above the mountain-tops, which rose all around like the waves
of a mightly sea. On every side, near and far, stood their misty
summits, but Ben Lomond was the monarch of them all. Loch Lomond lay
unrolled under my feet like a beautiful map; just opposite, Loch Long
thrust its head from between the feet of crowded hills to catch a
glimpse of the giant. We could see from Ben Nevis to Ayr--from
Edinburgh to Staffa. Stirling and Edinburgh castles would have been
visible but that the clouds hung low in the valley of the Forth and hid
them from our sight.
... At a cottage on the farm of Coman, we procured some oatcakes and
milk for dinner from an old Scotch woman who pointed out the direction
of Loch Katrine, six miles distant; there was no road, nor, indeed, a
solitary dwelling between. The hills were bare of trees, covered with
scraggy bushes and rough heath, which in some places was so thick we
could scarcely drag our feet through. Added to this, the ground was
covered with a kind of moss that retained the moisture like a sponge; so
that our boots ere long became thoroughly soaked. Several considerable
streams were rushing down the side, and many of the wild breed of black
Highland cattle were grazing around. After climbing up and down one or
two heights, occasionally startling the moorcock and ptarmigan from
their heathery coverts, we saw the valley of Loch Con, while in the
middle of the plain on the top of the mountain we had ascended was a
sheet of water which we took to be Loch Ackill. Two or three wild-fowl
swimming on its surface were the only living things in sight. The peaks
around shut it out from all view of the world; a single decayed tree
leaned over it from a mossy rock which gave the whole scene an air of
the most desolate wildness.
From the next mountain we saw Loch Ackill and Loch Katrine below, but a
wet and weary descent had yet to be made. I was about throwing off my
knapsack on a rock to take a sketch of Loch Katrine, which appeared to
be very beautiful from this point, when we discerned a cavalcade of
ponies winding along the path from Inversnaid to the head of the lake,
and hastened down to take the boat when they should arrive.... As we
drew near the eastern end of the lake the scenery became far more
beautiful. The Trosachs opened before us. Ben Ledi looked down over the
"forehead bare" of Ben An, and as we turned a rocky point Ellen's Isle
rose up in front. It is a beautiful little turquoise in the silver
setting of Loch Katrine. The northern side alone is accessible, all the
others being rocky and perpendicular and thickly grown with trees. We
rounded the island to the little bay, bordered by the silver strand,
above which is the rock from which Fitz-James wound his horn, and shot
under an ancient oak which flung its long gray arms over the water. We
here found a flight of rocky steps leading to the top, where stood the
bower erected by Lady Willoughby D'Eresby to correspond with Scott's
description. Two or three blackened beams are all that remain of it,
having been burned down some years ago by the carelessness of
a traveler.