Delphi Complete Works of Robert Burns (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) (185 page)

CHAPTER
III. BORDER AND HIGHLAND TOURS
.

Some small instalments of the profits of his new volume enabled our Poet, during the summer and autumn of 1787, to make several tours to various districts of Scotland, famous either for scenery or song. The day of regular touring had not yet set in, and few Scots at that time would have thought of visiting what Burns called the classic scenes of their country. A generation before this, poets in England had led the way in this — as when Gray visited the lakes of Cumberland, and Dr. Johnson the Highlands and the Western Isles. In his ardour to look upon places famous for their natural beauty or their historic associations, or even for their having been mentioned in some old Scottish song, Burns surpassed both Gray and Johnson, and anticipated the sentiment of the present century. Early in May he set out with one of his Crochallan club acquaintances, named Ainslie, on a journey to the Border. Ainslie was a native of the Merse, his father and family living in Dunse. Starting thence with Ainslie, Burns traversed the greater part of the vale of Tweed from Coldstream to Peebles, recalling, as he went along, snatches of song connected with the places he passed. He turned aside to see the valley of the Jed, and got as far as Selkirk in the hope of looking upon Yarrow.
But from doing this he was hindered by a day of unceasing rain, and he who was so soon to become the chief singer of Scottish song was never allowed to look on that vale which has long been its most ideal home. Before finishing his tour, he went as far as Nithsdale, and surveyed the farm of Ellisland, with some thought already, that he might yet become the tenant of it.

It is noteworthy, but not wonderful, that the scenes visited in this tour called forth no poetry from Burns, save here and there an allusion that occurred in some of his later songs. When we remember with what an uneasy heart Burns left Ayrshire for Edinburgh, that the town life he had there led for the last six months had done nothing to lighten — it had probably done something to increase the load of his mental disquietude, — that in an illness which he had during his tour he confesses that “embittering remorse was scaring his fancy at the gloomy forebodings of death,” and that when his tour was over, soon after his return to Edinburgh, he found the law let loose against him, and what was called a “fugæ” warrant issued for his apprehension, owing to some occurrence like to that which a year ago had terrified him with legal penalties, and all but driven him to Jamaica, — when all these things are remembered, is it to be wondered, that Burns should have wandered by the banks of Tweed, in no mood to chaunt beside it “a music sweeter than its own”?

At the close of his Border tour Burns had, as we have seen, visited Nithsdale and looked at the farm of Ellisland. From Nithsdale he made his way back to native Ayrshire and his family at Mossgiel. I have heard a tradition that his mother met him at the door of the small farm-house, with this only salutation, “O Robbie!” Neither Lockhart nor Chambers mentions this, but the latter
says, his sister, Mrs. Begg, remembered the arrival of her brother. He came in unheralded, and was in the midst of them before they knew. It was a quiet meeting, for the Mossgiel family had the true Scottish reticence or reserve; but though their words were not “mony feck,” their feelings were strong. It was, indeed, as strange a reverse as ever was made by fortune’s fickle wheel. “He had left them,” to quote the words of Lockhart, “comparatively unknown, his tenderest feelings torn and wounded by the behaviour of the Armours, and so miserably poor that he had been for some weeks obliged to skulk from the sheriff’s officers to avoid the payment of a paltry debt. He returned, his poetical fame established, the whole country ringing with his praise, from a capital in which he was known to have formed the wonder and delight of the polite and the learned; if not rich, yet with more money already than any of his kindred had ever hoped to see him possess, and with prospects of future patronage and permanent elevation in the scale of society, which might have dazzled steadier eyes than those of maternal and fraternal affection. The prophet had at last honour in his own country, but the haughty spirit that had preserved its balance in Edinburgh was not likely to lose it at Mauchline.” The haughty spirit of which Lockhart speaks was reserved for others than his own family. To them we hear of nothing but simple affection. His youngest sister, Mrs. Begg, told Chambers, “that her brother went to Glasgow, and thence sent home a present to his mother and three sisters, namely, a quantity of
mode
silk, enough to make a bonnet and a cloak to each, and a gown besides to his mother and youngest sister.” This was the way he took to mark their right to share in his prosperity. Mrs. Begg remembers
going for rather more than a week to Ayr to assist in making up the dresses, and when she came back on a Saturday, her brother had returned and requested her “to put on her dress that he might see how smart she looked in it.” The thing that stirred his pride and scorn was the servility with which he was now received by his “plebeian brethren” in the neighbourhood, and chief among these by the Armours, who had formerly eyed him with looks askance. If anything “had been wanting to disgust me completely with Armour’s family, their mean, servile compliance would have done it.” So he writes, and it was this disgust that prompted him to furnish himself, as we have seen he did, with a pocket copy of Milton, to study the character of Satan. This fierce indignation was towards the family; towards “bonny Jean” herself his feeling was far other. Having accidentally met her, his old affection revived, and they were soon as intimate as of old.

After a short time spent at Mossgiel wandering about, and once, it would seem, penetrating the West Highlands as far as Inverary, a journey during which his temper seems to have been far from serene, he returned in August to Edinburgh. There he encountered, and in time got rid of, the law troubles already alluded to, and on the 25th of August he set out, on a longer tour than any he had yet attempted, to the Northern Highlands.

The travelling companion whom he chose for this tour was a certain Mr. Nicol, whose acquaintance he seems to have first formed at the Crochallan club, or some other haunt of boisterous joviality. After many ups and downs in life Nicol had at last, by dint of some scholastic ability, settled as a master of the Edinburgh High School. What could have tempted Burns to select such
a man for a fellow-traveller? He was cast in one of nature’s roughest moulds; a man of careless habits, coarse manners, enormous vanity, of most irascible and violent temper, which vented itself in cruelties on the poor boys who were the victims of his care. Burns compared himself with such a companion to “a man travelling with a loaded blunderbuss at full cock.” Two things only are mentioned in his favour, that he had a warm heart, and an unbounded admiration of the poet. But the choice of such a man was an unfortunate one, and in the upshot did not a little to spoil both the pleasure and the benefit, which might have been gathered from the tour.

Their journey lay by Stirling and Crieff to Taymouth and Breadalbane, thence to Athole, on through Badenoch and Strathspey to Inverness. The return by the east coast was through the counties of Moray and Banff to Aberdeen. After visiting the county whence his father had come, and his kindred who were still in Kincardineshire, Burns and his companion passed by Perth back to Edinburgh, which they reached on the 16th of September. The journey occupied only two and twenty days, far too short a time to see so much country, besides making several visits, with any advantage. During his Border tour Burns had ridden his Rosinante mare, which he had named Jenny Geddes. As his friend, the schoolmaster, was no equestrian, Burns was obliged to make his northern journey in a post-chaise, not the best way of taking in the varied and ever-changing sights and sounds of Highland scenery.

Such a tour as this, if Burns could have entered on it under happier auspices, that is, with a heart at ease, a fitting companion, and leisure enough to view quietly the scenes through which he passed, and to enjoy the society of
the people whom he met, could not have failed, from its own interestingness, and its novelty to him, to have enriched his imagination, and to have called forth some lasting memorials. As it was, it cannot be said to have done either. There are, however, a few incidents which are worth noting. The first of these took place at Stirling. Burns and his companion had ascended the Castle Rock, to look on the blue mountain rampart, that flanks the Highlands from Ben Lomond to Benvoirlich. As they were both strongly attached to the Stuart cause, they had seen with indignation, on the slope of the Castle hill, the ancient hall, in which the Scottish kings once held their Parliaments, lying ruinous and neglected. On returning to their inn, Burns, with a diamond he had bought for such purposes, wrote on the window-pane of his room some lines expressive of the disgust he had felt at that sight, concluding with some offensive remarks on the reigning family. The lines, which had no poetic merit, got into the newspapers of the day, and caused a good deal of comment. On a subsequent visit to Stirling, Burns himself broke the pane of the window on which the obnoxious lines were written, but they were remembered, it is said, long afterwards to his disadvantage.

Among the pleasantest incidents of the tour was the visit to Blair Castle, and his reception by the Duchess of Athole. The two days he spent there he declared were among the happiest of his life. We have seen how sensitive Burns was to the way he was received by the great. Resentful as he was equally of condescension and of neglect, it must have been no easy matter for persons of rank so to adapt their manner as to exactly please him. But his hosts at Blair Castle succeeded to admiration in this. They were assisted by the presence at the Castle of Mr., afterwards Professor, Walker,
who had known Burns in Edinburgh, and was during that autumn living as a tutor in the Duke’s family. At dinner Burns was in his most pleasing vein, and delighted his hostess by drinking to the health of her group of fair young children, as “honest men and bonny lassies” — an expression with which he happily closes his
Petition of Bruar Water
. The Duchess had her two sisters, Mrs. Graham and Miss Cathcart, staying with her on a visit, and all three ladies were delighted with the conversation of the poet. These three sisters were daughters of a Lord Cathcart, and were remarkable for their beauty. The second, Mrs. Graham, has been immortalized as the subject of one of Gainsborough’s most famous portraits. On her early death her husband, Thomas Graham of Balnagown, never again looked on that beautiful picture, but left his home for a soldier’s life, distinguished himself greatly in the Peninsular War, and was afterwards known as Lord Lynedoch. After his death, the picture passed to his nearest relatives, who presented it to the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland, of which it is now the chief ornament. All three sisters soon passed away, having died even before the short-lived poet. By their beauty and their agreeableness they charmed Burns, and did much to make his visit delightful. They themselves were not less pleased; for when the poet proposed to leave, after two days were over, they pressed him exceedingly to stay, and even sent a messenger to the hotel to persuade the driver of Burns’s chaise to pull off one of the horse’s shoes, that his departure might be delayed. Burns himself would willingly have listened to their entreaties, but his travelling mate was inexorable. Likely enough Nicol had not been made so much of as the poet, and this was enough to rouse his irascible temper. For one day he had been persuaded to
stay by the offer of good trout-fishing, which he greatly relished, but now he insisted on being off. Burns was reluctantly forced to yield.

This rapid departure was the more unfortunate because Mr. Dundas, who held the keys of Scottish patronage, was expected on a visit to Blair, and had he met the poet he might have wiped out the reproach often cast on the ministry of the day, that they failed in their duty towards Burns. “That eminent statesman,” as Lockhart says, “was, though little addicted to literature, a warm lover of his own country, and, in general, of whatever redounded to her honour; he was, moreover, very especially qualified to appreciate Burns as a companion; and had such an introduction taken place, he might not improbably have been induced to bestow that consideration on the claims of the poet, which, in the absence of any personal acquaintance, Burns’s works ought to have received at his hands.” But during that visit Burns met, and made the acquaintance of, another man of some influence, Mr. Graham of Fintray, whose friendship afterwards, both in the Excise business, and in other matters, stood him in good stead. The Duke, as he bade farewell to Burns at Blair, advised him to turn aside, and see the Falls of the Bruar, about six miles from the Castle, where that stream coming down from its mountains plunges over some high precipices, and passes through a rocky gorge to join the river Garry. Burns did so, and finding the falls entirely bare of wood, wrote some lines entitled
The Humble Petition of Bruar Water
, in which he makes the stream entreat the Duke to clothe its naked banks with trees. The poet’s petition for the stream was not in vain. The then Duke of Athole was famous as a planter of trees, and those with which, after the poet’s Petition, he surrounded the waterfall remain to this day.

After
visiting Culloden Muir, the Fall of Fyers, Kilravock Castle, where, but for the impatience of Mr. Nicol, he would fain have prolonged his stay, he came on to Fochabers and Gordon Castle. This is Burns’s entry in his diary:— “Cross Spey to Fochabers, fine palace, worthy of the noble, the polite, and generous proprietor. The Duke makes me happier than ever great man did; noble, princely, yet mild and condescending and affable — gay and kind. The Duchess, charming, witty, kind, and sensible. God bless them!”