CHAPTER IV. LOCHLEA AND IRVINE (1777-1784). ILLIAM W BURNES lingered on twelve years in Mount Oliphant, and at Whitsunday 1777, removed to a somewhat more promising farm called Lochlea -sometimes spelled Lochlie-in the parish of Tarbolton. The country here is an undulating upland, rising from the right or north bank of the river Ayr, with an average elevation of three to five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and of bare and unattractive aspect. The views, however, which are obtained from some of the braes are at once extensive and beautiful, comprehending the hills of Carrick in front, and the Firth of Clyde, with its romantic islands, on the right hand. The farm seems to have obtained its name from a small lake, a few hundred yards from it, one of a number of such pieces of water that once dotted this district of Ayrshire, but are now for the most part drained, or reduced to marshes. William Burnes took this farm of 130 acres at twenty shillings an acre, which must have been a high rent then for ground so situated. For some time the life of the family seems to have been more comfortable at Lochlea than it had been at any previous period, probably in the main because the young people were now able to render their parents such assistance as to save them some outlay for labour. They all worked hard, and none more heartily or efficiently than the poet. According to the autobiography, life flowed on at Lochlea as it had done at Mount Oliphant, till he reached his twenty-third year. Gilbert supplemented his brother's account of the Lochlea period thus: 'The seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish (extending from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of my brother's age*) were not marked by much literary improvement; but during this time the foundation was laid of certain habits in my brother's character, which afterwards became but too prominent, and which malice and envy have taken delight to enlarge on. Though, when young, he was bashful and awkward in his intercourse with women, yet when he approached manhood, his attachment to their society became very strong, and he was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver. The symptoms of his passion were often such as nearly to equal those of the celebrated Sappho. I never indeed knew that he fainted, sunk, and died away; but the agitation of his mind and body exceeded anything of the kind I ever knew in real life. He had always a particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself, or who had more consequence in life. His love, therefore, rarely settled on persons of this description. When he selected any one out of the sovereignty of his good pleasure to whom he should pay his particular attention, she was instantly invested with a sufficient stock of charms out of the plentiful stores of his own imagination; and there was often a great disparity between his fair captivator and her attributes. One generally reigned paramount in his affections; but as Yorick's affections flowed out toward Madame de L at the remise door, while the eternal vows of Eliza were upon him, so Robert was frequently encountering other attractions, which formed so many under-plots in the drama of his love. As these connections were governed by the strictest rules of virtue and modesty (from which he never deviated till he reached his twenty-third year), he became anxious to be in a situation to marry. This was not likely to be soon the case while he remained a farmer, as the stocking of a farm required a sum of money he had no probability of being master of for a great while. He began, therefore, to think of trying some other line of life. He and I had for several years taken land of my father for the purpose of raising flax on our own account. In the course of selling it, Robert began to think of turning flax-dresser, both as being suitable to his grand view of settling in life, and as subservient to the flax-raising. He, accordingly, wrought at the business of a flax-dresser in Irvine for six months, but abandoned * In reality from the nineteenth to the twenty-sixth. it at that period, as neither agreeing with his health nor inclination. In Irvine he had contracted some acquaintance of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue which had hitherto restrained him. Towards the end of the period under review, and soon after his father's death, he was furnished with the subject of his "Epistle to John Rankine." During this period also he became a Freemason, which was his first introduction to the life of a boon-companion. Yet, notwithstanding these circumstances, and the praise he has bestowed on Scotch drink (which seems to have misled his historians), I do not recollect, during these seven years, nor till towards the end of his commencing author (when his growing celebrity occasioned his being often in company), to have ever seen him intoxicated; nor was he at all given to drinking.' The family was regarded in They lived a more secluded Their superior intelligence self-respect which they wore Of the first three or four years of the poet's life at Lochlea we have no details. Very few of his published compositions can be traced with certainty to this period. It was a time of comparative comfort for the Burnes family, although their daily life did not become less laborious. the district as a remarkable one. life than is common in their class. and refinement, and a certain air of amidst all the drudgeries of their situation, gave them a high standing in the locality. Country neighbours who happened to enter their family-room (the kitchen) at the dinner-hour were surprised to find them all-father, brothers, and sisters-sitting each with a book in one hand and a spoon in the other. Gilbert Burns used to speak as if he, at all events, had thought more of his brother at this period than at any other. He recalled with delight the days when they had to go with one or two companions to cut peats for the winter fuel, because Robert was sure to enliven their work with a rattling fire of witty remarks on men and things. Not even those volumes which afterwards took the country by storm moved Gilbert's admiration of his brother more than these conversations in the bog, where two or three peasants made the audience. Robert was not the only member of the family who had literary sympathies, although he alone had the supreme literary faculty. Agnes, as she sat with her two sisters, Annabella and Isabella, milking the cows, would delight them by reciting the poetry with which her mind was stored-as the ballad of 'Sir James the Rose,' the 'Flowers of the Forest,' or the Second Version of the 145th Psalm, in the Scottish translation. Gilbert was nearly as noted in the neighbourhood as Robert for his knowledge of English literature, limited as it was. Robert, however, was the greater favourite with all who came into close contact with the brothers, because of his kindly disposition and good temper. A female cousin of theirs, who had helped them in the work of their farm when a very young girl, used to tell that, when binding behind the reapers on the harvest-field, Robert was always anxious to solace and cheer, and assist the younger labourers. When Gilbert spoke sharply to them, the good-natured poet would exclaim: "Oh, man, ye are no for young folk;" and he was ready with a helping-hand and a look of encouragement.'* There was upon the farm a little child named David Hutcheson, the Wee Davock' of one of the poems, to whom, according to tradition, Burns was especially attentive, carrying him home from the field on his shoulders, teaching him English at night. Burns, in fact, took care of 'Wee Davock' till he was old enough to earn a livelihood. The manner of the poet was not, however, attractive, at all events to the ordinary visitor to the household at Lochlea. Dr John Mackenzie, who attended William Burnes in a professional capacity in 1783, and subsequently became the warm friend of the poet, says: "Gilbert, in the first interview I had with him at Lochlea, was frank, modest, well informed, and communicative. The poet seemed distant, suspicious, and without any wish to interest or please. He kept himself very silent in a dark corner of the room; and before he took any part in the conversation, I frequently detected him scrutinising me during my conversation with his father and brother.' Afterwards, when the conversation, which was on a medical subject, had taken the turn he wished, he began to engage in it, displaying a dexterity of reasoning, an ingenuity of reflection, and a familiarity with topics apparently beyond his reach, by which his visitor was no less gratified than astonished.'† * From A Ramble among the Scenery of Burns,' in The Highland Note-book, by Dr Robert Carruthers, Inverness. + Walker's Life of Burns. Dr Mackenzie communicated this information to Professor Walker in 1810. The love affairs of the Scottish peasantry were, in those days, and in some districts are still, conducted in a manner peculiar to themselves. The young farmer or ploughman, after his day of exhausting labour, would proceed to the home of his lass,' one, two, three, or more miles distant, summon her by signal to the door, and then the pair would seat themselves in the barn for an hour or two's conversation. In the parish of Tarbolton, Robert Burns both launched into this mode of courtship himself, and acted as the second of other night-hunting swains.* Gilbert declares that he was not aspiring in his loves. He made no distinction between farmers' daughters and servants; there was, indeed, no real class distinction, the servants being often themselves the daughters of farmers, sent out to service only when they could be dispensed with at home. One who was a companion of the poet in these early days, and long survived him, declared that he 'composed a song on almost every tolerable-looking lass in the parish, and, finally, one in which they were all included.' The following off-hand verses, which an invincible tradition attributes to the poet, can scarcely indeed be considered as a song, and they are strikingly inferior to his average efforts: THE TARBOLTON LASSES. If ye gae up to yon hill-tap, And she forsooth's a leddy. There's Sophy tight, a lassie bright Has little art in courtin. Gae down by Faile, and taste the ale, And tak a look o' Mysie; She's dour and din, a deil within, obstinate-dun-coloured perhaps * John Lees, shoemaker, Tarbolton, used to tell how, as a stripling, he had acted as Burns's second in his courting expeditions. The old man spoke with much glee of the aid he had given the poet in the way of asking out lasses for him. When he had succeeded in bringing the girl out of doors, Burns would say: 'Now, Jock, ye may gang hame.' |