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Seeing Europe with Famous Authors

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Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told us
was that in which Burns, turned up the mouse's nest. It is the
enclosure, nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a
rather remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was
whitened with an immense number of daisies--daisies, daisies everywhere;
and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was the field
where Burns ran his plowshare over the daisy. If so, the soil seems to
have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he bestowed on that
first immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole handful of these
"wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be precious to many
friends in our own country as coming from Burns's farm, and being of the
same race and lineage as that daisy which he turned into an amaranthine
flower while seeming to destroy it. Prom Moss Giel we drove through a
variety of pleasant scenes, some of which were familiar to us by their
connection with Burns.

By and by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass
of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge
that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from
bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the
young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth and
sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest truth,
the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her womanhood,
and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her.

Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle,
through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it
seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no
such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could desire
no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river flowing over
its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, sometimes hidden
deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the foot of high and
precipitous cliffs.

Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy
and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery and causes a woeful
diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much
of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. We
reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to the King's Arms
Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the town, which
appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; altho there are
likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking houses in the
by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. The town lies
on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and stately, and bordered
with dwellings that look from their windows directly down into the
passing tide.

I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and recrossed
it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four gray arches,
which must have bestridden the stream ever since the early days of
Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," whose midnight
conversation was overheard by Burns, while other auditors were aware
only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream among the arches. The
ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved like a street, and
defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at the two ends, where
some mean old shops allow scanty room for the pathway to creep
between....

The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined
to be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch
breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and
started at a little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at
about two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a roadside cottage, on which was
an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its
walls. It is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and entered
its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a neat
apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls are much
overscribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of a cupboard
in the wainscot, as well as all the other woodwork of the room, is cut
and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two tables, which,
having received a coat of varnish over the inscriptions, form really
curious and interesting articles of furniture. I have seldom (tho I do
not personally adopt this mode of illustrating my humble name) felt
inclined to ridicule the natural impulse of most people thus to record
themselves at the shrines of poets and heroes.

On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait of
Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of this
apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute for the
ordinary flagstones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one other room
pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is the kitchen,
into which we now went. It has a floor of flagstones, even ruder than
those of Shakespeare's house--tho, perhaps, not so strangely cracked and
broken as the latter, over which the hoof of Satan himself might seem to
have been trampling. A new window has been opened through the wall,
toward the road; but on the opposite side is the little original window,
of only four small panes, through which came the first daylight that
shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side of the room, opposite the
fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, which can be hidden by
curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in the world, Providence
was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest human life which mankind
then had within its circumference.

These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance of
Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; and the
thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and sitting-room, the
height of which was that of the whole house. The cottage, however, is
attached to another edifice of the same size and description, as these
little habitations often are; and, moreover, a splendid addition has
been made to it, since the poet's renown began to draw visitors to the
wayside alehouse. The old woman of the house led us, through an entry,
and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast dimensions, to be sure but
marvelously large and splendid as compared with what might be
anticipated from the outward aspect of the cottage. It contained a bust
of Burns, and was hung round with pictures and engravings, principally
illustrative of his life and poems. In this part of the house, too,
there is a parlor, fragrant with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a
noggin of whisky is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who profest
to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor.

We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the
monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A
very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and to
the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds
within which the former is enclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of the
enclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because the old
man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to assist at the
laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared anon, and admitted
us, but immediately hurried away to be present at the ceremonies,
leaving us locked up with Burns.

The enclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an
ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and
shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an
elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided,
above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple--a mere dome,
supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The edifice
is beautiful in itself; tho I know not what peculiar appropriateness it
may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet.

The door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a bust
of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so warm and
whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness can not be
good. In the center of the room stood a glass case, in which were
deposited the two volumes of the little Pocket Bible that Burns gave to
Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. It is
poorly printed, on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture, referring to the
solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of each
volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers is a
lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried to
America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly
treasured here.

There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the
top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon; the scene of Tam O'Shanter's
misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered through the
enclosed garden, and came to a little building in a corner, on entering
which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor Wat--ponderous
stonework enough, yet permeated in a remarkable degree with living
warmth and jovial hilarity. Prom this part of the garden, too, we again
beheld the old Briggs of Doon, over which Tam galloped in such imminent
and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in the landscape, with one
high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed all over and around
with foliage.

When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us that
he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of the new
kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out from his
pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway, which is
within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few steps ascend
from the roadside, through a gate, into the old graveyard, in the midst
of which stands the kirk. The edifice is wholly roofless, but the
side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, tho portions of them are
evidently modern restorations. Never was there a plainer little church,
or one with smaller architectural pretension; no New England
meetinghouse has more simplicity in its very self, tho poetry and fun
have clambered and clustered so wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is
difficult to see it as it actually exists. By the by, I do not
understand why Satan and an assembly of witches should hold their revels
within a consecrated precinct; but the weird scene has so established
itself in the world's imaginative faith that it must be accepted as an
authentic incident, in spite of rule and reason to the contrary.
Possibly, some carnal minister, some priest of pious aspect and hidden
infidelity, had dispelled the consecration of the holy edifice, by his
pretense of prayer, and thus made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and
sorcerers and devils.

The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent a
purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for it
is divided in the midst by a wall of stone masonry, and each compartment
has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on one of the
monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is impossible
not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, had no business
to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs to the world, and
where their presence jars with the emotions, be they sad or gay, which
the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from our own precincts,
too--from that inalienable possession which Burns bestowed in free gift
upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth and annexing it to the
domain of imagination.

Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it
fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside
of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more than
ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few windows,
all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work
of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable,
might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with devilish light, as
he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is a small and square
one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as
he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have looked through it,
standing on the ground, had not the opening been walled up. There is an
odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the gables, with the small bell
still hanging in it. And this is all that I remember of Kirk Alloway,
except that the stones of its material are gray and irregular.

The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a modern
bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach the old
bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing the kirk,
and then to have turned sharply toward the river. The new bridge is
within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, and leaned
over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing wildly and
sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a lovelier scene;
altho this might have been even lovelier, if a kindly sun had shone upon
it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its high arch, through which we
had a picture of the river and the green banks beyond, was absolutely
the most picturesque object, in a quiet and gentle way, that ever blest
my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs dipping into
the water! The memory of them, at this moment, affects me like the song
of birds, and Burns crooning some verses, simple and wild, in accordance
with their native melody.... We shall appreciate him better as a poet,
hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as a man, has so much to
do with his fame, and throws such a necessary light upon whatever he has
produced. Henceforth, there will be a personal warmth for us in
everything that he wrote; and, like his countrymen, we shall know him in
a kind of personal way, as if we had shaken hands with him, and felt the
thrill of his actual voice.



HIGHLAND MARY'S HOME AND GRAVE [Footnote: From "A Literary Pilgrimage."
By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, J. B.
Lippincott Co. Copyright, 1895.]

BY THEODORE F. WOLFE.

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, coherent, and often contradictory allusions to her which
the biographies of the plowman-poet contain. This paper--prepared during
a sojourn in "The Land of Burns"--while it adds a little to our meager
knowledge of Mary Campbell, aims to present consecutively and
congruously so much as may be known of her brief life, her relation to
the bard, and her sad, heroic death.

She first saw the light in 1764, at Ardrossan, on the coast, fifteen
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.

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