The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 291

THE t.i.tHER MORN.

This tune is originally from the Highlands. I have heard a Gaelic song to it, which I was told was very clever, but not by any means a lady's song.

A MOTHER'S LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF HER SON.

This most beautiful tune is, I think, the happiest composition of that bard-born genius, John Riddel, of the family of Glencarnock, at Ayr.

The words were composed to commemorate the much-lamented and premature death of James Ferguson, Esq., jun. of Craigdarroch.

DAINTIE DAVIE.

This song, tradition says, and the composition itself confirms it, was composed on the Rev. David Williamson's begetting the daughter of Lady Cherrytrees with child, while a party of dragoons were searching her house to apprehend him for being an adherent to the solemn league and covenant. The pious woman had put a lady's night-cap on him, and had laid him a-bed with her own daughter, and pa.s.sed him to the soldiery as a lady, her daughter's bed-fellow. A mutilated stanza or two are to be found in Herd's collection, but the original song consists of five or six stanzas, and were their _delicacy_ equal to their _wit_ and _humour_, they would merit a place in any collection. The first stanza is

"Being pursued by the dragoons, Within my bed he was laid down; And weel I wat he was worth his room, For he was my Daintie Davie."

Ramsay's song, "Luckie Nansy," though he calls it an old song with additions, seems to be all his own except the chorus:

"I was a telling you, Luckie Nansy, Luckie Nansy Auld springs wad ding the new, But ye wad never trow me."

Which I should conjecture to be part of a song prior to the affair of Williamson.

BOB O' DUMBLANE.

RAMSAY, as usual, has modernized this song. The original, which I learned on the spot, from my old hostess in the princ.i.p.al inn there, is--

"La.s.sie, lend me your braw hemp heckle, And I'll lend you my thripplin-kame; My heckle is broken, it canna be gotten, And we'll gae dance the bob o' Dumblane.

Twa gaed to the wood, to the wood, to the wood.

Twa gaed to the wood--three came hame; An' it be na weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit An' it be na weel bobbit, we'll bob it again."

I insert this song to introduce the following anecdote, which I have heard well authenticated. In the evening of the day of the battle of Dumblane, (Sheriff Muir,) when the action was over, a Scots officer in Argyll's army, observed to His Grace, that he was afraid the rebels would give out to the world that _they_ had gotten the victory.--"Weel, weel," returned his Grace, alluding to the foregoing ballad, "if they think it be nae weel bobbit, we'll bob it again."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 293: _Fan_, when--the dialect of Angus.]

THE BORDER TOUR.

Left Edinburgh (May 6, 1787)--Lammermuir-hills miserably dreary, but at times very picturesque. Lanton-edge, a glorious view of the Merse--Reach Berrywell--old Mr. Ainslie an uncommon character;--his hobbies, agriculture, natural philosophy, and politics.--In the first he is unexceptionably the clearest-headed, best-informed man I ever met with; in the other two, very intelligent:--As a man of business he has uncommon merit, and by fairly deserving it has made a very decent independence. Mrs. Ainslie, an excellent, sensible, cheerful, amiable old woman--Miss Ainslie--her person a little _embonpoint_, but handsome; her face, particularly her eyes, full of sweetness and good humour--she unites three qualities rarely to be found together; keen, solid penetration; sly, witty observation and remark; and the gentlest, most unaffected female modesty--Douglas, a clever, fine, promising young fellow.--The family-meeting with their brother; my _compagnon de voyage_, very charming; particularly the sister. The whole family remarkably attached to their menials--Mrs. A. full of stories of the sagacity and sense of the little girl in the kitchen.--Mr. A. high in the praises of an African, his house-servant--all his people old in his service--Douglas's old nurse came to Berrywell yesterday to remind them of its being his birthday.

A Mr. Dudgeon, a poet at times,[294] a worthy remarkable character--natural penetration, a great deal of information, some genius, and extreme modesty.

_Sunday._--Went to church at Dunse[295]--Dr. Howmaker a man of strong lungs and pretty judicious remark; but ill skilled in propriety, and altogether unconscious of his want of it.

_Monday._--Coldstream--went over to England--Cornhill--glorious river Tweed--clear and majestic--fine bridge. Dine at Coldstream with Mr.

Ainslie and Mr. Foreman--beat Mr. F---- in a dispute about Voltaire. Tea at Lenel House with Mr. Brydone--Mr. Brydone a most excellent heart, kind, joyous, and benevolent; but a good deal of the French indiscriminate complaisance--from his situation past and present, an admirer of everything that bears a splendid t.i.tle, or that possesses a large estate--Mrs. Brydone a most elegant woman in her person and manners; the tones of her voice remarkably sweet--my reception extremely flattering--sleep at Coldstream.

_Tuesday._--Breakfast at Kelso--charming situation of Kelso--fine bridge over the Tweed--enchanting views and prospects on both sides of the river, particularly the Scotch side; introduced to Mr. Scott of the Royal Bank--an excellent, modest fellow--fine situation of it--ruins of Roxburgh Castle--a holly-bush, growing where James II. of Scotland was accidentally killed by the bursting of a cannon. A small old religious ruin, and a fine old garden planted by the religious, rooted out and destroyed by an English hottentot, a _maitre d'hotel_ of the duke's, a Mr. Cole--climate and soil of Berwicks.h.i.+re, and even Roxburghs.h.i.+re, superior to Ayrs.h.i.+re--bad roads. Turnip and sheep husbandry, their great improvements--Mr. M'Dowal, at Caverton Mill, a friend of Mr. Ainslie's, with whom I dined to-day, sold his sheep, ewe and lamb together, at two guineas a piece--wash their sheep before shearing--seven or eight pounds of washen wool in a fleece--low markets, consequently low rents--fine lands not above sixteen s.h.i.+llings a Scotch acre--magnificence of farmers and farm-houses--come up Teviot and up Jed to Jedburgh to lie, and so wish myself a good night.

_Wednesday._--Breakfast with Mr. ---- in Jedburgh--a squabble between Mrs. ----, a crazed, talkative slattern, and a sister of hers, an old maid, respecting a relief minister--Miss gives Madam the lie; and Madam, by way of revenge, upbraids her that she laid snares to entangle the said minister, then a widower, in the net of matrimony--go about two miles out of Jedburgh to a roup of parks--meet a polite, soldier-like gentleman, a Captain Rutherford, who had been many years through the wilds of America, a prisoner among the Indians--charming, romantic situation of Jedburgh, with gardens, orchards, &c., intermingled among the houses--fine old ruins--a once magnificent cathedral, and strong castle. All the towns here have the appearance of old, rude grandeur, but the people extremely idle--Jed a fine romantic little river.

Dine with Capt. Rutherford--the Captain a polite fellow, fond of money in his farming way; showed a particular respect to my bards.h.i.+p--his lady exactly a proper matrimonial second part for him. Miss Rutherford a beautiful girl, but too far gone woman to expose so much of a fine swelling bosom--her face very fine.

Return to Jedburgh--walk up Jed with some ladies to be shown Love-lane and Blackburn, two fairy scenes. Introduced to Mr. Potts, writer, a very clever fellow; and Mr. Somerville, the clergyman of the place, a man and a gentleman, but sadly addicted to punning.--The walking party of ladies, Mrs. ---- and Miss ---- her sister, before mentioned.--N.B.

These two appear still more comfortably ugly and stupid, and bore me most shockingly. Two Miss ----, tolerably agreeable. Miss Hope, a tolerably pretty girl, fond of laughing and fun. Miss Lindsay, a good-humoured, amiable girl; rather short _et embonpoint_, but handsome, and extremely graceful--beautiful hazel eyes, full of spirit, and sparkling with delicious moisture--an engaging face--_un tout ensemble_ that speaks her of the first order of female minds--her sister, a bonnie, strappan, rosy, sonsie la.s.s. Shake myself loose, after several unsuccessful efforts, of Mrs. ---- and Miss ----, and somehow or other, get hold of Miss Lindsay's arm. My heart is thawed into melting pleasure after being so long frozen up in the Greenland bay of indifference, amid the noise and nonsense of Edinburgh. Miss seems very well pleased with my bards.h.i.+p's distinguis.h.i.+ng her, and after some slight qualms, which I could easily mark, she sets the t.i.tter round at defiance, and kindly allows me to keep my hold; and when parted by the ceremony of my introduction to Mr. Somerville, she met me half, to resume my situation.--Nota Bene--The poet within a point and a half of being d--mnably in love--I am afraid my bosom is still nearly as much tinder as ever.

The old cross-grained, whiggish, ugly, slanderous Miss ----, with all the poisonous spleen of a disappointed, ancient maid, stops me very unseasonably to ease her bursting breast, by falling abusively foul on the Miss Lindsays, particularly on my Dulcinea;--I hardly refrain from cursing her to her face for daring to mouth her calumnious slander on one of the finest pieces of the workmans.h.i.+p of Almighty Excellence! Sup at Mr. ----'s; vexed that the Miss Lindsays are not of the supper-party, as they only are wanting. Mrs. ---- and Miss ----still improve infernally on my hands.

Set out next morning for Wauchope, the seat of my correspondent, Mrs.

Scott--breakfast by the way with Dr. Elliot, an agreeable, good-hearted, climate-beaten old veteran, in the medical line; now retired to a romantic, but rather moorish place, on the banks of the Roole--he accompanies us almost to Wauchope--we traverse the country to the top of Bochester, the scene of an old encampment, and Woolee Hill.

Wauchope--Mr. Scott exactly the figure and face commonly given to Sancho Panca--very shrewd in his farming matters, and not unfrequently stumbles on what may be called a strong thing rather than a good thing. Mrs. Scott all the sense, taste, intrepidity of face, and bold, critical decision, which usually distinguish female authors.--Sup with Mr. Potts--agreeable party.--Breakfast next morning with Mr.

Somerville--the _bruit_ of Miss Lindsay and my bards.h.i.+p, by means of the invention and malice of Miss ----. Mr. Somerville sends to Dr.

Lindsay, begging him and family to breakfast if convenient, but at all events to send Miss Lindsay; accordingly Miss Lindsay only comes.--I find Miss Lindsay would soon play the devil with me--I met with some little flattering attentions from her. Mrs. Somerville an excellent, motherly, agreeable woman, and a fine family.--Mr. Ainslie, and Mrs.

S----, junrs., with Mr. ----, Miss Lindsay, and myself, go to see _Esther_, a very remarkable woman for reciting poetry of all kinds, and sometimes making Scotch doggerel herself--she can repeat by heart almost everything she has ever read, particularly Pope's Homer from end to end--has studied Euclid by herself, and in short, is a woman of very extraordinary abilities.--On conversing with her I find her fully equal to the character given of her.[296]--She is very much flattered that I send for her, and that she sees a poet who has _put out a book_, as she says.--She is, among other things, a great florist--and is rather past the meridian of once celebrated beauty.

I walk in _Esther's_ garden with Miss Lindsay, and after some little chit-chat of the tender kind, I presented her with a proof print of my n.o.b, which she accepted with something more tinder than grat.i.tude. She told me many little stories which Miss ---- had retailed concerning her and me, with prolonging pleasure--G.o.d bless her! Was waited on by the magistrates, and presented with the freedom of the burgh.

Took farewell of Jedburgh, with some melancholy, disagreeable sensations.--Jed, pure be thy crystal streams, and hallowed thy sylvan banks! Sweet Isabella Lindsay, may peace dwell in thy bosom, uninterrupted, except by the tumultuous throbbings of rapturous love!

That love-kindling eye must beam on another, not on me; that graceful form must bless another's arms; not mine!

Kelso. Dine with the farmers' club--all gentlemen, talking of high matters--each of them keeps a hunter from thirty to fifty pounds value, and attends the fox-huntings in the country--go out with Mr.

Ker, one of the club, and a friend of Mr. Ainslie's, to lie--Mr. Ker a most gentlemanly, clever, handsome fellow, a widower with some fine children--his mind and manner astonis.h.i.+ngly like my dear old friend Robert Muir, in Kilmarnock--everything in Mr. Ker's most elegant--he offers to accompany me in my English tour. Dine with Sir Alexander Don--a pretty clever fellow, but far from being a match for his divine lady.--A very wet day * * *--Sleep at Stodrig again; and set out for Melrose--visit Dryburgh, a fine old ruined abbey--still bad weather--cross Leader, and come up Tweed to Melrose--dine there, and visit that far-famed, glorious ruin--come to Selkirk, up Ettrick; the whole country hereabout, both on Tweed and Ettrick, remarkably stony.

_Monday._--Come to Inverleithing, a famous shaw, and in the vicinity of the palace of Traquair, where having dined, and drank some Galloway-whey, I hero remain till to-morrow--saw Elibanks and Elibraes, on the other side of the Tweed.

_Tuesday._--Drank tea yesternight at Pirn, with Mr.

Horseburgh.--Breakfasted to-day with Mr. Ballantyne of Hollowlee--Proposal for a four-horse team to consist of Mr. Scott of Wauchope, Fittieland: Logan of Logan, Fittiefurr: Ballantyne of Hollowlee, Forewynd: Horsburgh of Horsburgh.--Dine at a country inn, kept by a miller, in Earlston, the birth-place and residence of the celebrated Thomas a Rhymer--saw the ruins of his castle--come to Berrywell.

_Wednesday._--Dine at Dunse with the farmers' club-company--impossible to do them justice--Rev. Mr. Smith a famous punster, and Mr. Meikle a celebrated mechanic, and inventor of the thres.h.i.+ng-mills.

_Thursday_, breakfast at Berrywell, and walk into Dunse to see a famous knife made by a cutler there, and to be presented to an Italian prince.--A pleasant ride with my friend Mr. Robert Ainslie, and his sister, to Mr. Thomson's, a man who has newly commenced farmer, and has married a Miss Patty Grieve, formerly a flame of Mr. Robert Ainslie's.--Company--Miss Jacky Grieve, an amiable sister of Mrs.

Thomson's, and Mr. Hood, an honest, worthy, facetious farmer, in the neighbourhood.