chamber ; or, perhaps, it may have been that of his
mother's servant-maid; and, in either case, this rude
floor, at one time or another, must have creaked beneath
the poet's midnight tread. On the opposite side of the
passage was the door of another attic chamber, opening
which, I saw a considerable number of cheeses on the
floor.
The whole house was pervaded with a frowzy smell,
and also a dunghill odor ; and it is not easy to under-
stand how the atmosphere of such a dwelling can be
any more agreeable or salubrious morally than it ap-
peared to be physically. No virgin, surely, could keep
a holy awe about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy
with coarse-natured rustics into this narrowness and
SOME HAUNTS OF BURNS 185
filth. Such a habitation is calculated to make beasts
of men and women ; and it indicates a degree of barba-
rism which I did not imagine to exist in Scotland, that
a tiller of broad fields, like the farmer of Mauchline,
should have his abode in a pigsty. It is sad to think of
anybody not to say a poet, but any human being
sleeping, eating, thinking, praying, and spending all his
home-life in this miserable hovel ; but, methinks, I never
in the least knew how to estimate the miracle of Burns's
genius, nor his heroic merit for being no worse man,
until I thus learned the squalid hindrances amid which
he developed himself. Space, a free atmosphere, and
cleanliness have a vast deal to do with the possibilities
of human virtue.
The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as
being damp and unwholesome ; but I do not see why,
outside of the cottage walls, it should possess so evil a
reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge, enjoying,
surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and
sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached.
The high hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cot-
tage, give it a pleasant aspect enough to one who does
not know the grimy secrets of the, interior ; and the sum-
mer afternoon was now so bright that I shall remember
the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it.
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 cot-
tage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a rather re-
markably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground
was whitened with an immense number of daisies,
daisies, daisies everywhere; and in answer to my in-
quiry, the driver said that this was the field where
Burns ran his ploughshare 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
186 OUR OLD HOME
as that daisy which he turned into an amaranthine flower
while seeming to destroy it.
From Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleas-
ant scenes, some of which were familiar to us by their
connection with Burns. We skirted, too, along a portion
of the estate of Auchinleck, which still belongs to the
Boswell family, the present possessor being Sir James
Bos well, 1 a grandson of Johnson's friend, and son of the
Sir Alexander who was killed in a duel. Our driver
spoke of Sir James as a kind, free-hearted man, but
addicted to horse-races and similar pastimes, and a little
too familiar with the wine-cup ; so that poor Bozzy's
booziness would appear to have become hereditary in
his ancient line. There is no male heir to the estate of
Auchinleck. The portion of the lands which we saw is
covered with wood and much undermined with rabbit-
warrens ; nor, though the territory extends over a large
number of acres, is the income very considerable.
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 suc-
ceeded 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. This beautiful estate of Balloch-
1 Sir James Boswell is now dead.
SOME HAUNTS OF BURNS 187
myle is still held by the family of Alexanders, to whom
Burns's song has given renown on cheaper terms than
any other set of people ever attained it. How slight
the tenure seems ! A young lady happened to walk
out, one summer afternoon, and crossed the path of a
neighboring farmer, who celebrated the little incident in
four or five warm, rude, at least, not refined, though
rather ambitious, and somewhat ploughman-like verses.
Burns has written hundreds of better things ; but hence-
forth, for centuries, that maiden has free admittance
into the dream-land of Beautiful Women, and she and
all her race are famous ! I should like to know the
present head of the family, and ascertain what value, if
any, the members of it put upon the celebrity thus won.
We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as
" the clean village of Scotland." Certainly, as regards
the point indicated, it has greatly the advantage of
Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing
anything else worth writing about.
There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the
morning, the rusty, old, sloping street of Mauchline was
glistening with wet, while frequent showers came spat-
tering down. The intense heat of many days past was
exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable
to a stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought
to be. We found, after breakfast, that the first train
northward had already gone by, and that we must wait
till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely ventured
out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk
through the village, in which I have left little to describe.
Its chief business appears to be the manufacture of
snuff-boxes. There are perhaps five or six shops, or
more, including those licensed to sell only tea and
tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of
village stores in the United States, dealing in a small
way with an extensive variety of articles. I peeped
into the open gateway of the churchyard, and saw that
the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead people, and
the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicu-
lar and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaint-
i88 OUR OLD HOME
ance are doubtless there, and the Armours among them,
except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by her poet's side. The
family of Armour is now extinct in Mauchline.
Arriving at the railway station, we found a tall, elderly,
comely gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for
the train. He proved to be a Mr. Alexander, it may
fairly be presumed the Alexander of Ballochmyle, a
blood relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy of
a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago
on this old gentleman's white hair ! These Alexanders,
by the by, are not an old family on the Ballochmyle
estate ; the father of the lass having made a fortune in
trade, and established himself as the first landed pro-
prietor of his name in these parts. The original family
was named Whitefoord.
Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable;
and, indeed, a cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish
off the scenery, and causes a woful 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 in-
tervals of showers I took peeps at the town, which ap-
peared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices;
although there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-
looking houses in the by-streets, here and there, betoken-
ing 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 vener-
able structure of four gray arches, which must have be-
stridden 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
SOME HAUNTS OF BURNS 189
two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room
for the pathway to creep between. Nothing else im-
pressed me hereabouts, unless I mention, that, during
the rain, the women and girls went about the streets of
Ayr barefooted to save their shoes.
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 cot-
tage, 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 wood-work of the room, is cut and
carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two tables,
which, having received a coat of varnish over the inscrip-
tions, form really curious and interesting articles of fur-
niture. I have seldom (though 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
flag-stones 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 flag-stones, even ruder than those of Shak-
speare's house, though, 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, towards
the road ; but on the opposite side is the little original
1 9 o OUR OLD HOME
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 cot-
tage, 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 ale-house. The old woman of the house led us
through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast
dimensions, to be sure, but marvellously large and splen-
did 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 whiskey
is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who professed
to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor.
We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the
Bridge of Boon, 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 concluding ceremonies, leaving
us locked up with Burns.
SOME HAUNTS OF BURNS 191
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 ; though 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, en-
tering, 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 cannot be good.
In the centre of the room stood a glass case, in which were
reposited 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 Tarn 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
Tarn and Sutor Wat, ponderous stone-work enough,
yet permeated in a remarkable degree with living warmth
and jovial hilarity. From this part of the garden, too,
we again beheld the old Brigg 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 aroun.d with
foliage.
When we had waited a good while, the old gardener
i 9 2 OUR OLD HOME
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, though
portions of them are evidently modern restorations.
Never was there a plainer little church, or one with
smaller architectural pretension ; no New England meet-
ing-house has more simplicity in its very self, though
poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so wildly
over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actu-
ally 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 pretence 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 be-
stowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the
actual earth and annexing it to the domain of imagina-
SOME HAUNTS OF BURNS 193
tion. And here these wretched squatters have lain
down to their long sleep, after barring each of the two
doorways of the kirk with an iron grate ! May their
rest be troubled, till they rise and let us in !
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 Tarn O'Shanter, blazing with devil-
ish 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 ap-
pears to have made a bend, shortly after passing the
kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river.
The new bridge is within a minute's walk of the monu-
ment ; 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; although 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 be-
yond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a
quiet and gentle way, that ever blessed my eyes.
Bonny Doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs
dipping into the water ! The memory of them, at this
i 94 OUR OLD HOME
moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns
crooning some verses, simple and wild, in accordance
with their native melody.
It was impossible to depart without crossing the
very bridge of Tarn's adventure ; so we went thither,
over a now disused portion of the road, and, standing
on the centre of the arch, gathered some ivy-leaves from
that sacred spot. This done, we returned as speedily
as might be to Ayr, whence, taking the rail, we soon
beheld Ailsa Craig rising like a pyramid out of the sea.
Drawing nearer to Glasgow, Ben Lomond hove in sight,
with a dome-like summit, supported by a shoulder on
each side. But a man is better than a mountain ; and
we had been holding intercourse, if not with the reality,
at least with the stalwart ghost of one of Earth's memo-
rable sons, amid the scenes where he lived and sung.
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.
A LONDON SUBURB
ONE of our English summers looks, in the retrospect,
as if it had been patched with more frequent sun-
shine than the sky of England ordinarily affords ; but I
believe that it may be only a moral effect, a " light that
never was on sea nor land," caused by our having found
a particularly delightful abode in the neighborhood of
London. In order to enjoy it, however, I was com-
pelled to solve the problem of living in two places at
once, an impossibility which I so far accomplished as
to vanish, at frequent intervals, out of men's sight and
knowledge on one side of England, and take my place
in a circle of familiar faces on the other, so quietly that
I seemed to have been there all along. It was the
easier to get accustomed to our new residence, because
it was not only rich in all the material properties of a
home, but had also the home-like atmosphere, the house-
hold element, which is of too intangible a character to
be let even with the most thoroughly furnished lodging-
house. A friend had given us his suburban residence,
with all its conveniences, elegances, and snuggeries,
its drawing-rooms and library, still warm and bright
with the recollection of the genial presences that we
had known there, its closets, chambers, kitchen, and
even its wine-cellar, if we could have availed ourselves
of so dear and delicate a trust, its lawn and cosey
garden-nooks, and whatever else makes up the multi-
tudinous idea of an English home, he had transferred
it all to us, pilgrims and dusty wayfarers, that we might
rest and take our ease during his summer's absence on
the Continent. We had long been dwelling in tents,
as it were, and morally shivering by hearths which, heap
the bituminous coal upon them as we might, no blaze
could render cheerful. I remember, to this day, the
196 OUR OLD HOME
dreary feeling with which I sat by our first English
fireside, and watched the chill and rainy twilight of an
autumn day darkening down upon the garden ; while
the portrait of the preceding occupant of the house
(evidently a most unamiable personage in his lifetime)
scowled inhospitably from above the mantelpiece, as
if indignant that an American should try to make him-
self at home there. Possibly it may appease his sulky
shade to know that I quitted his abode as much a
stranger as I entered it. But now, at last, we were
in a genuine British home, where refined and warm-
hearted people had just been living their daily life, and
had left us a summer's inheritance of slowly-ripened
days, such as a stranger's hasty opportunities so seldom
permit him to enjoy.
Within so trifling a distance of the central spot of all
the world, (which, as Americans have at present no cen-
tre of their own, we may allow to be somewhere in the
vicinity, we will say, of St. Paul's Cathedral,) it might
have seemed natural that I should be tossed about by the
turbulence of the vast London whirlpool. But I had
drifted into a still eddy, where conflicting movements
made a repose, and, wearied with a good deal of uncon-
genial activity, I found the quiet of my temporary haven
more attractive than anything that the great town could