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 presented to the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA • SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 FRIENDS OF 11 IE LIBRARY 
 
 Dr. Allan D. Rosenblatt 
 
 / 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Uf^'VERsiTY OF 
 
 •California 
 SAM DIEGO

 
 BURNS AND HIS TIMES
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW 
 publishers to tlu ambersitB. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. 
 New York, ■ - The M acmillaii. Co. 
 Lojidon, ■ ■ • Shnpkin, Hamilton ajid Co. 
 Cambridge, - - 31actidlian and Bowes. 
 Edinburgh, • - Douglas and Foulis. 
 
 MDCCCXCVn.
 
 Burns 
 
 and his Times 
 
 As gathered 
 from his Poems 
 
 By 
 
 J. O. Mitchell, LL.D. 
 
 "Thy manners-painting strains" 
 
 Glasgow 
 James MacLehose and Sons 
 
 Publishers to the University 
 1897
 
 GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Prefatory, i 
 
 I. The Land of Burns, . . . .4 
 
 II. Aspect of the Country, ... 14 
 
 III. Fauna and Flora, .... 18 
 
 IV. Agriculture, 23 
 
 V. Land-holding, 35 
 
 VI. Houses, . 39 
 
 VII. Clothing, 41
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VIII. Food, . 47 
 
 IX. Drink, 54 
 
 X. Classes and Masses — 
 
 The Landed Class, . . . 64 
 
 The Middle Class, .... 68 
 
 The Working Class, .... 76 
 
 The Non- Working Class, ... 84 
 
 XI. The Church, 87 
 
 XII. Church Patronage, .... 98 
 
 XIII. Church Discipline, . . . . loi 
 
 XIV. Criminal Jurisprudence, ... 106 
 XV. Superstitions, in 
 
 XVI. Politics, 113 
 
 XVII. Taxation, 115
 
 CONTENTS ' vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVIII. Currency, . . . . . . 117 
 
 XIX. Prices, 121 
 
 XX. Recreations — 
 
 Of the Gentry, 125 
 
 Of the Common Folk, . . . 128
 
 BURNS AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 To-night ^ throughout Scotland, and outside 
 of Scotland wherever a company of Scotch- 
 men can be gathered, the memory of Burns 
 will be drunk in solemn silence. The toast 
 will be prefaced by the best speech that 
 the company can furnish. The motif of the 
 speeches will vary. Some speakers will ana- 
 lyze the poetry of Burns and his relations to 
 other poets ; the influences that went to the 
 making of him, and the influences that have 
 streamed out from him. Other speakers will 
 dwell on his style, his mastery of rhythm and 
 
 1 This volume has grown out of a paper that appeared 
 in the Glasgow Herald of 25th January, Burns's Birth- 
 day, 1888. 
 
 A
 
 2 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 of rhyme ; what his native Scotch became in 
 his hands — how clear, how terse, how graphic ; 
 what happy turns of thought dropped from 
 him spontaneously, like the diamonds in the 
 fairy tale from the princess's mouth, gems of 
 expression, in cut and water equalling the 
 best bequoted bits of Tennyson, and in their 
 spontaneousness surpassing them as the bold 
 lines of the fresco surpass the laboured 
 structure of the mosaic. Other speakers, 
 these the best worth hearing, will see in 
 Burns's poems the most fascinating of auto- 
 biographies, and will set us up the portrait 
 that Burns's own hands have painted, with 
 the 
 
 . . . votum, timor, ira, voluptas, 
 Gaudta, discursus^ 
 
 the tenderness and the wrath, the love and 
 the lust, the bright hope and the settled 
 gloom, the high resolves and the base self- 
 indulgence, the good passions and the evil, 
 that sweep by turns across his mobile features. 
 I have set myself a humbler task, needing
 
 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 3 
 
 neither critical nor constructive power, but 
 only some care in reading. I wish to see 
 what can be gathered from incidental state- 
 ments in his poems as to Burns's surroundings, 
 the country he lived in and the people he 
 lived among. What we gather may not be 
 much, but it will be all wheat and not chaff; 
 incidental statements by one who could not 
 be mistaken in the facts are the best of 
 evidence.
 
 I. 
 
 THE LAND OF BURNS. 
 
 A LITTLE attention to the place-names will 
 show that the land of Burns is not Ayrshire, 
 but only a small part of it, a triangle roughly 
 answering to the basin, or rather to the lower 
 part of the basin, of the Ayr. This triangle 
 has for its base the Bay of Ayr, from the 
 " Cove " of Cullean on the south to the " well- 
 fed Irwin " on the north, and has for its apex 
 Mauchline Toun. The limits are well defined. 
 Further to the south the Cumnock Hills are 
 named, but they are the " distant Cumnock 
 Hills ! " Further to the north Galston Muirs 
 are named, but they are the horizon over 
 which " the rising sun . . . wi' glorious light
 
 THE LAND OF BURNS 5 
 
 is glintin'." Further to the east, in Muirkirk, 
 lives his brother poet, Lapraik, and Burns 
 must see him " tho' he should pawn his 
 pleugh and graith " ; but Muirkirk is alto- 
 gether out of reach, and Lapraik must meet 
 him half-way, " at Mauchline race or Mauch- 
 line fair." It was within this narrow territory 
 that Burns (saving the visits to Edinburgh, 
 the Borders, and the Highlands, and the later 
 residence in Nithsdale) lived all his days ; it 
 was from it that he drew nearly every land- 
 scape, nearly every portrait, in his marvellous 
 gallery ; it was it that he set himself to sing 
 into fame. It was as yet unsung. The thought 
 angers him. He pledges himself it shall be 
 so no more. 
 
 " Ramsay and famous Fergusson 
 Gied Forth an' Tay a lift aboon ; 
 Yarrow an' Tweed to mony a tune 
 
 O'er Scotland rings. 
 While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon 
 
 Naebody sings ! 
 
 " Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine 
 Glide sweet in mony a tunefu' line ;
 
 6 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 But, Willie, set your foot to mine, 
 An' cock your crest ; 
 
 We'll gar our streams and burnies shine 
 Up wi' the best !" 
 
 He has redeemed his pledge ; for all time 
 Irwin shall come down " with stately thud," 
 and " Lugar's mossy fountains boil," Ayr shall 
 still " kiss his pebbled shore," and " the rose 
 and woodbine twine " on the banks and braes 
 of Doon. 
 
 With never a place-name in it to guide us, 
 we could still make a fair guess whereabouts 
 on the map to look for the Land of Burns. 
 It is on the sea — 
 
 "The tide-swol'n Firth, with sullen-sounding roar. 
 Thro' the still night dashed hoarse along the shore." 
 
 The " Firth " is the Firth of Clyde, for Ailsa 
 Craig is a familiar object : 
 
 " Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig." 
 
 Sand stretches far inside high-water mark : 
 
 " Low in a sandy valley spread 
 An ancient burgh rears her head."
 
 THE LAND OF BURNS 7 
 
 Further inland the country is hilly : 
 
 " We'll sing auld Coila's plains and fells." 
 
 But the hills are not like the hills round 
 Foyers, where 
 
 " The eagle from his cliffy brow 
 Marked his prey below"; 
 
 they are not even like 
 
 " Yon wild, mossy mountains, sae lofty an' wide, 
 That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde " ; 
 
 they are neither too high nor too wild to be 
 crossed, on a rough, dark night : 
 
 " The westlin' wind blaws loud an' shill. 
 The nicht's baith mirk and rainy, O I 
 But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal, 
 An' owre the hill to Nannie, O ! " ; 
 
 they are not steep and they are not rocky, for 
 the streams they discharge wind down, and as 
 they wind they score the face of the slope : 
 
 " How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills, 
 Far marked with the courses of clear- winding rills !".^ 
 
 ^The Afton actually flows into the Nilh, not the 
 Ayr, but the face of the hill is the same on either side 
 of the watershed.
 
 8 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 There are 
 
 " Moors red-brown wi' heather-bells," 
 
 and wide haughs where 
 
 "the burns came down like waters 
 An acre braid." 
 
 The streams have a special type. It is Bruar 
 Water that Burns makes say : 
 
 " Here, foaming down the shelving rocks. 
 In twisting strength I rin ; 
 There high my boiling torrent smokes, 
 Wild roaring o'er a linn " ; 
 
 his home streams uniformly run a smoother 
 course : 
 
 " The burnies wimple down their glens 
 
 Wi' toddhn' din"; 
 
 " Whiles o'er a linn the burnie plays. 
 As thro' the glen it wimpl't ; 
 Whiles round'^a rocky scaur it strays ; 
 
 Whiles in a weel it dimpl't ; 
 Whiles glittered to the nichtly rays 
 
 Wi' bickerin' dancin' dazzle ; 
 Whiles cookit underneath the braes 
 Beneath the spreading hazel, 
 
 Unseen that nicht " ;
 
 THE LAND OF BURNS 9 
 
 sometimes they move with even softer step, 
 
 and 
 
 " glide 
 Like Logan to the simmer sun " ; 
 
 or like 
 
 " Auld hermit Ayr steal thro' the woods." 
 
 So with their banks. In Aberfeldy glen 
 
 " The braes ascend Hke lofty wa's, 
 The foaming stream deep roaring fa's," 
 
 but Auld Coila's banks and braes are slopes 
 of earth dotted with bracken and broom, or 
 thick with copse and wood, gentle slopes, 
 where the bairns can safely run about and 
 " pu' the gowans fine." 
 
 Some geological features of the district may 
 further help us. Trap rock is evidently common : 
 
 " I micht as weel hae tried a quarry 
 O' hard whun rock " ; 
 
 softer stone there must be for the numberless 
 dykes : 
 
 " A cotter howkin' in a sheugh, 
 Wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dyke, 
 Barin' a quarry an' sic hke " ;
 
 lo , BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 lastly, we are on the coal-measures : 
 
 " Our laird gets in his rackit rents, 
 His coals, his kain, an' a' his stents." 
 
 These particulars singly do not amount to 
 much, but I do not think they unite except 
 in the basin of the Ayr. 
 
 It would be easier to identify the Burns 
 country but for one strange gap in Burns's 
 topography and in Burns's love of nature. 
 The lines already quoted from the " Brigs of 
 Ayr " and two lines in the " Vision " are all 
 from which one would gather that the Land 
 of Burns lay along the sea, and Burns's few 
 other allusions to the sea show none of them 
 any love of it. 
 
 From the gable of his father's cottage 
 Burns could see the Bay of Ayr, sometimes 
 even in our rough north sleeping in the sun- 
 shine, oftener ci^owded with the white-maned 
 waves galloping before the west wind ; on his 
 left the Heads of Ayr rose from the water 
 bluff and black ; on his right the long green 
 crescent ended with the cliffs of the Cumbrae
 
 THE LAND OF BURNS ii 
 
 and Garragh Heads ; right in front of him 
 Arran stood up in all its glory, and the 
 morning light searched the glens and corries, 
 and the Grey Mare's Tail danced and sparkled, 
 and when the sun went down, peak and ridge 
 stood out from the purple and gold. All this 
 Burns saw as we see it now, but he gave it 
 never a look of love nor a word of praise.^ 
 The trotting burn and the whistling robin, 
 the primrose and the gowan, no beauty land- 
 
 1 Burns, after all, is not so hard on the sea as old 
 Burt is on the mountains. Here is the impression that 
 the finest of our Highland scenery made on him : — 
 "There is not much variety in it, but gloomy spaces, 
 different rocks, heath, and high and low. To cast one's 
 eye from an eminence toward a group of the mountains, 
 they appear still one above the other, fainter and fainter, 
 according to the aerial prospective, and the whole of a 
 dismal, gloomy brown drawing upon a dirty purple, and 
 most of all disagreeable when the heath is in bloom. 
 Those ridges of the mountains that appear next to the 
 other — by their rugged, irregular lines, the heath and 
 black rocks — are rendered extremely harsh to the eye 
 by appearing close to that 'diaphanous body, without 
 any medium to soften the opposition ; and the clearer 
 the day, the more rude and offensive they are to the 
 sight." -Burfs Letters (Ed. 1822), I. 285.
 
 12 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 wards was minute enough to escape him, but 
 he had no eye for that scenery which with 
 us most deHghts poet and painter. To him 
 the sea was a gloomy and fearful object : 
 
 "The tide-swoFn Firth with sullen-sounding roar"; 
 
 " the stormy wave 
 Where mony a danger I must brave " ; 
 
 " the doubling roar, 
 Surging on the rocky shore" ; 
 
 it was a cold, cruel power, crushing its 
 victims or severing them from home and 
 friends : 
 
 " Th' unwary sailor thus aghast, 
 The whirlin' torrent viewin', 
 'Mid circling horrors yields at last 
 To overwhelming ruin " ; 
 
 " Ye foam-crested billows, allow me to wail 
 Ere ye toss me afar from my loved native shore " ; 
 
 " But seas between us braid hae roared 
 Sin'-auld lang syne." 
 
 It is a curious but not an isolated fact. In 
 spite of our wonderful mixture of land and 
 sea, in spite of the Norse blood in our veins, 
 there seems to be something in us apathetic
 
 THE LAND OF BURNS 13 
 
 to the sea. Scotch poetry smells not of the 
 sea, but of the meadow, the copse, and the 
 hill ; we have had great land-fighters by 
 the hundred, but have hardly added a name 
 to the roll of naval heroes.^ 
 
 ^ I can only remember these : — before the Union 
 Sir Andrew Barton and Sir Andrew Wood, and after 
 the Union Admiral Duncan and Lord Dundonald. I 
 should perhaps add to the list Paul Jones, a scamp and 
 a braggart, but a daring and able commander, a Solway 
 man, son to the gardener at Arbigland.
 
 11. 
 
 ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Were Burns to revisit "Auld Coila" he would 
 find the great features of nature unchanged — 
 the rising sun would still glint over Galston 
 Muirs, and the rising moon glowr over Cum- 
 nock Hills, Logan would still glide to the 
 summer sun, and hermit Ayr steal through his 
 woods ; but nearly everything else would be new 
 and strange — the Kirktouns grown to villages, 
 the villages grown to towns, the towns swollen 
 out of kenning, and a new skin over the whole 
 face of the country. Nowadays high farming 
 has fenced, and drained, and snodded almost 
 to the tops of the hills. In Burns's days there 
 
 were hardly any enclosures. Animals at grass, 
 
 14
 
 ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY 15 
 
 unless one could 
 
 " Ca' them out to park or hill," 
 
 have to be tethered : 
 
 " As Mailie and her lambs thegither 
 Were ae day nibblin' on the tether"; 
 
 so the Auld Farmer to his Auld Mare 
 Maggie : 
 
 "Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether 
 To some hained rig " ; 
 
 the shepherd, when he leaves his charge, 
 
 "... steeks his faulding slap"; 
 the patch of grain on the Infield is protected by 
 
 "... a corn-enclosing bauk"; 
 
 and when the scanty crop is gathered in, 
 the cows are left to wander freely over Infield 
 and Outfield, bauk and all : 
 
 " But if the beast and branks be spar'd 
 Till kye be gaun without the herd, 
 An' a' the vittel in the yard 
 
 Are theekit right, 
 I mean your ingle-side to guard 
 
 Ae winter night."
 
 i6 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 What fences there were were the sheughs and 
 the dykes so often named, the sheughs (or 
 ditches) being the only drains, and the dykes 
 being either round the steadings or march- 
 dykes. There are still moors in the district ; 
 but they do not bulk as they do in the 
 Burns landscape, and the " whins," and the 
 " brackens," and the " ragweed," and the " rash- 
 bushes," and the " spritty knowes," and the 
 " lang yellow broom " have fallen back before 
 cleaner husbandry ; even the " rough burr 
 thistle " — the " symbol dear " spared of Burns's 
 " weeder-clips " — has been ruthlessly ordered 
 off the ground ; the " meikle-stanes " have 
 been broken up ; and, if the " cresting-cairns " 
 survive away up on the hill-tops, the near- 
 home cairns, such as Tam o' Shanter passed 
 or Leezie the wanton weedo, have disappeared 
 before their natural enemy the dyke-builder. 
 Fine turnpikes — not to speak of railroads — 
 have replaced the Burns roads. These were 
 very rudimentary. On their way to Mauch- 
 line, the " swankies young in braw braid-
 
 ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY 17 
 
 claith " have to keep " springing o'er the 
 gutters " ; Tarn o' Shanter between Ayr' and 
 Kirk Alloway has to cross a ford ; " the lang 
 Scotch miles " take the unlucky traveller 
 
 " Through mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles " ; 
 
 and the Auld Farmer reminds his auld mare 
 
 " That day ye pranced wi' muckle pride 
 When ye bure hame my bonny bride" ; 
 
 the bonny bride, of course, riding behind her 
 man on a pillion, and pillions coming of roads 
 too bad for wheels. 
 
 B
 
 III. 
 
 FAUNA AND FLORA. 
 
 Even these have changed. Burns gives us a 
 long Hst of wild birds, nearly thirty of them. 
 Of these the " whistHng robin," the " mellow 
 mavis," the " wailing cushat," the " wee song- 
 sters o' the wood," are still spared to us all, 
 and the " springing moorcock," the " birring 
 paitrick," the " lonely woodcock" are still left 
 to the sportsman. But the " stately swan," the 
 " rairing bittern," and the "grave sage hern" 
 are scarce now-a-days in Kyle. 
 
 The times have very naturally been harder 
 on the four-footed beasts than on the " com- 
 moners of air." 
 
 " The thummart, wiF cat, brock, an' tod " 
 
 i8
 
 FAUNA AND FLORA 19 
 
 are all practically extinct except the tod, and 
 the tod has had his fangs filed. He is still a 
 terror to the unprotected hen, but sheep are now 
 pretty safe from him. When Burns wrote, the 
 tod is the author of the "sheepcote spoiled," as 
 well as the "blood-stained roost": Mailie's dying 
 prayer for her lambs is that they may be saved 
 
 " Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives " ; 
 
 and when the " Twa Herds " fall out, their 
 flocks are asked, 
 
 " Wha noo will keep ye frae the fox, 
 
 Or worrying tykes .'' " 
 
 Hares were more numerous in Burns's day 
 than they have been in ours, even before the 
 Ground Game Act. We might infer this from 
 the existence of the great stretches of rough 
 open Outfield, yielding just the cover and 
 the long run that suit the hare ; but we may 
 also infer it from the way Burns speaks of 
 her. He names her over and over again with 
 all sorts of epithets and pet names — sure signs 
 of familiarity. We have " wheeling hares," and
 
 20 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 " hirplin' hares," and " jinkin' hares," and 
 " whuddin' mawkins," and " amorous pussies," 
 etc., etc. On the other hand, Burns never names 
 the rabbit ; rabbits must have swarmed on the 
 sandy dunes along the sea-shore, but Burns had 
 no love of sea or sea-shore, and whene'er he 
 took his walks abroad, turned his steps inland. 
 
 Burns did not care for " the flaunting 
 fliowers our gardens yield," but he had a 
 passionate love of wild flowers, and he gives 
 us a list of them almost as long as his list 
 of wild birds. All of them — the gowan and 
 the violet, the rose, " first of flowers," and the 
 primrose, " firstlin' o' the year," the " little 
 harebells " and the " stately foxglove," and the 
 rest of them — are still there to delight the 
 eye and scent the air, but, alas ! the " prim- 
 rose braes " and " lily leas " have mostly been 
 grubbed up. 
 
 Grafting is named as a familiar art of the 
 gardener : 
 
 " As on the brier the budding rose 
 Still richer breaks, and fairer grows."
 
 FAUNA AND FLORA 21 
 
 Burns names very few forest trees, I think 
 only the oak : 
 
 " On lofty aiks the cushats wail " ; 
 
 the ash, once : 
 
 " She stately like yon youthful ash " ; 
 
 and the pine, once : 
 
 " Gi'e me the cot below the pine." 
 
 This is just what we should expect. Ayrshire, 
 
 which had once been covered with wood — 
 
 testibus the " swirly auld moss aiks " still dug 
 
 from every moss — had much less wood in 
 
 Burns's days than in ours : the lairds had neither 
 
 taste nor means to indulge in " barren timber." 
 
 On the other hand. Burns so often and .often 
 
 speaks of copsew'ood trees, the " scented birk," 
 
 the " milkwhite thorn," the " rustling holly " 
 
 with its " polished leaves and berries red," 
 
 as to show that much more natural copse 
 
 and scrub was scattered about then than now, 
 
 more " haz'ly shaws," and " briery dens," and 
 
 " breathing woodbine bowers " : 
 
 "Within the glen sae bushy, O, 
 Aboon the plain sae rashy, O."
 
 22 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 One tree that is still extant will hardly 
 be found in its old place. In the " Address 
 to the Deil " we read : 
 
 " When twilight did my grannie summon 
 To =ay her prayers, douce, honest woman ! 
 Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin' 
 
 Wi' eerie drone, 
 Or, rustlin', through the boortries comin', 
 
 Wi' heavy groan." 
 
 In those days the Devil was a perfect nuisance, 
 always thrusting himself in where he was not 
 wanted, and indulging in the frivolous and 
 vexatious pranks of the fiend school-boy. 
 The boortrie, it was fortunately discovered,, 
 was a valuable prophylactic, and it was con- 
 stantly planted round the steading ; there its 
 shade was sometimes sought as a quiet retreat 
 for the solitary musings and devotions of the 
 old Covenanter folk. Now-a-days the enemy 
 has given up his pranks for more serious 
 tactics, old Covenanter folk and their old 
 ways are passed away, and the boortrie is 
 no more planted round the steading.
 
 IV. 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 From the few allusions to other occupations 
 we may infer that agriculture was the main 
 occupation. The main products of the soil 
 can be made out. 
 
 Wheat is grown in favoured spots : 
 
 " Let husky wheat the haughs adorn." 
 
 " The rustling corn " is oats, " corn " being 
 applied (as elsewhere) to the grain most in 
 vogue : 
 
 " An' shook baith mickle corn an' bear." 
 
 Bear, " the bearded bear," or barley is pro- 
 minent ; John Barleycorn was both eaten and 
 
 very largely drunk. 
 
 23
 
 24 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Beans : 
 
 " At e'en when beans their fragrance shed." 
 
 Pease, evidently field pease, which were a 
 regular article of food : 
 
 " To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal 
 At stacks o' pease or stocks o' kail." 
 
 Hay: 
 
 " In simmer when the hay was mawn." 
 
 Clover : 
 
 " While clover blooms white o'er the lea." 
 
 Lint (whose " darling blue " has been wiped 
 out by cotton) : 
 
 " A twomond auld sin' lint was i' the bell." 
 
 There is a good deal of dairying. Butter 
 often comes in, but always as an orra treat. 
 For the Holy Fair, farls are 
 
 "... bak'd wi' butter, 
 
 Fu' crump that day " ; 
 
 at Hallowe'en 
 
 "... butter'd so'ns wi' fragrant lunt 
 Set a' their gabs a steerin' " ;
 
 AGRICULTURE 25 
 
 and in days gone by, Nansie had 
 
 "... buttered his brose " 
 
 for the husband she now HchtHes to the very 
 bairns. 
 
 If " the yellow treasure " is a rare luxury, 
 cheese is common ; even the cotter's wife has 
 
 "... her weel-hained kebbuck fell." 
 
 But it is only of skimmed milk after all : 
 
 "... sweet milk cheese, in monie a whang," 
 
 is bracketed with the " farls bak'd wi' butter " 
 as a special cate for Holy Fair. 
 Sheep are bred : 
 
 " The auld gudeman delights to view 
 His sheep an' kye thrive bonny, O ! " 
 
 and something has already been done to 
 improve the breed : 
 
 " She was nae get o' moorland tips, 
 Wi' tawtit ket an' hairy hips. 
 For her forebears were brocht in ships 
 
 Frae yont the Tweed : 
 A bonnier fleece ne'er crossed the clips, 
 Than Mailie's dead."
 
 2 6 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 The pig is named : 
 
 " An' wha was it but Grumphie 
 Asteer that nicht ! " 
 
 but I see no allusion to bacon, and infer that 
 
 the pig had to go to pay the rint. 
 
 There are repeated allusions to poultry. 
 
 Even Poosie Nansie had a " chicken-cavie " ; 
 
 the " turkey-cock pride " had been seen and 
 
 noted ; and geese were pastured in the open 
 
 land, as one may still see them in England 
 
 wherever the common has not yet been 
 
 enclosed : 
 
 " Or faith ! I fear that \vi' the geese 
 I shortly boost to pasture." 
 
 The only vegetables named are 
 potatoes : 
 
 " Potatoe-bings are snuggit up frae skaith " ; 
 
 kail (or curly-greens) : 
 
 " An' hunger'd mawkin's ta'en her way 
 To kailyards green " ; 
 
 and onions : 
 
 " As ane were peeling onions." 
 There is no notice even of turnips.
 
 AGRICULTURE 27 
 
 Fruits are ver}- rarely named — only the 
 hardy but admirable gooseberry, once : 
 
 " As plump an' grey as ony groset ! " 
 
 and of fruits de luxe^ 
 
 " That sunny walls from Boreas screen," 
 we have 
 
 " Peaches and cherries, with roses and lilies." 
 
 In " Hallowe'en " the apple wee Jennie " gat 
 frae Uncle Johnie " was evidently a rare 
 luxury, as likewise the " auld gude-wife's 
 weel-hoarded nits." 
 
 On the other hand, bees are so often 
 named that they have evidently formed a 
 common part of the petite culture. They 
 " hum round the gay rose," " hum round the 
 breathing flower," " sip nectar from the openin' 
 flower," and so forth ; a tocher-hunter is told 
 that 
 
 " It's a' for the hiney he'll cherish the bee" ; 
 
 and the witches rush at Tarn o' Shanter, 
 
 " As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke, 
 When plundering herds assail their byke."
 
 28 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Honey must have been a sore temptation 
 to the herd in days when the price of a 
 pound of sugar would have made a big hole 
 in his week's wage. 
 
 Farm work is carried on in a rude fashion. 
 The plough has four horses : 
 
 "My pleugh is now thy bairntime a', 
 Four gallant beasts as e'er did draw"; 
 
 and Burns himself at Mossgiel has 
 
 "... four brutes o' gallant mettle 
 As ever drew before a pettle." 
 
 So common was the four-in-hand that there 
 are regular names for each of the team : see 
 "The Inventory." The names of only three are 
 actually given there : the "Lan' ahin" (or nigh 
 wheeler), the " Lan' afore " (or nigh leader), 
 and the " Fur ahin " (or off wheeler) : the 
 fourth, described as a " Highland Donald 
 hastie," was the " Fur afore " (or off leader). 
 The "Lan' ahin," otherwise the " Fittielan'," 
 had the hardest work of the team. Hence the 
 special force of the line in " The Auld Farmer's
 
 AGRICULTURE 29 
 
 Salutation of his Auld Mare " : 
 
 " Thou wast a noble fittie-laii 
 As e'er in tug or tow were drawn." 
 
 The four-some team was needed, not that the 
 
 " brutes " were poor (Burns expects " fifteen 
 
 pun at least " for his " cowt," and the Auld 
 
 Farmer tells his auld mare that her progeny 
 
 that he had 
 
 "... sell't awa'" 
 . . . drew me thritteen pounds an' twa, 
 The vera warst," 
 
 good prices as money values went), but partly 
 because of the rough unclean ground, the 
 " muckle stanes " and " spritty knowes " and 
 other obstacles to be overcome, partly because 
 of the clumsy wooden plough. The wonder 
 is what Ayrshire pith and muscle could do in 
 all the circumstances. Hear the Auld Farmer 
 once more : 
 
 "Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun, 
 On guid March weather, 
 Hae turned sax rood beside our han' 
 For days thegither."
 
 30 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Horses are not the only draught animals : 
 
 "And owsen frae the furrowed field 
 Return sae dowf an' weary O ! " 
 
 "And o'er the lea I look sae fain, 
 
 When Jockie's owsen hameward ca'." 
 
 On a few north-country farms oxen (which 
 had disappeared from Scotland unless as eat- 
 ables) have been of late years re-introduced as 
 draught animals : they must once have been 
 quite common : we can tell this from an 
 " Oxgate of land," and from Oxgang, Oxwell, 
 Oxenam, Oxenford, and other place-names. 
 Harrowing was perhaps left for lighter beasts : 
 
 " An' pownies reek in pleugh or braik." 
 
 Traces are made either of raw hide or of rope, 
 leather and chain being unknown: 
 
 " " . . . a worthy beast 
 As e'er in tug or tow was traced," 
 
 " tug " being a strip of raw hide. Tethers 
 either were cord, or were home-made from the 
 hair of the beasts' tails. Mailie's dying prayer
 
 AGRICULTURE 31 
 
 for her lambs is 
 
 " Oh bid him never tie them mair 
 Wi' wicked strings o' hemp and hair." 
 
 Branks — 
 
 "And then its shanks, 
 They were as thin, as sharp an' sma' 
 As cheeks o' branks" — 
 
 were an arrangement of wood and rope which 
 did duty for a bridle. Brechan is the horse- 
 collar : 
 
 " Wi' braw new branks in nieikle pride, 
 And eke a braw new brechan." 
 
 The grain is, of course, cut with the hook: 
 
 " Still shearing an' clearing 
 The tither stookit raw"; 
 
 and the squad of shearers have to keep time 
 with the " stibble-rig." 
 
 The crop is by no means safe even when 
 stacked. Backward husbandry means late har- 
 vests, and in a late harvest in Scotland "stuff" 
 has a good chance to be " unco green." There
 
 32 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 is a provision for such a case : the stack is 
 ventilated by the " fause hoose," which we hear 
 of in " Hallowe'en." Thanks to the " fause 
 hoose," or it may be to slovenly building, 
 the stack sometimes threatens to capsize, and 
 has to be " timmer-propt for thrawin'," as 
 Will's " nieves " find to their cost. 
 
 Threshing is done with the flail, the 
 " thresher's weary flinging tree." Thus with 
 John Barleycorn, 
 
 " They laid him down upon his back, 
 An' cudgelled him full sair." 
 
 ^o^ 
 
 Threshing is reckoned light work : 
 
 " When I was beardless, young, and blate, 
 An' first could thresh the barn " : 
 
 and of the " three mischievous boys " at Moss- 
 giel one is " a thrasher." The winnowing 
 machine was unknown, and when it was first 
 introduced was violently opposed as an arro- 
 gating of a function of the Creator, a presump- 
 tuous making of " devil's wind," as they called 
 it ; the old way was to throw the grain up.
 
 AGRICULTURE ^^ 
 
 and hand-fan the caff out of it. Thus John 
 Barleycorn : 
 
 " They hung him up before the storm." 
 
 In the process they use a " wecht," a sort of 
 magnified tambourine : 
 
 " Meg fain wad tae the barn gaen, 
 To win' three wechts o' naething." 
 
 This way of winnowing explains why, viz. for 
 the sake of the cross draught, two doors facing 
 each other are always found in old barns, and 
 gives a fine meaning to a line not otherwise 
 understandable : 
 
 " The wakened lavrock warbhng springs, 
 An' climbs the early sky, 
 Winnowing blythe her dewy wings 
 In morning's rosy eye." 
 
 And the rudeness of all these appliances ex- 
 plains how on Mossgiel, a farm of 1 1 8 acres, 
 Burns, besides his two brothers and himself 
 and his mother and three sisters, needs three 
 boys to help him : 
 
 " A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t'other. 
 Wee Davock hands the nowt in fother." 
 c
 
 34 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 The smaller implements, " the spades, the 
 mattocks, and the hoes," " the shools an' 
 knapping hammers," " the graip," etc., which 
 are probably as old as Triptolemus, would be 
 the same as our own, but clumsier. Only one 
 of them needs notice. The wife of that unlucky 
 wabster, Willie Wastle, among other charms, 
 has " walie nieves like midden creels." The 
 midden creel was essential ; it carried out the 
 manure to the Infield. It has now dropped 
 out of use in the Lowlands, but it is still at 
 work in the Highlands. On hundreds of 
 crofts, any day in potato-planting, the crofter's 
 wife may be seen, as Henry George saw her, 
 peching along under the creel full of sea-ware 
 for the " lazy beds," while the crofter, leaning 
 by the door-cheek, moodily sucks his pipe and 
 revolves his wrongs.
 
 V. 
 
 LAND-HOLDING. 
 
 In Kyle, as in Scotland generally, a good 
 deal of the land used to be held by " bonnet 
 lairds," farmers who, like English yeomen, 
 owned their own farms, and who had their 
 name because they wore the Scotch bonnet, 
 and did not attempt the cocked hat of the 
 gentry. To this class belong Tarn Glen's 
 rival, " Lowrie, the laird of Drumeller," who 
 could not think more of himself if he were 
 laird of Eglinton or Colean, and the " braw 
 wooer" who is able to offer 
 
 " A weel stockit mailing, himsel' for the laird." 
 
 But for the most part the land carried " the 
 
 35
 
 36 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 laird, the tenant, and the cotter." We hear 
 
 something of all three. To begin with the 
 
 laird : 
 
 " Our laird gets in his rackit rents, 
 His coals, his kain, an' a' his stents." 
 
 We have changed all this. An addition to 
 the money rent has driven from the field the 
 multures, the kain fowls, the driving of coals, 
 and the other droits de seigneur. What is 
 more to the purpose, we have opened fire 
 on the " rackit rents." From Burns's day to 
 our own, under the demoralizing influence of 
 ownership, landlords have constantly exacted 
 a competition price for the use of their land, 
 and taken for the contingent produce the best 
 offer they could get. How unlike the poor 
 but honest cultivator, who would scorn to ex- 
 tort a competition price for the actual produce, 
 or to cost his milk or his meal or his mutton 
 without consulting the consumer ! We have 
 at last made a beginning of better things, and 
 our brilliant success so far insures the spread 
 of the new system. We cannot refuse to the
 
 LAND-HOLDING 37 
 
 rest of the Tetrarchy the blessings which have 
 secured the gratitude and affection of our 
 Celtic allies, nor limit to the hirer of land, 
 principles that equally apply to the hirer of 
 houses or the consumer of commodities. Soon, 
 we may hope, competition-price shall be as 
 extinct as Ship-money, and a man shall no 
 more be held to a bad bargain than to a 
 contract of personal servitude. Unluckily it 
 was not so in Burns's time. The tenants 
 were allowed to bid as much rent as ever 
 they chose, and if they could not pay up at 
 Whissenday and Martinmas, they had to "thole 
 the factor's snash," and, may be, worse things. 
 They were undeniably poor (the whole pro- 
 duce of their little farms, as farming then was, 
 would not have made them rich) : 
 
 " Our whipper-in, wee blastit wonner, 
 Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner 
 Better than ony tenant man 
 His Honour has in a' the Ian'"; 
 
 and the cotters, with 
 
 "... nocht but a cothouse and yaird,"
 
 38 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 are even worse off: 
 
 "An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, 
 I own it's past my comprehension." 
 
 Our labourers live better than that. Yet the 
 old cotter's bill of fare includes one luxury 
 almost unknown to his successors : 
 
 " The soupe their only Hawkie doth afford, 
 
 That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cud." 
 
 The cotter has the three acres and a cow ! 
 The three acres, such as they were, were not 
 ill to get in those days of sparse population 
 and rough, open land ; but the cow represented 
 i marvellous self-denial, for the penny fee off 
 
 which the cotter had saved her price after 
 supporting " himsel', his wife, and smytrie o' 
 wee duddy weans," was such as a hafflin of 
 our day would scoff at. 
 
 . ft
 
 VI. 
 
 HOUSES. 
 
 These were very bad. We are not surprised 
 at Poosie Nansie's quarters : 
 
 " He ended, an' the kebars sheuk 
 Aboon the loud uproar ; 
 The frichtit rattens backward leuk, 
 An' seek the benmost bore." 
 
 But Burns's own house is little better. It is 
 entered by the rudest of door fastenings: 
 
 " When cHck ! the string the sneck did draw " ; 
 and by the loosest of doors : 
 
 " While frosty winds blaw in the drift 
 Ben to the chimley lug, 
 I grudge a wee the great folks' gift. 
 That leeve sae bien an' snug." 
 39
 
 40 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 It certainly has a spence, but things are not 
 much better there : 
 
 " There, lanely, by the ingle cheek 
 I sat and eyed the spewing reek 
 That filled wi' host-provoking smeek 
 
 The auld clay biggin', 
 An' heard the restless rations squeak 
 
 Aboot the riggin'." 
 
 The " auld clay biggin' " was the farmhouse of 
 Mossgiel, a farm of ii8 acres and £go rent. 
 We may be sure that the labourer's " theekit 
 cot " was much worse, yet it could be a home 
 a prince might envy: 
 
 " His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily. 
 His clean hearthstane, his thrifty wifie's smile, 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
 Does a' his weary carking cares beguile. 
 An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil."
 
 VII. 
 
 CLOTHING. 
 
 To begin at the top, Ayrshire is the home of the 
 knitted and waulked bonnet. This admirable 
 head-gear, whose merits have been in our day 
 discovered by gentlemen, and even by ladies, 
 is not at all worn now as it was. In Burns's 
 day all countrymen of or under the rank of 
 Bonnet Lairds wore the bonnet on all occasions. 
 It stood their roughest work, and it was their 
 best as well. Tam o' Shanter 
 
 "... skelpit on thro' dub an' mire, 
 Whiles haudin' fast his guid blue bonnet " ; 
 
 the auld guidman, to say grace in the change- 
 house, 
 
 "... afif his bonnet lays " ; 
 
 41
 
 42 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 the elder at the plate wears it: 
 
 "A greedy glow'r Black Bonnet throws, 
 An' we maun draw our tippence" ; 
 
 even the minister has 
 
 "... gown, an' ban', an' douce black bonnet"; 
 
 they wear it at funerals, with the ghastly 
 bobs in vogue on such occasions : 
 
 "An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape ";^ 
 
 and the rural masher, when decked in all 
 his bravery, still wears it. We have the 
 complete masher outfit : 
 
 " His coat is the hue of his bonnet sae blue, 
 His fecket is white as the new driven snaw, 
 His hose they are blae, and his shoon like the slae, 
 An' his clear siller buckles they dazzle us a'."^ 
 
 ^ Another emblefli of woe was " weepers," bands of 
 white muslin stitched over the coat cuffs at funerals : 
 
 ' ' Auld cantie Kyle may weepers wear, 
 An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear." 
 
 ^A fecket is a sleeved waistcoat, like a groom's. 
 Burns gives us his own masher outfit in " the Ronalds 
 of the Bennals."
 
 CLOTHING 43 
 
 No doubt the masher's coat, like the coats of 
 the " swankies young " at the " Holy Fair," is 
 of " braw braid claith," but the common wear 
 is rough woollen home-spun : 
 
 " What tho' on hamely fare we dine, 
 Wear hodden grey and a' that." 
 
 The legs are sometimes encased in the same 
 stuff, like 
 
 " The vera grey breeks o' Tarn Glen " ; 
 
 sometimes in blue plush (like our marvellous 
 carters' waistcoats with the vast pearl buttons): 
 
 "Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
 That ance were plush o' guid blue hair." 
 
 The " breeks " are veritable knee-breeches : 
 
 " The lads sae trig, wi' wooer babs 
 Weel knotted on their garten"; 
 
 (with trousers these babs, the recognized signal 
 of a purpose of proposal, would have been in- 
 visible.) " Hose " are of course long stockings. 
 " Shoon " are repeatedly mentioned : 
 
 "and stockings and pumps to put on my stumps."
 
 44 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 The plaid is worn over all as a wrap : 
 
 "I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal, 
 An' owre the hills to Nannie O !" 
 
 but it is specially the mark of the shepherd : 
 
 "Ye wha were ne'er by lairds respeckit 
 To wear the plaid, 
 But by the brutes themselves eleckit 
 To be their guide." 
 
 Place aux dames. Except " Miss's fine 
 Lunardi," the fashionable bonnet just named 
 from the famous aeronaut, the only woman's 
 head-dress given by Burns is the " auld wife's 
 flannen toy " : women as a rule had their heads 
 bare, or covered them by a graceful fold of 
 the plaid : the auld wife's " toy " was a close- 
 fitting cap hanging down over the shoulders, 
 like the linen covers of our soldiers' caps in the 
 Tropics. The famous " Cutty Sark " is made 
 of " Paisley harn," or coarse linen cloth. It 
 costs 3s. 4d. (" twa pun Scots "), which I am 
 told would be a high price now-a-days for a 
 full size. What the price would have been 
 for " snaw-white seventeen hundred linen " we
 
 CLOTHING 45 
 
 are unfortunately not told. But both this 
 fine fabric and the harn were orra articles ; 
 " flannen," which the witches had stuck to 
 after " inlisting in the core," was the common 
 wear. Jenny's " jimps and jirkinet," easy stays 
 and shortgown, are contrasted with 
 
 " My lady's gown with gairs upon't, 
 And gowden flowers sae rare upon't." 
 
 In the " Vision " Coila wears a " robe of 
 tartan sheen," and in the " Holy Fair " 
 Fun, Superstition, and Hypocrisy wear " man- 
 teeles." How far these were in real use I 
 cannot say, but one sketch is certainly from 
 life. Women go to and from church bare- 
 foot, wearing the " shoon " only during the 
 service : 
 
 "The lasses, skelpin' barefit thrang, 
 
 and 
 
 In silks an' scarlet ghtter": 
 
 " At slaps the billies bide a blink, 
 Till lasses strip their shoon." 
 
 I can myself remember this good old act of 
 thrift, now I fear given up. Country girls,
 
 46 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 " barefit carlins " whose best foot-gear for the 
 six week days had been hoggars, tramped to 
 church in their Sunday braws, carrying in one 
 hand (besides sometimes a parasol) a white 
 napkin folded round the Bible and the sprig 
 of southernwood, and in the other hand a 
 bundle containing the shoes and stockings ; 
 they stopped at the nearest burn to the 
 church to wash their feet before putting on 
 the shoes and stockings, and on the way 
 home they stopped again to take these off 
 In church itself they were as scrupulous to 
 be shod as if the Apostle's command to 
 women had been to cover the feet instead 
 of the head.
 
 VIII. 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 First on the list stands 
 
 " The hailsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food." 
 
 This is served out in Httle wooden dishes : 
 
 "An' I hae seen their cogie fou', 
 That yet hae tarrow't at it ; 
 But or the day was done, I trow, 
 The laggen they hae clautet." 
 
 It is sometimes eaten with milk : 
 
 "The soupe their only Hawkie does afford"; 
 
 and sometimes with beer : 
 
 " Yet humbly kind in time o' need, 
 The poor man's wine : 
 His wee drap parritch and his bread 
 Thou kitchens fine." 
 47
 
 48 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 " Parritch," however, implied more cooking 
 than was always available. There are two 
 simpler preparations of the oatmeal : 
 
 (i) Crowdie, stir-about of oatmeal and 
 hot water, with no subsequent boiling : ^ 
 
 " Then I gaed hame at crowdie time" ; 
 
 and, 
 
 (2) Drummock, stir-about of oatmeal and 
 cold water, which does not sound appetizing : 
 
 " To tremble under Fortune's cummock, 
 An' scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock." 
 
 The oatmeal, which is boiled into parritch, 
 is also baked into the "bread" mentioned 
 above. There is no sign of ovens; the baking 
 is on the ever-ready girdle : 
 
 " Wi' jumping an' thumping, 
 The vera girdle rang." 
 
 1 Our invaluable friend Hawkie describes the making 
 of crowdie, "and mixed with butter or kitchen fee it 
 makes a strong food." In South Shields Hospital they 
 dieted him on a " villainously weak decoction of oatmeal 
 known as hoWi&s"— Hawkie" s Autobiography, 70. in.
 
 FOOD 49 
 
 On extra occasions the oatcake is enriched : 
 
 " An' farls baked wi' butter, 
 Fu' crump that day." 
 
 The meal used is sometimes " poke-meal." 
 The numerous beggars who tramped from 
 house to house got very little money. The 
 regular dole was a handful of meal from the 
 meal barrel beside the kitchen fire. This was 
 dropped into the beggar's " poke," and there 
 were regular merchants for the " poke-meal " : 
 
 " First, neist the fire, in auld red rags, 
 Sat ane weel brac'd wi' mealy bags" ; 
 
 and again, 
 
 "When the t'other bag I sell, an' the t'other bottle tell"; 
 
 and again, 
 
 "They toomed their pokes, and pawn'd their duds." ^ 
 
 1 Hawkie speaks constantly of "poke-meal." It was 
 
 measured by "tankards," apparently equal to pounds. 
 
 Eight tankards made a "jigger's peck," and sold at 
 
 Ecclefechan in 1815 for 3d. At Crieff (date not given) 
 
 he pays his "tippence" for a night's lodging, with three 
 
 tankards that he could put his arm into up to the elbow, 
 
 and that must have held 3 lb. — Hawkins Autobiography, 
 
 18, 60. 
 
 D
 
 50 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 But oatmeal, though the commonest, is not 
 the only grain eaten. We read of the 
 " barley-miller," from whose " heapit happer " 
 the material flowed for a softer bread than 
 oatcake. Among the royal qualities of " John 
 Barleycorn, the king of grain," we read : 
 
 " On thee aft Scotland chows her cood 
 In souple scones, the wale o' food." 
 
 So again, 
 
 " Fortune, if thou'lt but gie me still 
 Hale breeks, a scone, an' whisky gill"; 
 
 and, 
 
 " It's cryin' here for bakes and gills." 
 
 There is still another kind of bread : 
 
 " Tell yon guid bluid o' auld Boconnock's 
 I'll be his debt twa mashlum bannocks." 
 
 Mashlum bannocks, or scones, were made of 
 a mixture of all sorts of meal, and very good 
 they were, though the colour was against 
 them ; they were black from the mixture 
 in them of meal from the field pease and 
 beans.
 
 FOOD SI 
 
 The regular Hallowe'en supper is 
 " Butter'd sow'ns wi' fragrant lunt," 
 
 sovvans being a sort of soured blaiic mange of 
 grains of oats, very nasty even unbuttered. 
 
 I have spoken elsewhere of the use of 
 butter and cheese, and of vegetables as far 
 as these were known. 
 
 After the porridge and the oatcake the 
 commonest article of food is Scotch broth or 
 kail. This may occasionally contain meat. 
 Thus John Barleycorn is described as 
 
 "... tumblin' in the boilin' flood 
 Wi' kail or beef." 
 
 But the broth is oftener a soiipe inaigre : 
 
 " I'll sit down by my scanty meal, 
 Be't water brose or muslin kail, 
 
 Wi' cheei^fu' face, 
 As lang's the Muses dinna fail 
 
 To say the grace." 
 
 The treasures of the sea seem to have 
 been even less worked in Burns's day than 
 in ours. The herring — which was then a
 
 52 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 staple article with Glasgow working folks — ^ 
 is only named in what we may call proverbs : 
 
 " Ah, Tarn ! ah, Tarn ! thou'll get thy fairin' ! 
 In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin' !" 
 
 and Dr. Hornbook threatens : 
 
 " I'll nail the self-conceited Sot 
 As dead's a herrin'." 
 
 The only other fish food named is in the 
 elegy on Captain Mathew Henderson, 
 
 " An' like stock-fish come o'er his studdie 
 Wi' thy auld sides." 
 
 Butcher meat is expressly named as the 
 diet of the gentles : 
 
 " Gi'e drippin' roasts to kintra lairds." 
 
 ^ Gibson, a contemporary of Burns, says that the Glas- 
 gow mechanics (average wage, 7s. a week) largely lived 
 on herrings and potatoes, off which they could have an 
 ample dinner for i^d., and " no set of people in the world 
 is healthier." Apoplexy, so common in England, " is 
 scarce known here" (small blame to it). Gibson's His- 
 tory of Glasgow in 1777, p. 201.
 
 FOOD 53 
 
 Burns's friends are little beholden to the 
 butcher except for 
 
 " Painch, tripe, or thairm," 
 
 and for ingredients for the haggis. Moorlan' 
 herds, however, have a chance of 
 
 " Guid fat braxies." 
 
 Braxy mutton is a delicacy not to be found 
 on our menus, and I have no knowledge of 
 its merits, but the 
 
 " Great chieftain o' the puddin' race," 
 
 may he reign for ever ! and when the 
 tempting plat is before us, may we have 
 strength of mind to stop before, a little before, 
 
 " oor weel-swall'd kytes belyve 
 Ave bent hke drums, 
 . . . maist like to rive."
 
 IX. 
 
 DRINK. 
 
 I CANNOT recall any allusion by Burns to 
 water as a drink, nor any to whey or butter- 
 milk, nor any to milk itself, except in con- 
 nection with porridge : 
 
 " Blest wi' content, and milk and meal ; 
 O leeze me on my spinning wheel." 
 
 Tea, besides being alluded to as a cause 
 of war : 
 
 " A'e nicht at tea began a plea 
 Within America, man " ; 
 
 and as a source of taxation : 
 
 " If he some scheme like tea and winnocks 
 Wad kindly seek " ; 
 54
 
 DRINK 55 
 
 is alluded to as a beverage, but only for 
 " leddies " : 
 
 " Whiles o'er the wee bit cup an' platie, 
 They sip the scandal potion pretty." 
 
 There is, of course, not a word of coffee, 
 chocolate, etc. 
 
 Of strong drink we have more than enough. 
 There are a few allusions to wine, of course 
 not as a drink for common folk : 
 
 " Poor plackless devils like mysel', 
 It sets you ill 
 Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell" ; 
 
 Captain Grose's drink is port : 
 
 " Oh, port ! oh, port ! shine thou a wee, 
 An' then ye'll see him" ; 
 
 and the Battle of the Whistle is fought in 
 claret : 
 
 " The dinner being over, the claret they ply." 
 
 Brandy has a hand in the disgraceful wind-up 
 of the Holy Fair : 
 
 " There's some are fou' o' brandy."
 
 56 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 But Burns's patriotism and pocket both rise 
 against the invader : 
 
 " Wae worth that brandy, burning trash ! 
 Fell source o' mony a pain an' brash. 
 'T wins monie a poor, doylt, drucken hash, 
 
 O' half his days, 
 An' sends, besides, auld Scotland's cash 
 To her warst faes." 
 
 The great drink was either whisky or beer 
 in various forms, beer, the old national drink, 
 being the commoner of the two. Whisky, 
 which of late years has been displacing claret 
 and champagne, had at one time nearly driven 
 " the poor man's wine " from the field. Within 
 my memory, a glass of draught beer could 
 hardly be got in Scotland, and the only malt 
 liquor in vogue was the pint bottle of sweet 
 ale or hard porter, such as the pedestrian 
 might find at a toll, or the mouthful of sma' 
 yill with which the toper washed down his 
 dram. It was whisky, whisky, everywhere. 
 But whisky was not indigenous to the soil in 
 which it took such firm root. The poisonous 
 exotic came down on us from the Highlands —
 
 DRINK 57 
 
 the cruel avenger of the wrongs of the Celt. 
 In Burns's day it was not fully naturalized: 
 it is " a Highland gill," or " Usquebae," or 
 " Ferintosh," or " that dear Kilbagie." And it 
 has not yet got a firm footing in respectable 
 society: it is the soldier's doxy that is "with 
 usquebae an' blankets warm " ; it is to cairds 
 that we are to " gie yill and whisky . . . till 
 they scunner." But it is in beer that the old 
 comrades, over the memories of their boyhood, 
 pledge each other : 
 
 " An' surely ye'll be your pint stowp, 
 An' surely I'll be mine." 
 
 Had the pint stowp (a Scotch pint) been filled 
 with whisky, they would not have wanted a 
 second. There are any number of varieties 
 and of names of the old national drink. 
 It is the " penny wheep," the " tippeny," the 
 "nappy," the "yill," the "reaming swats." 
 Porter also comes up once, at the Ordination, 
 an orra drink on an orra occasion : 
 
 " Come bouse about the porter."
 
 58 BURNS AxND HIS TIMES 
 
 Beer is drunk draught : 
 
 " It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee 
 To taste the barrel." 
 
 As with whisky, which besides being drunk 
 an naturel is made into toddy — 
 
 " The four-gill chap we's gar him clatter, 
 An' kirsen him wi' reekin' water" — 
 
 SO with beer ; besides being drunk fresh from 
 the tap " in cheerful tankards foaming," it 
 is drunk Jiot-with. Here is one of several 
 instances: 
 
 " That merry nicht we get the corn in, 
 O sweetly then thou reams the horn in ! 
 Or reekin' on a New- Year's mornin' 
 
 In cog or bicker, 
 An' just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in 
 An' gusty sucker ! " 
 
 This is the hot-spiced ale of the English 
 village pub. I think it is as extinct in Scot- 
 land as the use of beer to porridge. Home- 
 brewing is also dead — Mr. Gladstone killed 
 what survived of it — but when " Willie brew'd 
 a peck o' maut," so common was the process
 
 DRINK 59 
 
 that it had worked itself into the language 
 in figure of speech : 
 
 " Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair, 
 
 Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill " ; 
 
 and 
 
 " My barmie noddle's workin' prime. 
 My fancy yerkit up sublime." 
 
 Willie would also find that merchants had 
 imported hops for his use : 
 
 "... prigging o'er hops and raisins." 
 
 Burns represents alcohol as the great re- 
 source in sorrow, and, indeed, at all times 
 and on all occasions, sorrowful or joyous, at 
 kirk or at market, among all sorts and condi- 
 tions of men, rich or poor, lay or clerical, in 
 moderation or not — mostly not. No Forbes 
 Mackenzie then restrained excess, and we have 
 a man, an old married farmer, 
 
 "... at the Lord's house, e'en on Sunday, 
 Drinkin' wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday." 
 
 Nay, the inability to drink is named among
 
 6o BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 the miseries of old age : 
 
 " When ance life's day draws near the gloamin', 
 Then farewell cheerful tankards foamin' 
 An' social noise." 
 
 But one must not take for gospel all that 
 poor Burns says. One would suppose that 
 the general abuse of strong drink was worse 
 then than now, that working folks, the mass of 
 the people, drank more. I believe they drank 
 much less, teste Burns himself : " the merry 
 friendly country folks," who will " baud their 
 Hallowe'en" to the end of time, have no strong 
 drink but the one " social glass of strunt," with 
 which they " part aff careerin', Fu' blithe that 
 night"; and the cotter's " cheerfu' supper" is 
 washed down by " the soupe, their only 
 Hawkie does afford." But after making all 
 allowances, it is clear that drunkenness was 
 rife then where it would not now be tolerated. 
 Burns could not have boasted that he had 
 " been bitch fou' 'mang godly priests," or have 
 written the " Holy Fair," if sobriety had been 
 as much a matter of course as it is now among
 
 DRINK 6i 
 
 ministers of religion or those joining in its most 
 sacred office ; and he could not have written 
 the " Whistle " if " wallowing in wine " had 
 been looked on as disgraceful by the gentry. 
 
 Nothing in Burns is more instructive than 
 this " Whistle," a truthful account, with names 
 given, of a real incident. Three of the leading 
 gentry of the country — two of them highly 
 accomplished, and one of them a " high ruling 
 elder" — deliberately set themselves to see 
 which can drink most without falling off his 
 chair ; and Burns, if not actually present, is 
 left to publish an account of the struggle. 
 
 The piece is not pleasant reading, but 
 there is encouragement to be got out of it. 
 The fight for the Whistle is as impossible 
 now-a-days as bull-baiting or duelling. A 
 man in the rank of Maxweltown, or Glen- 
 riddell, or Craigdarroch, or in a much lower 
 rank, who should join such an orgie, or who 
 should drink like Sir Walter's or Dean 
 Ramsay's old lairds and lawyers, would be 
 expelled from society. Even much milder ex-
 
 62 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 cesses that were allowed within living memory 
 are sternly forbidden, and the Classes, barring 
 individuals here and there who are known 
 and shunned, are sober.^ This great improve- 
 ment has been brought about not by Act of 
 Parliament, but by a gradual improvement in 
 principle and sentiment. Why should we 
 despair of a like cause producing a like effect 
 in those ranks of life where drunkenness is not 
 3^et under a severe social ban ? Our lairds took 
 to drinking last century — earlier vice ran in an- 
 other channel — because the rise in rents found 
 
 1 On the 13th January, 1837, the historical Peel 
 Banquet was held here, the most notable political 
 demonstration ever held in Scotland. Dr. Cleland has 
 given us a full account of it (including the speech of 
 one of the very few survivors — 1897 — young Mr. Glad- 
 stone, who responded to the toast of " The Conservative 
 Constituencies of England "). The good doctor enume- 
 rates all the glories of the function, and among them 
 this, that, "though port and sherry wines were served 
 out without limit" from 12 17 cut-glass decanters, yet not 
 more than two or three out of the 3293 noblemen and 
 gentlemen were tipsy, and these two or three were got 
 quietly away. We have improved even upon the stan- 
 dard of 1837. — Cleland's Peel Banquet^ p. no.
 
 DRINK 63 
 
 them with no better way of spending their 
 money than on the pleasures of the table. 
 For a like reason our working people took to 
 drinking when their wages rose on their hands. 
 With the growth of higher tastes their drinking 
 is on the wane, and it will die out in the one 
 class as it has died out in the other. 
 
 But this is an impatient age, and the mode 
 du jour is to fly at every turn to legislation, 
 i.e. in plain English, to coercion. Coercion 
 of the lawless to stop them from attacking 
 the lives, the liberties, or the belongings of 
 the citizens is the first function, the one 
 absolutely essential function, of civil society ; 
 and the quantity and quality of it are fixed 
 by Messieurs les Assassins, for the defence 
 must always beat the attack. Coercion to 
 save grown men from making fools of them- 
 selves, or from reaping the fruits of their 
 folly, is another matter. It often fails of its 
 immediate end, and it never fails to curtail 
 harmless liberty, and to weaken the self- 
 reliance which has been the making of us.
 
 X. 
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES. 
 
 THE LANDED CLASS. 
 
 Burns speaks with great contempt of these — 
 of their gluttony : 
 
 "... the gentry first are stechin"; 
 
 " Gie dreepin' roasts to kintra lairds 
 Till icicles hing frae their beards " ; 
 
 of their duhiess : 
 
 " There passes the squire and his brother the horse " ; 
 
 " Some gapin*^ glowrin' countra laird " ; 
 
 " Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord, 
 He's but a cuif for a' that" ; 
 
 of their arrogance and their self-indulgence : 
 
 " They gang as saucy by puir folk, 
 As I wad by a stinkin' brock " ; 
 64
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 65 
 
 " I tent less, and want less 
 Their roomy fireside, 
 But hanker and canker 
 
 To see their cursed pride"; 
 
 "Alas! how oft in haughty mood, 
 God's creatures they oppress ! 
 Or else, neglecting a' that's guid, 
 They riot in excess." 
 
 And he describes the astonishing deference 
 
 paid them : 
 
 " Or is't the paughty feudal Thane, 
 Wi' ruffled sark an' glancin' cane, 
 Wha thinks himsel' nae sheep-shank bane. 
 
 But lordly stalks, 
 While caps and bannets aff are ta'en, 
 
 As by he walks ?" 
 
 even at " the sacrament " they are specially 
 considered : 
 
 " There stands a shed to fend the showers, 
 An' screen our country gentry":^ 
 
 and Burns himself, though " not envying " the 
 peer, " gives him his bow." 
 
 1 Norman Macleod's father, " Old Norman " of St. 
 Columba, in a graphic account of an open-air com- 
 munion at Dunvegan in 1824, tells us that "some of 
 the better class had erected tents for their own use." 
 Memoir of Norman Macleod, I. 338. 
 
 E
 
 66 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Those, we must remember, were the days 
 of "slee Dundas," and for "saying aye or no's 
 he bade them " in London, the great Boss let 
 our lords and lairds do as they liked in 
 Scotland. Yet many of them, " in spite of all 
 temptation," won Burns's own respect and 
 affection. Here are some lairds : 
 
 Graham of Fintra : 
 
 " The generous Graham " ; 
 
 Fergusson of Craigdarroch : 
 
 " Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law"; 
 
 the Montgomeries of Coilsfield : 
 
 ". . . a martial race portrayed 
 In colours strong ; 
 Bold, soldier-featured, undismayed, 
 They strode along " ; 
 
 William Wallace of Cairnhill : 
 
 " And you farewell ! whose merits claim 
 Justly that highest badge to wear ! 
 Heaven bless your honour'd noble name, 
 To masonry and Scotia dear ! " 
 
 here is a baronet : 
 
 *' Thou who thy honour as thy God rever'st. 
 Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st";
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 67 
 
 here an earl : 
 
 " Glencairn, the truly noble lies in dust, 
 His country's pride, his country's stay" ; 
 
 here even a duke : 
 
 " My Lord, I know your noble ear 
 Woe ne'er assails in vain." 
 
 And when, not ill-pleased at the invitation 
 and not quite at ease as to his comportment, 
 he " dinner'd " with " the noble youthful Daer," 
 Burns found he had to correct views taken at 
 a distance : 
 
 " The fient a pride, nae pride had he, 
 Nor sauce nor state that I could see, 
 Mair than an honest ploughman." 
 
 There are philosophers, a whole school of 
 them, wall-eyed, narrow-nebbit, preposterous, 
 
 "A set o' dull, conceited hashes, 
 Plain truth to speak," 
 
 who solemnly pile all the virtues on one class, 
 and all the vices on another. Burns, when 
 it comes to the bit, pushes this stuff aside, 
 and tells us that God hath made of one blood 
 all classes as well as all nations of men.
 
 68 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 If Burns has a good word for the Gentry, 
 he has never a one for the Merchandry. They 
 are sordid purse-proud rogues ; they are 
 
 " The warldly race that drudge and drive " ; 
 
 "The warldly race that riches chase"; 
 
 " The selfish warldly race 
 Wha think that havins sense and grace, 
 E'en love an' friendship should gie place 
 To catch the plack " ; 
 
 "The sly men of business contriving a snare" ; 
 
 " There centum per centum, the cit with his purse." 
 
 (Ah, me ! the profits of those days !) 
 
 " Poor centum per centum may fast, 
 
 And grumble his hurdies their claithing ; 
 He'll find, when the balance is cast. 
 He's gane to the devil for — naething." 
 
 " Do ye envy the city gent 
 Behind a kist to lie an' sklent, 
 Or purse-proud, big wi' cent per cent, 
 
 An' muckle wame, 
 In some bit brugh to represent 
 
 A Bailie's name 1 " 
 
 " The cit and polecat stink and are secure."
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 69 
 
 There's a banning for you ! "'This is a 
 sad curse,' said my father. ' I am sorry for 
 it,' quoth my Uncle Toby." But Burns knew 
 Httle of the class he denounced. Had he 
 known them better, had he "dinner'd" more 
 with them, he would have found that there 
 were as good men ahint a kist, i.e. counter, 
 as ahint a plough. On his own showing, his 
 own class, men and women, old and young 
 could be as sordid as any of them. 
 
 " Master Tootie " of Mauchline is an adept 
 in tricks, 
 
 " Like scrapin' out auld Crummie's nicks, 
 An' tellin' lies about them"; 
 
 Lowrie, the Laird o' Drumeller, 
 "He brags and he blaws o' his siller" 
 
 as loud as could your city gent ; 
 
 Corydon looks as sharp to the dot as any 
 French bourgeois : 
 
 " O gie me the lass that has acres o' charms, 
 O gie me the lass wi' the vveel stockit farms";
 
 70 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Jenny's mother compels her daughter to marry 
 money as calmly as if she lived in Mayfair : 
 
 " Bad luck to the penny that tempted my minnie, 
 To sell her poor Jenny for siller and Ian' ! " 
 
 Meg o' the Mill needs no compelling : 
 
 " She has gotten a cuif wi' a claute o' siller, 
 And broken the heart o' the barley miller" ; 
 
 and blythe Bessie at the milking shiel is 
 cautioned to 
 
 " cannie wale 
 A routhie but, a routhie ben. 
 
 Tak' this frae me, my bonnie hen, 
 Its plenty beets the luver's fire." 
 
 I am no judge of Arcadies, but, as far as I 
 can make out, as fine specimens of the Genus 
 Sordidmn are to be found in the lower strata 
 as in the upper. 
 
 It is some comfort to traders to note that 
 Burns thinks quite as meanly of lawyers. 
 " Godly writers," indeed, are named, but as 
 
 " Dear remembered ancient yealings, 
 And what would now be strange."
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 71 
 
 Their present representatives are " druken 
 writers " ; they 
 
 "... ply every art of legal thieving," 
 
 and the diaboHcal reliquary of Kirk Alloway 
 includes 
 
 " Three lawyers' tongues, turned inside out, 
 Wi' lies seam'd like a beggai-'s clout." 
 
 Happily, the blackness even here is relieved 
 by Gaun Hamilton : 
 
 " What's no his ain he winna tak' it ; 
 What aince he says he winna break it ; 
 As master, landlord, husband, father, 
 He doesna fail his part in either ! " 
 
 The factor comes off very badly, " Puir 
 tenant bodies, scant o' cash," have to " thole 
 his snash," his oaths, and his threats. Nay, 
 worse : 
 
 " There's mony a creditable stock 
 O' decent, honest, fawsont fo'k 
 Are riven out baith root an' branch, 
 Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, 
 Wha thinks to knit himsel' the faster 
 In favour wi' some gentle Master."
 
 72 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 The doctor is surgeon and apothecar}^ as well. 
 
 " And then o' doctor's saws and whittles, 
 
 O' a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, 
 
 A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, and bottles, 
 
 He's sure to hae." 
 
 There is a surveyor of taxes, fortunately for 
 us, for to his Schedule we owe "The Inventory," 
 with all it tells of old farm life. 
 
 The illicit distiller follows his calling under 
 sore disabilities from " those d — mn'd excise- 
 men." Burns sympathizes with the patriotic 
 industrial, fighting against the Lon'on par- 
 liament's 
 
 "... curst restrictions 
 On Aqua Vitae." 
 
 On the other hand, he denounces the oversea 
 contrabandist, the " blackguard smuggler," for 
 tempting 
 
 " Poor plackless bodies like himsel', 
 Wi' bitter dearthfu' wines to mail. 
 Or foreign gill." ' 
 
 ^ Well might Burns denounce the " blackguard smug- 
 ler." It was he who initiated him, a lad of sixteen, in 
 " scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation." — 
 See Autobiography. Paterson's Burns, iv. 12. 
 
 o
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 73 
 
 Now-a-days the illicit distiller has retired to 
 the corries of Ross and Sutherland, and the 
 " chufifie vintner " no lonijer " colleagues " with 
 the illicit importer. But I suppose the vintner's 
 laugh is " ready chorus " still to a good 
 customer's " queerest stories." I hope his wife 
 no longer pushes her wares by the arts of 
 Tam o' Shanter's landlady. 
 
 The pawnbroker hangs up the three balls, 
 as he does to-day, alongside the vintner : 
 
 " Gude ale gars me sell my hose, 
 
 Sell my hose, an' pawn my shoon." 
 
 The miller is often named : every barony 
 had its mill. The mill is a sort of club : 
 
 " At kirk or market, mill or smiddie," 
 
 Caesar, though he is " o' high degree," for- 
 gathers with the " tawted tyke " ; and 
 
 " Ilka melder wi' the miller," 
 
 Tam o' Shanter 
 
 " Sits as lang as he has siller." 
 
 " Brewer Gabriel's fire " has once blazed.
 
 74 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 and the browster wife " brevv'd gude ale for 
 gentlemen." 
 
 The maltster is implied by " John Barley- 
 corn," and the distiller by " thae cursed horse- 
 leeches o' the Excise." 
 
 There is no baker ; why should there be 
 in the " Land o' cakes " and " souple scones, 
 the wale o' food"? But the butcher is known : 
 
 "... as butchers like a knife " ; 
 
 and the barber — he dresses the gentles' heads: 
 
 " Men three parts made by Taylors and by Barbers." 
 
 There is no watch or clock maker ; the pocket 
 watch and the house clock, even the cheery 
 little wag -at- the -wa', are modern luxuries. 
 The only clocks named are the two clocks of 
 Ayr, " the drowsy Dungeon Clock " and 
 "Wallace Tower's." 
 
 The middleman scarce existed : there was 
 no demand for him. People's wants were few, 
 and were mostly supplied from their own 
 labours, 
 
 " Wi' sma' to sell an' less to buy."
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 75 
 
 The traveller, bagman, or rider is not named. 
 The " hops and raisins," the " gusty succar," 
 the " succar candie," and the " wee bit cup and 
 platie " do imply the grocer, but he is not 
 named, nor the draper, nor the retailer of 
 any sort. 
 
 The travelling " merchant " does most of the 
 work of our shopkeeper. He is of two sorts : 
 the chapman {i.e. Kaufmann), the aristocrat 
 of the road, who deals in cambrics, ribbons, 
 needles, knives, and garters ; and the cadger, 
 who deals in coarser goods, as crockery. The 
 chapman carries his pack on his back ; the 
 cadger has perforce a beast of some sort. 
 These men have a hard and rough life. 
 " Market days are wearing late " and the 
 chance of sales over, before the " Chapman 
 billie leaves the street," and as he " trudges 
 wi' his pack " across country, he may, even 
 in sight of the market town, be " smoor'd " in 
 the snaw ; and it may be the cadger's fate as 
 well as his pownie's to die " at some dyke 
 back."
 
 76 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 The schoolmaster is abroad : 
 
 " Gie him the schulin' o' your weans"; 
 
 but Burns does not think much of him : 
 
 " What's a' your jargon o' your schools ? 
 Leeze me on drink ! it gies us mair 
 Than either school or college." 
 
 Burns speaks with a shudder of "vampire 
 booksellers " and " scorpion critics," but it was 
 not in the land of Burns that these creatures 
 bled or bit. 
 
 THE WORKING CLASS. 
 
 In old days operations were simple, and 
 labour little subdivided, and several sorts of 
 workers now everywhere to be found, do not 
 appear in Burns's poems. There are no 
 masons (except Freemasons), and no slaters : 
 biggish farmers are content to live in " auld 
 clay biggans," roofed with " thack and rape." 
 There are of course no plumbers or glaziers, 
 painters or paperhangers. It is more curious 
 to find no wright, joiner, or carpenter ; but
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 77 
 
 the tools and training needed for rough wood- 
 work are within a layman's reach. 
 
 On the other hand, ironworking, from the 
 tools and training it needs, is always a 
 separate trade, 
 
 " An' Burnewin comes on like death 
 At every chap ! " 
 
 Burnewin is also farrier : 
 
 " An' every naig was ca'd a shoe on, 
 The smith and Tam got roarin' fou on." 
 
 With her " spinning wheel," or her simpler 
 " rock and reel," any lass can make lint or 
 " 00 " into yarn, but the weaver or wabster 
 is an artist. He often appears, and is of 
 two sorts. There is the customer weaver 
 like Willie Wastle, who wove you a web 
 from your own yarn (or part of it) : 
 
 " Willie was a wabster gude, 
 
 Cou'd stown a clue wi' ony bodie"; 
 
 and the trade weaver, like 
 
 "... the batch o' wabster lads 
 Blackguardin' frae Kilmarnock,"
 
 78 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 where the carpet trade has already taken 
 root. 
 
 The weaver begets the heckler : ^ 
 
 " O merry ha'e I been teething a heckle." 
 
 We have the shoemaker in the immortal 
 Soutar Johnny. 
 
 And the customer taylor makes up your 
 own cloth for you on the ethical lines of 
 Willie Wastle: 
 
 " The Taylor staw the linin' o't." 
 
 There are no dyers or bleachers, but my 
 " waukit loof " finely indicates the fuller's 
 art. 
 
 The " collier laddie " is already scratching 
 at the rich Ayrshire coal field. 
 
 ^ It would have been well for Burns had he never 
 heard of the heckler's trade. It was when learning it 
 at Irvine that he met Richard Brown, and it was 
 Richard Brown who taught him to " look with levity 
 on a certain fashionable failing which hitherto I had 
 regarded with horror." His new friend's teaching soon 
 bore fruit, as Burns himself tells, in the seduction of 
 Elizabeth Paton. — Autobiography, Paterson, iv. 15.
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 79 
 
 The " land labourer " naturally appears in 
 many lights. He ploughs, 
 
 " The brawny, bany, ploughman chiel " ; 
 he sows, 
 
 " With joy the tentie seedsman stalks " ; 
 he reaps, 
 
 "Our stibble rig was Rab M'Graen"; 
 he threshes with 
 
 "... the weary flingin' tree" : 
 he has to turn his hand to rough work, 
 
 " An' sometimes a-hedgin' an' ditchin' I go " ; 
 or we find him 
 
 " Wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dyke, 
 Barin' a quarry an' sic like" ; 
 
 or, at odd hours, he 
 
 "... sneds besoms, thraws saugh woodies " ; 
 
 or, fortunatimi 7iiiniuni I he may be sent to 
 
 the hill, where he has his chance of " guid 
 
 fat braxies," and, 
 
 " Where nature smiles as sweet, I ween, 
 To shepherds as to kings."
 
 8o BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 There is lighter work for boys. Burns 
 has three of them at Mossgiel, 
 
 " Run deils for rantin' and for noise ! " 
 
 One is " a gaudsman," one " a thresher," and 
 wee Davock has only to " haud the nowt 
 in fother." Sawney, poor Meg's Hallowe'en 
 escort, has even lighter work than Davock : 
 he has but to " herd the kye" on the Out-field. 
 Several maidens grieve over the absence, 
 not unnatural, of their " sailor lads," of whom 
 one runs a double risk, 
 
 " He's on the seas to meet the foe" ; 
 
 and there is one allusion, only one, to sea- 
 fishers. Caesar the Great has been 
 
 "... whalpit somewhere far abroad, 
 Where sailors gang to fish for cod." 
 
 Of the gentry's personal servants we have 
 three : 
 
 " His flunkies answer at the bell " ; 
 "His whipper-in, wee blastit wonner"; 
 
 and (like master like man), 
 
 "The groom gat sae fu' he fell await beside it."
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 8i 
 
 The " Minister's man " appears in his alter- 
 native quahty as " Auld Clinkumbell." 
 
 Strolling performers, Burns names as a dis- 
 credited class. But the hard life of the 
 " mountebank squad " has his sympathy : 
 
 " Poor Andrew that tumbles for sport, 
 Let naebody name wi' a jeer ; 
 There's even, I'm tauld, i' the Court, 
 A tumbler ca'd the Premier." 
 
 The immigration from the Highlands had 
 scarce begun : Highland Mary is its only 
 representative. " My gallant braw John 
 Hielandman " has been rather in us than 
 of us : 
 
 "He ranged a' from Tweed to Spey"; 
 " An' lalland laws he held in scorn " ; 
 
 and when the " raucle carlin " sings his praise, 
 he has left us for good : 
 
 "They've hanged my braw John Hielandman." 
 
 The immigration from Ireland had not 
 begun, and there was probably not an Irish- 
 man in Ayrshire ; none at least are named.
 
 82 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Girls we find employed much like country- 
 girls now. They do the work of the house 
 at home : 
 
 " An' aye she wrought her mammy's wark " ; 
 
 they " bleach their claes " or " wash the 
 ploughman's hose" ; or they are 
 
 "At service out amang the neighbours roun'"; 
 
 perhaps they are, like Blythe Bessie, " at the 
 milking shiel," and " plunge and plunge the 
 kirn " for the " yellow treasure " ; or they 
 work in the fields : 
 
 " Still shearin' and clearin' 
 The tither stookit raw." 
 
 But besides all this, we find them at work at 
 which we should not find their successors, 
 
 " At rock an' reel an' spinnin' wheel " ; 
 
 " O leeze me on my spinning wheel ! 
 O leeze me on my rock an' reel ! 
 Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien, 
 An' haps me biel an' warm at e'en." 
 
 The rock — one can still see the nimble-fingered 
 Italian women sitting at it on the doorstep
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 83 
 
 in the sun — is a picturesque implement ; but 
 spinning with the rock, or even with the 
 wheel, is a slow process, and many a girl, 
 before she had done " her dizzens," before 
 
 " The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't, 
 The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't," 
 
 were all got through, might groan out 
 
 " The weary pund, the weary pund, 
 The weary pund o' tow." 
 
 Knitting is in full force : 
 
 " On fasten e'en we had a rockin'. 
 To ca' the crack, and weave our stockin'." 
 
 There is no notice of milliner or mantua- 
 maker, tho' " twa manteeles o' dolefu' black " 
 and Jenny's " braw new gown " appear. 
 
 The list of workers ends with the keeper of 
 
 " Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ! " 
 
 *' Johnny Ged's Hole," utilized above ground 
 as well as under, 
 
 " The braw calf-ward where gowans grew 
 Sae white an' bonnie."
 
 84 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 THE NON-WORKING CLASS. 
 
 The non-workers, tramps and others with 
 minds made up never with their goodwill to 
 do one honest day's work, these, like the 
 honest poor, we have always with us, but the 
 volume of dregs is much reduced : we have 
 clarified the residuum. Burns's marvellous 
 picture of Poosie Nansie's would scarce be 
 true of our lowest doss-house. 
 
 Tinkers and gypsies, an ugly breed now 
 almost extinct, constantly appear. We have 
 
 " The gypsy gang that deal in glamour ! " 
 Willie Wastle's handsome wife, 
 
 " Oh, Tinkler Madgie was her mither ! " 
 Caesar makes love to 
 
 "... a tinkler-gipsey's messin" ; 
 
 and Poosie Nansie's guests include a " tinker 
 hizzie " and a " sturdy caird," " a tinker to his 
 station." 
 
 Begging is now a decaying and discredited
 
 CLASSES AND MASSES 85 
 
 industry. Burns shows it as so common that, 
 as we have seen, beggar's or " poke-meal " is a 
 regular article of commerce. And begging is 
 nothing to be ashamed of. It may be a mere 
 way of speaking when Burns tells a brother poet 
 
 "... the Muse, she'll never leave ye 
 Tho' e'er sae puir, 
 Na e'en tho' limpin' wi' the spavie 
 Frae door to door" ; 
 
 or says of himself, 
 
 "... tho' I should beg 
 Wi' lyart pow, 
 I'll laugh an' sing an' shake my leg 
 As lang's I dow" ; 
 
 but he does seemingly contemplate without 
 dismay the actual possibility of having to live 
 by begging: 
 
 " For, Lord be thankit, I can plough, 
 And when I downa yoke a naig. 
 Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg " ; 
 
 and again, 
 
 " Mair spier na, nor fear na, 
 
 Auld age ne'er mind a feg, 
 The last o't, the warst o't, 
 Is only but to beg."
 
 86 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 The respectability of begging, to this day hard 
 to kill, was kept in life by the survival of the 
 official beggar, like Edie Ochiltree. Burns 
 speaks of himself as 
 
 " about to beg a pass for leave to beg," 
 
 and describes hypocrisy as 
 
 "... the blue-gown badge an' claithing 
 O' saunts."
 
 XI. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 I DO not ask what might be gathered or in- 
 ferred from Burns as to the spiritual forces 
 then at work in Scotland, but only what he 
 tells us as to ecclesiastical conditions and 
 arrangements. 
 
 And here the first thing that strikes one is 
 the keen interest shown in such matters. 
 Now-a-days a man of Burns's cast of mind 
 would pass by in contemptuous silence the 
 Church, its creeds, its customs, its quarrels, 
 and would waste no time over your " Kirk's 
 Alarms," or "Holy Fairs," or " Twa Herds." 
 But in Burns's Scotland no matters commanded 
 
 such keen general interest as Church matters. 
 
 87
 
 88 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 It had long been so. It was the Church, not 
 the State, that had nnade the Scotch Refor- 
 mation. It was the Church that had led the 
 long struggle, partly religious, partly political, 
 against tyranny. It was through the Church 
 Courts that religious, national, and popular 
 sentiment found vent : Scotland had never had 
 a Parliament such as England's, and long after 
 the Union, Scotland, poor and isolated, took 
 little interest in the doings of " the folk in 
 Lon'on " : it was over the doings of her 
 Church Courts, their Governments and their 
 Oppositions, their overtures and their debates, 
 that the eager race were eager. Burns 
 himself could never resist a theological dis- 
 cussion : 
 
 " Your pardon, sir, for this digression, 
 But when divinity comes 'cross me 
 My readers still are sure to lose me." 
 
 Of the Church Courts he names only two — 
 the Kirk Session : 
 
 " Wi' pinch, I put a Sunday's face on, 
 An' snoov'd awa' before the Session " ;
 
 THE CHURCH 89 
 
 and the Presbytery : 
 
 " Lord, hear my earnest cry and prayer 
 Against the Presbyt'ry of Ayr." 
 
 There was work going on all the while in 
 the Synod at Glasgow, and in the General 
 Assembly at Edinburgh ; but it was a long 
 day's journey to Glasgow, a long two days' 
 journey to Edinburgh, and newspapers were 
 an unknown luxury. In the very heat of 
 the French Revolution, Burns, a farmer and an 
 exciseman, gets a reading of a newspaper. 
 Here is what the favour means to him : 
 
 " Kind Sir, I've read your paper through, 
 And, faith, to me 'twas really new ! 
 How guessed ye, Sir, what maist I wanted ? 
 This mony a day I've grain'd and gaunted 
 To ken what French mischief was brewin', 
 Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin'. 
 
 A' this and mair I never heard of; 
 And, but for you, I might despair'd of. 
 So gratefu', back your news I send you, 
 And pray a' gude things may attend you." 
 
 There is a significant disproportion in 
 Burns's frequent Biblical allusions. These,
 
 90 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 with scarce an exception, take us to the Old 
 Testament. It was on this part of the Bible 
 that old Scotch preachers mainly dwelt, and 
 Burns reflects their teaching. He occasionally 
 uses the word " Christian," but only twice 
 does he make it appear that he has ever 
 seen inside the New Testament — once in his 
 ill-natured "Epigram on a Country Laird": 
 
 " Bless Jesus Christ, O Cardoness, 
 With grateful lifted eyes. 
 Who taught that not the soul alone, 
 But body too, shall rise ! " 
 
 once in " The Cotter's Saturday Night " : 
 
 " Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme. 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed." 
 
 There are, to be sure, one or two allusions 
 
 to Baptism. In the " horrible and awfu' " 
 
 collection that 
 
 "heroic Tam was able. 
 To note upon the Haly Table," 
 
 were 
 
 " Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns " ; 
 and when " at Mauchline Race or Mauchline 
 Fair," Burns shall meet Lapraik,
 
 THE CHURCH 91 
 
 " The four-gill chap, we'se gar him clatter, 
 And kirs'n him vvi' reekin' water ! " 
 
 There is no allusion whatever to " the 
 Sacrament," i.e. the Communion — not even in 
 the " Holy Fair." 
 
 The great Church function, the special work 
 
 of the minister, is preaching : 
 
 " Ye ministers, come mount the pupit, 
 An' cry, till ye be haerse an' rupit, 
 For eighty-eight he wish'd ye weel. 
 An' gied ye a' baith gear an' meal." 
 
 But preaching is not what it has been. 
 
 " Nae langer Rev'rend Men, their country's glory, 
 In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story"; 
 
 " What signifies his barren shine 
 Of moral pow'rs and reason ? 
 His English style, and gesture fine, 
 Are a' clean oot o' season." 
 
 Even Ritualism is creeping in : 
 " Some quarrel the Presbyter gown." ^ 
 
 ^ Ministers also practise hair powder : 
 
 " Some mim-mou'd, pouther'd priestie, 
 Wi' band upon his breastie." 
 
 Well into this century the 'rags of Poperie' were a 
 stone of stumbling and rock of offence to the stricter
 
 92 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Alas, was there no Jacob Primmer to " nip 
 the poison in the bud " ? 
 
 Presbyterians. Hear an Auld Licht Anti-Burgher 
 Seceder on the ritualism of the New Lichts : 
 
 " Ha, ha! Seceders, brag nae niair 
 O' your pretended zeal and care : 
 Ye hae o' pride as large a share 
 
 As ither folk : 
 Your priests wear bands, an' pouther'd hair, 
 
 An' sic vain troke. 
 
 " Wow! what would Ralph and Eben say. 
 Had they been livin' at this day ? 
 To see them clad in sic array, 
 
 Wi' gown and bands ; 
 They would exclaim (as weel they may). 
 
 Ah ! sinfu' lands ! 
 
 " For now they are conformin' fast. 
 They first wore bands, and, now that's past, 
 
 Each wears a gown ; 
 Reading comes next, an' then at last 
 
 Their zeal fa's down." 
 
 " Reading" means use of MS. in preaching. " Ralph and 
 Eben" are the Secession Fathers, Ralph and Ebenezer 
 Erskine. As late as 1821, a member of Kirk Session 
 of the Old Light Burgher Seceders of Glasgow seceded 
 with his family, because his new minister, the Rev. 
 Michael Willis, wore gown and bands which had been 
 presented to him on his settlement. — Amials of the 
 Original Seceders^ by the Rev. David Scott, D.D., 
 P- 593.
 
 THE CHURCH 93 
 
 Public prayer is in use to be asked for 
 the sick : 
 
 " Auld Orthodoxy . . . 
 
 . . . fetches at the thrapple, 
 An' fechts for breath ; 
 Haste, gie her name up in the chappel, 
 Nigh unto death." 
 
 In Burns's Scotland, Nonconformity was of 
 small account. In all his Church allusions 
 there is scarce one but to the Established 
 Church. 
 Episcopacy appears once : 
 
 "Some quarrel Episcopal graithing"; 
 " The Paip's Church " once : 
 
 " yon paughty dog 
 That bears the keys of Peter"; 
 
 and once 
 
 " Black gowns of each denomination." 
 Seceders and Relievers, Burghers and Anti- 
 Burghers, had long been at work — good, quiet 
 work — in Ayr, Kilmarnock, and Dumfries, but 
 they are contemptuously ignored.^ 
 
 ^ I need scarce say that the Auld Kirk " New Lichts " 
 of the Ordination, etc., are not the correlates of the
 
 94 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Not clerics only lead the offices of religion. 
 Heads of families were held bound, under 
 pain of Church discipline, to keep up the 
 ^' Familie Exercise " morning and evening. 
 We have the full order of this Exercise, as 
 we should have had it round the ingle of 
 William Burness : 
 
 I. From the Psalms of David in metre 
 (Rous's version) they sing, to some 
 old Scotch tune that "... beets the 
 heav'nward flame," 
 
 "Those strains that once did sweet in Zion gUde"; 
 
 2. " The priest-Hke father reads the sacred page " ; 
 
 Ultra-Seceder "Auld Lichts" that brighten Barrie's 
 pages. Burns's " New Lichts " were the broad, very 
 broad, party in the Established Church. They were 
 brand new in his day. Replying in 1785 to "Win- 
 some Willie," he says : 
 
 "Ye bade me write you what they mean 
 By this New- Light," 
 
 and he adds this foot-note : " New Light is a cant 
 phrase in the West of Scotland for those religious 
 opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has defended 
 strenuously."
 
 THE CHURCH 95 
 
 3. "Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King, 
 The saint, the husband, and the father prays." ^ 
 
 But not all heads of families take as kindly 
 to their duty as William Burness — not, for one, 
 his son Robert : 
 
 " For prayin', I ha'e little skill o't ; 
 I'm baith dead sweer, an' wretched ill o't." 
 
 This implies, I take it, that Burns did in some 
 sort submit to conduct the "Familie Exercise" 
 at Mossgiel. He certainly did give in to teach 
 
 iSee Edgar's Old Church Life in Scotland, ist series, 
 page 203. " Habitual," if not total, neglect " of family 
 worship" was one of the charges laid against Gavin 
 Hamilton by the Kirk Session of Mauchline in January, 
 1785. It is to be noted that at the previous autumn 
 Sacrament, Hamilton, along with several other Mauch- 
 line members, had been delated to the Kirk Session for 
 neglect of ordinances, and had submitted to a private 
 admonition by the Kirk Session before he could get his 
 Communion token. See a full report of the proceedings 
 in Robert Burns and the Ayrshire Moderates (privately 
 printed, 1883). Edgar, one of our best authorities on 
 our old Church life, is an exceptional authority on Burns 
 in that he was minister of Mauchline.
 
 96 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 the Shorter Catechism to his three " run 
 deils " : 
 
 " An' aye on Sundays, duly, nightly, 
 I on the questions tairge them tightly ; 
 Till, faith, wee Davock's turn'd sae gleg, 
 Tho' scarcely langer than your leg. 
 He'll screed you aff Effectual Calling 
 As fast as ony in the dvvalling." 
 
 Private prayer is well established. The 
 cotter enjoins it on his children : 
 
 " An' O ! be sure to fear the Lord alway, 
 An' mind your duty duly morn an' night " ; 
 
 and he practises what he preaches : 
 
 " The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 
 And proffer up to heaven the warm request.' 
 
 Sometimes the oratory is the open air. 
 Burns represents his granny as retiring from 
 the noise of the house 
 
 " To say her prayers, douce, honest woman ! 
 Ayont the dyke." 
 
 Grace is said, both before meat : 
 
 " I'll sit down o'er my scanty meal, 
 Be't water brose or muslin kail, 
 
 Wi' cheerfu' face — 
 As lang's the Muses dinna fail — 
 To say the grace " ;
 
 THE CHURCH 97 
 
 and after meat : 
 
 "Then auld guidman, maist like to rive, 
 Be thankit hums." 
 
 The grace is sometimes "fu' lang." Burns 
 speaks of 
 
 " Three-mile prayers and half-mile graces." 
 
 He has left us several terse both before-meat 
 and after-meat graces, notably the admirable 
 " Selkirk grace " : 
 
 " Some ha'e meat, and canna eat, 
 And some wad eat that want it ; 
 But we ha'e meat, and we can eat, 
 And sae the Lord be thankit."
 
 XII. 
 
 CHURCH PATRONAGE. 
 
 Church Patronage deserves a paragraph to 
 itself. Church patronage must be a puzzler 
 to those simple souls who think by the book, 
 and take for granted that an institution will 
 everywhere work in the same way. In Eng- 
 land, where advowsons have been as freely 
 bought and sold as consols, patronage has 
 brought little trouble on the Church. In 
 Scotland, where there has at least been no 
 simony, it has vexed the Church from Queen 
 Anne to Queen Victoria. It stirs the wrath 
 of Burns's cotters : 
 
 " They'll talk o' patronage an' priests 
 Wi' kindling fury in their breasts"; 
 
 and it makes godly ministers groan : 
 
 98
 
 CHURCH PATRONAGE 99 
 
 " Lang patronage, wi' rod o' airn, 
 Has shor'd the Kirk's undoing." 
 
 It is dead and buried now, but from its grave 
 it shores it still. The Church was taunted 
 with patronage : it was a disability to her, a 
 clog on her work, a yoke that neither our 
 fathers nor we were able to bear. She threw 
 off the yoke, and her very freedom, the new 
 life it might breathe into her, has been the 
 signal for a disestablishment campaign by a 
 sister Church, the Church of Chalmers ! 
 
 One might have expected Burns on general 
 principles to take the popular side as against 
 patronage. But Burns was one of those 
 commonplace characters who repudiate General 
 Principles, however Grand, as guides in affairs. 
 He judged an institution by the way it 
 worked, and to his thinking patronage worked 
 excellently well. The " orthodox, orthodox " 
 school of ministers had no love of patronage: 
 nay, they threatened its supporters, 
 
 " If mair they deave us wi' their din 
 O' patronage intrusion " ;
 
 loo BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 and they looked for preferment to popular 
 support : 
 
 " Ye wha were ne'er by lairds respeckit 
 
 To wear the plaid, 
 
 But by the brutes themselves eleckit 
 
 To be their guide." 
 
 It was Burns's friends, the New Lichts, who 
 leant on patrons, and Burns w^ould never 
 with his good-will see 
 
 " The brutes have power themselves 
 To chose their herds."
 
 XIII. 
 
 CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 
 
 Alongside of the civil courts, ecclesiastical 
 courts, especially Kirk Sessions, exercised a 
 co-ordinate jurisdiction, not merely over church 
 offences, as swearing, sabbath-breaking, neglect 
 of ordinances, drunkenness, impurity, but over 
 petty civil offences, as brawls, slanders, thefts, 
 assaults.^ The s)^stem, like other systems, 
 
 1 Even murder was dealt with by the Church Courts. 
 By an act of the General Assembly of 1648, a murderer, 
 "in case the magistrate do not do his duty in punishing 
 the crime capitally," was first to confess his sin before 
 both the Session and the Presbyterie, and there to show 
 some signs of repentance, and was thereafter to "make 
 public profession of repentance " before the congregation, 
 clothed in sackcloth for fifty-two Sabbaths. It was only 
 by Act of Parliament passed after the Revolution that 
 
 101
 
 I02 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 had its goods and its ills in it. Nothing could 
 be worse than the Kirk Session's police des 
 mceurs in cases of impurity : the cruel ex- 
 posure hardened the hardened offender, and 
 drove the blush from the face of the girl still 
 blushing for her fall.^ But in the absence of 
 the machinery that now-a-days controls crime 
 great or small, it was well that there was 
 some court always at hand to take up petty 
 offenders. Kirk Sessions did not hesitate to 
 issue sentences — the jougs, fines, imprisonment, 
 banishment from the parish — that they had no 
 power to enforce ; but to meet the case of 
 contumacious panels they were in use to have 
 in their number a ' Session Bailie ' (specially 
 named by the sheriff), or an ordinary bailie 
 
 excommunication -absolutely ceased to carry with it any 
 liability to civil penalties, escheat or caption. Edgar, 
 1st series, pp. 198 n., 245 et seq.; Acts of the General 
 Asseinbly, Edinburgh, 1843, P- I93- 
 
 ^ There is reason to think that the dread by poor 
 girls of the shameful exposure on the stool of repent- 
 ance led to a good deal of child murder. Alton's Survey 
 of Ayrshire^ quoted by Edgar, ist series, p. 323 n.
 
 CHURCH DISCIPLINE 103 
 
 or justice of the peace, who, as a magistrate, 
 enforced the sentence he had just issued as 
 an elder. In one case that we know, the 
 Kirk Session sentenced a strolHng clown to 
 the jougs and to the cutty stool. Besides 
 being an outsider, the man could not for the 
 life of him see where the harm was : 
 
 " I ance was tied up like a stirk 
 
 For civilly swearing and quaffing ; 
 I ance was abused in the kirk 
 For towzling a lass i' my daffing." 
 
 In such a case a little civil pressure may 
 have been wanted. But generally the Kirk 
 Session was herself sufficient for these things. 
 She could cast out of the synagogue, and 
 few dared to face this tremendous weapon.^ 
 It brought Burns himself to his knees. We 
 know the fact otherwise, but we can gather 
 
 ^ The old phrase was that the ofifender, after penance 
 and absolution, was again "received in the societie of 
 the kirk as ane lyvely member thereof." — Booke of the 
 Universall Kirk of Scotland.
 
 I04 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 as much from his poems. Alluding to his 
 seduction of Elizabeth Paton, he says : 
 
 " An' then, if kirk folks dinna clutch me, 
 I ken the devils dare nae touch me " ; 
 
 The kirk folks do clutch him, and he submits 
 at once, " pays the fee," " a gowd guinea," 
 and, worse than that, 
 
 "Tholes their blethers"; 
 
 he makes Elizabeth Paton, or some other 
 victim of his lust, say : 
 
 " When I mount the creepie chair, 
 Wha will sit beside me there ? 
 Gie me Rob, I seek nae mair. 
 The rantin' dog, the daddie o't " ; 
 
 among his familiar troubles he gives : 
 
 a r\' -,' 
 
 O' a' the numerous human dools, 
 
 111 hairsts, daft bargains, cutty stools " ; 
 
 and as the natural sequel, whether to himself 
 or to some one else, of " mooping wi' the 
 servant hizzie," he names, 
 
 " Stand i' the stool when I hae dune."
 
 CHURCH DISCIPLINE 105 
 
 In that vile piece, " What ails ye now, ye 
 lousie bitch ? " he professes to 
 
 "... tell for sport, 
 How he did wi' the Session sort." 
 
 His conduct, as he paints the scene, is beyond 
 measure shocking, but the thing never hap- 
 pened. The " blasphemy and bawdry," Scott 
 Douglas's own words, are Burns's poor revenge 
 for the humiliations he dared not refuse.^ 
 
 ^ In the "Extempore to Mr. Gavin Hamilton" (first 
 published by Ale.xander Smith) Burns writes thus : 
 
 " The priest anathemas may threat — 
 
 Predicament, Sir, that we're baith in ; 
 But when honour's reveille is beat, 
 The holy artillery's naething." 
 
 These brave lines Scott Douglas (Paterson's Burns, I. 
 336) assigns to "about August, 1786." But on 6th 
 August, 1786, Burns "stood" for the third time in 
 Mauchline Church, and, "making profession for repent- 
 ance for ye sin of fornication," was publicly rebuked 
 and thereon absolved. Edgar (2nd Series, p. 401 n.) 
 gives the Minute from the Kirk Session Records and a 
 copy of the Rebuke.
 
 XIV. 
 
 CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE. 
 
 For an Arcadian district, the Land of Burns 
 has a respectable record of crime, even allow- 
 ing for the special contributions of " randie 
 gangrel bodies." 
 
 We have offences against the person — 
 murder simple : 
 
 " A murderer's banes in gibbet aims " ; 
 
 parricide : 
 
 " A knife a father's throat had mangled, 
 Whom his ain son o' hfe bereft " ; 
 
 infanticide, twice : 
 
 "A garter which a babe had strangled" ; 
 
 and, 
 
 " the cairn 
 Whare hunters fand the murderer'd bairn." 
 1 06
 
 CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE 107 
 
 If we take as correct Burns's account of the 
 morality of his district, we may expect a 
 good deal of infanticide. 
 
 We have offences against property — 
 thieving : 
 
 "As eager runs the market crowd 
 When ' Catch the thief resounds aloud " ; 
 
 pocket picking : 
 
 "a raucle carlin 
 Wha kent fu' weel to cleek the sterling." 
 
 We have smaller offenders — 
 the law-breaker on principle : 
 
 " The lalland laws he held in scorn " ; 
 
 and the chronic deserter : 
 
 " I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroU'd 
 In mony a noble squadron, 
 But vain they search'd, when off I march'd 
 To go an' clout the caudron." 
 
 If crime thrives, it is not that justice is 
 mealy-mouthed — 
 they hang for stealing : 
 
 " A thief new cuttit frae a rape " ;
 
 io8 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 they hang a murderer in chains : 
 
 " A murderer's banes in gibbet aims " ; 
 
 they hang for pure cussedness : 
 
 "They've hanged my braw John Highlandman" ; 
 
 they hang till hanging is always cropping 
 up in their talk : 
 
 " Then orthodoxy yet may prance, 
 An' learning in a woody dance"; 
 
 " Wae worth the man that first did shape 
 That vile, wanchancie thing — a rape ! " 
 
 " But gude preserve us frae the gallows, 
 That shamefu' death " ; 
 
 " The timmer is scant, when ye're ta'en for a saunt, 
 Wha should hang in a rape for an hour." 
 
 and it is taken for granted that the arch- 
 executioner hangs like Braxfield : 
 
 " Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, 
 And let poor damn'd bodies be." 
 
 They do sometimes condescend on lighter 
 punishments. We have the frowsy cells 
 
 " Where tiny thieves, not destin'd yet to swing, 
 Beat hemp for others, riper for the string " ;
 
 CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE 109 
 
 before they came to the hanging of my braw 
 John Highlandman they had 
 
 "... banished him beyond the sea"; 
 his friend, the raucle carHn, had 
 
 "... in mony a well been dookit " ; 
 and other offenders had had to 
 
 "... herd the buckskin kye 
 
 For 't in Virginia." 
 
 The hangman flogs as well as hangs : 
 
 " The fear of hell's a hangman's whup," 
 
 which whup he flourished here in Glasgow 
 
 as late as 1822.^ 
 
 In Burns's day they imprisoned for debt : 
 
 " But smash them, crash them, a' to spails, 
 An' rot the dyvors in the jails." 
 
 ^ On 8th May, 1822, Richard Campbell was whipped 
 by the hangman through the town of Glasgow, twenty 
 lashes each at the Jail, the Stockwell-foot, the Stockwell- 
 head, and the Cross. Campbell's whole offence (for 
 which he had also fourteen years' transportation) was 
 taking part in a riot at the Dreghorn Mansion, where 
 the mob believed a boy had been foully murdered. On 
 25th September, 1793, Mary Douglas was whipped 
 through the town for housebreaking. — Regality Chib, ist 
 Series, p. 65. Glasgow Past and Presetit (1884), I. 339.
 
 no BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 In those last sad days at Brow, Burns, in 
 terror of imprisonment by a " cruel scoundrel 
 of a haberdasher," wrote to George Thomson 
 and James Burness those piteous appeals for 
 a small loan. To understand his terror, one 
 must remember that the squalor carceris was 
 in Scotch law a recognized means of torturing 
 the debtor into payment, and that our old 
 Tolbooths were thoroughly in keeping with 
 our old law.^ 
 
 1 See " Auld Ayr " for a description of the Tolbooth 
 of Ayr. See also Hugo Arnot's appalling picture of 
 the Heart of Midlothian. Effie Deans is the only 
 prisoner, as far as known, who ever refused to escape 
 from its foul oubliettes. How the refusal brings home 
 to us the girl's hopeless misery !
 
 XV. 
 
 SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 BURNS'S poems, especially " Tarn o' Shanter," 
 the " Address to the Deil," and " Hallowe'en," 
 are full of notices of superstitious beliefs. We 
 have the foul Thief himself, and his acolytes, 
 witches and warlocks, ghaists and goblins, 
 fays and bogles ; 
 
 "... water kelpies haunt the foord," 
 
 and 
 
 " moss-traversing spunkies 
 Decoy the wight that late and drunk is." 
 
 It is not easy to say how much all these were 
 
 really believed in, but some belief in them 
 
 there certainly was. Not Merran only " swat " 
 
 and poor Meg " ran through midden hole and 
 
 1 1 1
 
 112 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 a' " in their terror at the Hallowe'en portents, 
 but the sturdy Rab M'Graen 
 
 " For mony a day was by himsel', 
 He was sae sairly frighted 
 That vera nicht" ; 
 
 and " fechtin' Jamie Fleck " 
 
 " Roared a horrid murder shout, 
 An' tumbled wi' a wintle, 
 
 Out-owre that night." 
 
 It is to be noted that the scene of 
 " Hallowe'en " is laid, not near the town of 
 Ayr, but in the wilder uplands, 
 
 " Amang the bonnie winding banks 
 Where Doon rins, wimplin', clear." 
 
 The old beliefs were falling back into the 
 Hinterland, as weaker races fall back before 
 the invader.
 
 XVI. 
 
 POLITICS. 
 
 Burns wrote during the meanest epoch of 
 our history, when the government of Scotland 
 was cruel, corrupt, wasteful, and " her chosen 
 Five and Forty," 
 
 " Ye Irish Lords, ye Knights an' Squires, 
 Wha represent our brughs an' shires," 
 
 were chosen without a pretence of popular 
 election, and were mostly in the pay, by 
 " pension, post, or place," of 
 
 "... a chap that's d-mn'd auld farran, 
 Dundas his name." 
 
 The vile state of things comes plainly out 
 
 in Burns. When the simple Luath excuses 
 
 the absentee laird, 
 
 H 113
 
 114 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 " aiblins thrang a-parliamentin', 
 For Britain's guid his saul indentin'," 
 
 Caesar breaks in : 
 
 " Haith, lad, ye little ken about it : 
 For Britain's guid ! guid faith ! I doubt it. 
 Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him. 
 An' saying aye or no's they bid him. 
 
 For Britain's guid ! for her destruction ! 
 Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction I " 
 
 Among " Scotia's race " as Burns sees them 
 
 in the " Vision," 
 
 " Some fire the Soldier on to dare ; 
 Some rouse the Patriot up to bare 
 Corruption's heart. 
 
 " Or 'mid the venal Senate's roar 
 
 They, sightless, stand. 
 To mend the honest Patriot lore, 
 An' grace the land." 
 
 He exhorts " the chosen Five and Forty " : 
 
 " Let posts or pensions sink or soom 
 
 Wi' them wha grant them : 
 If honestly they canna come. 
 
 Far better want them " ; 
 
 and appeals to King George himself to 
 
 " rax Corruption's neck « 
 
 An' gi'e her for dissection."
 
 XVII. 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 Taxation is whipped up to keep pace with 
 
 the unresting advance of expenditure. All 
 
 Britain groans : 
 
 " Your sair taxation does her fleece 
 Till she has scarce a tester"; 
 
 Scotland is even harder pressed, 
 
 " An' plundered o' her hindmost groat 
 By gallows' knaves " ; 
 
 and the Highlands are doubly driven : 
 
 " An' Highlandmen hate tolls and taxes." 
 
 Tolls and taxes are an acquired taste, and 
 the Highlands, lately brought in, like the terri- 
 tories lately annexed to Glasgow, do not yet 
 
 appreciate their privileges. 
 
 115
 
 ii6 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Some details of the fiscal distress appear. 
 Old imposts are revised : 
 
 " And cesses, stents, and fees are raxed " ; 
 
 fresh ones are devised, and labourers over their 
 
 beer 
 
 " tell what new taxation's coming." 
 
 Burns himself suggests " some scheme like tea 
 or winnocks." But he strongly objects to a 
 proposed tax on riding horses : 
 
 "Thro' dirt and dub for life I'll paiddle, 
 Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle ; 
 Sae dinna put me in your buke, 
 Nor for my ten white shillings luke " ; 
 
 and, little thinking he is himself to be a 
 gauger, he flames out against 
 
 "Thae curst horse-leeches o' th' excise 
 Wha mak' the whisky stells their prize." 
 
 In one direction only, like many of ourselves, 
 he protests against economy : taxes or no 
 taxes, he cries to King George, 
 
 " For God's sake ! let nae saving fit 
 Abridge your bonny barges 
 
 An' boats this day ! "
 
 XVIII. 
 
 CURRENCY. 
 
 We can construct from Burns's poems a com- 
 plete set of the old Scotch coinage. 
 
 1 . TJie Boddle, -g- of a id. sterling : 
 
 " Fair play, he caredna deils a boddle." 
 
 The lowest coin of a currency is sometimes 
 taken as the measure of the wealth of a • 
 people. On this principle we are six times 
 richer than we used to be. The farthing is 
 obsolete, and it is only thanks to halfpenny 
 newspapers and halfpenny tram fares, that 
 the halfpenny survives. 
 
 2. The Plack, -^ of id. sterling: 
 
 " In my last plack thy parts be in't. 
 The better half o't ! " 
 117
 
 ii8 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Not a large patrimony after all for Burns's 
 " dear-bought Bess," especially as there were 
 other claimants to the fund in medio. Legiti- 
 niatio per subsequens inatrimonium would have 
 been more to the purpose. No doubt it would 
 have cost Burns more than many placks ; but 
 it would have lifted his " sweet wee Betty " 
 out of the low estate of bastardy, and would 
 have made an honest woman of a mother 
 not wanting in " person, grace, and merit." 
 
 3. The Bawbee, id. sterling : 
 
 " I'll gi'e John Ross anither bawbee 
 To boat me o'er to Charlie." 
 
 4. The Groat, 4d. sterling : 
 
 " He will win a shilling 
 Or he spend a groat." 
 
 5. The Tester, 6d. sterling : 
 
 " Your sair taxation does her fleece 
 Till she has scarce a tester." 
 
 6. The Mark, I3;§^d. sterling: 
 
 " He gied me thee, o' tocher clear, 
 An' fifty mark : 
 Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear, 
 An' thou was stark."
 
 CURRENCY 119 
 
 The mark was | of i^i Scots, i.e. of 2od. 
 sterling. It is multiples of this coin that 
 give the curious odd amounts found in the 
 interval between the appearance of the £i 
 sterling and the disappearance of the £1 
 Scots, e.g. £s IIS. iid.= ioo Marks, £27 
 15s. 6fd.= 500 Marks. What the auld farmer 
 got from his guid-father was £2 15 s. 6|d.= 
 50 Marks, along with the immortal Maggie. 
 
 7. The Guinea, £\ is. sterling: 
 
 " To proper young men he'll clink in the hand 
 Gowd guineas a bunder or twa, man." 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea stamp." 
 
 Fifty years ago, before the invasion of English 
 tourists and English sportsmen, we never saw 
 a gold coin outside of a museum, and we 
 looked askance at the now ever welcome 
 sovereign. Our native bank-paper, especially 
 the ancient trusty ' Pun Not,' was the uni- 
 versal currency. It was not so in Burns's day. 
 He never once names bank notes. Gold — 
 gold guineas, not sovereigns — is his regular
 
 I20 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 currency above the mark. It's the lad's want 
 of " the yellow dirt " that makes Tibbie " cast 
 her head anither airt " ; it is " gowd " that auld 
 Rob Morris has in his coffers ; it is the 
 " yellow-lettered Geordies " that keek through 
 the steeks of the Laird's purse ; it is a " yellow 
 George," a " gowd guinea " that Burns is fined 
 in " the Poacher Court " ; it is the " sweet 
 yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest," the " nice 
 yellow guineas " that attract the fortune-hunter. 
 The guinea is indicated even when not named, 
 
 "That one pound one I sairly want it" ; 
 
 and if large sums are given in pounds, the 
 idea of the metal is still there : 
 
 " Ten thousand gHttering pounds a year."
 
 XIX. 
 
 PRICES. 
 
 A FEW prices come up incidentally. 
 
 " Twal penny worth o' nappy," 
 
 i.e. id. worth sterling, is a treat " whyles " 
 to be had by a party of labourers. The 
 "cutty sark o' Paisley harn " — most famous 
 of sarks, more famous than the chemise de 
 la Reine Isabelle — costs " twa pund Scots," 
 or 3s. 4d. sterling, which is " a' the riches " 
 of a decent old woman. Lining costs a shade 
 under 4d. a yard : 
 
 " When ilka ell cost me a groat, 
 The Taylor staw the linin' o't." 
 
 The Mossgiel cowt, " o' cowts the wale," the 
 
 121
 
 122 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 breeder expects to 
 
 "... draw him fifteen pun' at least." 
 
 There have been actual sales of six of dear 
 auld Maggie's progeny 
 
 " at thretteen punds an' twa, 
 The vera warst." 
 
 If " tippeny " has ceased to be a sure 
 guide to the price of the liquor with which 
 " we fear nae evil," " tippence " is what " we 
 maun draw " for the plate at the Kirkgate. 
 Threepence is aides for a fee'd man : 
 
 " I fee'd a man at Martinmas 
 Wi' airle pennies three." 
 
 No doubt the fee was in proportion to the 
 
 modest airles. A woman's wage would be 
 
 still less : the Collier Laddie's Lass probably 
 
 exaggerates when she boasts 
 
 " I can win my five pennies in a day" ; 
 
 Burns himself declares 
 
 " On eighteenpence a-week I've lived before." ^ 
 
 * In the parish of Ayr in 1791 a farm-hand with some 
 little help from his wife could earn 7s. a week, "some-
 
 PRICES 123 
 
 These figures, low as they sound to us, are 
 not conclusive as to the condition of the people. 
 Figures are uncertain guides in economics ; 
 wages may be swelled by " guid fat braxies " 
 and other perquisites ; rents by coals, kain, 
 and other stents ; and money varies indefinitely 
 in purchasing power. But they were un- 
 deniably poor, very poor, in the Land of 
 Burns. 
 
 " An auld clay biggan," with " ragged roof 
 and chinky wall," is the house of a farmer 
 in a pretty big way ; braxy mutton, i.e. 
 fa'en meat, is a luxury ; a New-Year party 
 have only one " luntin pipe " among them, 
 and smoke in turns ; the " nits " have been 
 " weel hoarded " for the Hallowe'en festivities ; 
 
 times a little more." See Sinclair's Statistical Account, 
 article by Drs. Dalrymple and M'Gill. A resideiit 
 farm-hand (board reckoned at ^5) had ^7 in money. 
 This was what Burns and his brother Gilbert, both of 
 them good hands, had from their father when they lived 
 with him and worked to him. Out of the £^ the old 
 man stopped the value of any home-made clothes the 
 young men got.
 
 124 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 " a pickle nits " (graphic phrase) " and twa red 
 
 cheekit apples " outweigh Sawney's fears to 
 
 " meet the Deil " ; tenant-bodies are " faughten 
 
 and harassed " to make ends meet ; and cot 
 
 folk are constantly " on poortith's brink " : 
 
 " An' when they meet wi' sair disasters, 
 Like loss o' health, or want o' maisters, 
 Ye maist wad think a wee touch langer 
 An' they maun starve o' cauld an' hunger." 
 
 The general distress can be traced to a 
 decay in the good old ways : 
 
 " Nae langer thrifty citizens, an' douce. 
 Meet owre a pint, or in the Council-house ; 
 Yet staumrel, corky-headed, graceless gentry, 
 The herryment an' ruin o' the country." 
 
 And decadence is not confined to econo- 
 mics. Even the speech has degenerated. In 
 the good old days 
 
 " They spak' their thoughts in plain braid lallans " : 
 now the very pulpit is affected : 
 
 " Nae langer, Rev'rend Men, their country's glory. 
 In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story." 
 
 Alas for that Golden Age that always, 
 always, is past and gone !
 
 XX. 
 
 RECREATIONS. 
 
 The Scotch, though a serious, have never 
 been a dull people, and Burns's contem- 
 poraries had their recreations, high or low. 
 
 OF THE GENTRY. 
 
 Some amusements of the gentry that he 
 names are still in vogue : 
 
 1 . Huntmg : 
 
 "Our whipper-in, wee blastit wonner"; 
 
 "An' thro' the whins, an' by the cairn 
 Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn." 
 
 2. Shooting: 
 
 " Now wastlin' wind and slaughtrin' guns 
 Bring autumn pleasant weather " ; 
 
 125
 
 126 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 " The hunter now has left the moor, 
 The scattered coveys meet secure." 
 
 3. Fishing: 
 
 " At noon the fisher seeks the glen " ; 
 
 " The trout within yon wimplin' burn 
 Glides swift, a silver dart, 
 An' safe beneath the shady thorn, 
 Defies the angler's art." 
 
 Sport in those days was not beyond the 
 
 reach of men of modest means. Tam Samson, 
 
 the Kilmarnock seedsman, can command a 
 
 mixed shooting of " mawkins," and " birring 
 
 paitricks," and " cootie moorcocks," where 
 
 " pointers round impatient burn'd, 
 Fi-ae couples freed," 
 
 and a fishing where 
 
 " the stately saumont sail, 
 And trout be-dropp'd wi' crimson hail, 
 And eels weel kent for souple tail. 
 
 And geds for greed." 
 
 Our friend the poacher is in full force. 
 
 Death has no doubt borrowed his " three- 
 
 tae'd leister " from the illicit hunter of the 
 
 " stately sawmont," and the resident laird, who 
 
 " Ne'er a bit is hard on puir folk,"
 
 RECREATIONS 127 
 
 has no mercy on the lawless " shootin' o' a 
 
 hare or moorcock." 
 
 The gentry relieve the horrible tedium by 
 
 wilder excitements than sport : 
 
 " But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst, 
 Wi' ev'n-dovvn want o' wark are curst. 
 
 The men cast out in party matches, 
 Then sowther a' in deep debauches ; 
 Ae nicht they're mad wi' drink an' whoring, 
 Neist day their life is past enduring." 
 
 The ladies : 
 
 " lee-lang nichts, wi' crabbit leuks, 
 Pore ower the devil's pictur'd beuks ; 
 Stake on a chance a farmer's stack-yard, 
 An' cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard." 
 
 These ploys speaking broadly are now as 
 
 obsolete as flintlocks or samplers, but I 
 
 could not say that the men have given up 
 
 their 
 
 " balls and races, 
 Their galloping thro' public places," 
 
 or that the leddies never 
 
 " O'er the wee bit cup and platie, 
 Sip the scandal potion pretty " ; 
 
 only, they do it now over the afternoon tea,
 
 128 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 not in the weary after-dinner wait till the 
 men should stagger into the drawing-room. 
 
 There are repeated allusions to Free- 
 masonry : " honours masonic," " the masons' 
 mystic word an' grip," " brothers of the 
 mystic tie," " the brethren of the mystic 
 level," " wi' jads or masons," Burns in these 
 reflecting rather his own habits than the habits 
 of his class. 
 
 OF THE COMMON FOLK. 
 
 The poor have their recreations too, much 
 needed and much enjoyed, for when 
 
 " fatigued wi' close employment, 
 A blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment ! " 
 
 HO LID A YS. 
 Holidays dot the year. 
 
 1 . New Years Day : 
 
 " That merry day the year begins." 
 
 2. Yule (old style, not 25th December, but 
 5th January) : 
 
 " On blithe yule nicht when we were fou."
 
 RECREATIONS 129 
 
 3. Valentine's Day: 
 
 " Yestreen at the valentine's dealing 
 My heart to my mou' gied a sten." 
 
 4. Shrove Tuesday : 
 
 " On Fasten-e'en we had a rockin." 
 
 5. All Saints Eve: when 
 
 " merry friendly kintra folks 
 Together did convene, 
 To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, 
 And haud their Hallowe'en." 
 
 6. All Saints Day : 
 
 " As bleakfac'd Hallowmass returns ^ 
 They get the jovial ranting kirns." 
 
 FUNCTIONS. 
 
 I . Weddings : 
 
 " At kirns and weddings we'se be there," 
 
 is part of the fiddler's proffer to the " raucle 
 carlin." 
 
 A special feature of weddings was the 
 
 ^ Perhaps " Hallowmass " is only another way of 
 saying Hallowe'en. 
 
 I
 
 I30 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 Broose.-^ The auld farmer tells his auld 
 Mare Maggie, 
 
 " At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow 
 For pith and speed." 
 
 2. Rockins, gatherings at which the girls 
 spin, or are supposed to spin, with rock 
 and spindle. 
 
 " At Fasten-e'en we had a rockin, 
 To ca' the crack and weave our stockin', 
 An' there was muckle fun and jokin', 
 Ye needna doubt." 
 
 ^ The Broose was a very ancient marriage custom, 
 now, I fear, extinct. The young cavaliers of the party, 
 as soon as they had kissed her after the marriage, 
 mounted at the door. of the bride's house and raced to 
 the bridegroom's, the winner having the privilege to 
 receive the bride at her new home. There, lilce her 
 Roman sister, she was lifted over the threshold, lest she 
 should make an unlucky stumble, and, once inside the 
 door, she had a farl of oat-cake or shortbread broken 
 over her head, in sign that she should never want. The 
 cavaliers galloped off to a very old tune, " She's yours, 
 she's yours, she's nae mair oors," better known as 
 "John Paterson's Mare," the tune sung to "The Battle 
 o' Sherriffmuir." Brooses were run in the Monklands 
 within our own time : " Sandy Baird " of Gartsherrie 
 was a noted brooser in his younger days.
 
 RECREATIONS 131 
 
 3. The Kirn or Harvest Home, a notable 
 
 function— " the rattlin' Kirn," "the rantin' 
 
 Kirn," " the rantin' jovial Kirn," " that merry 
 
 nicht we get the corn in." In those days of 
 
 backward husbandry, the Kirn has a chance 
 
 to coincide with Hallowe'en : 
 
 " The simmer had been cauld an' wat. 
 An' stuff was unco green. 
 An' aye a rantin' kirn we gat, 
 An' jist on Hallowe'en 
 
 It fell that nicht." 
 
 4. Races. It is at 
 
 " Mauchline race or Mauchline fair " 
 
 that Burns gives Lapraik his choice as rendez- 
 vous. 
 
 5. Markets, Fairs, and Trysts are used for 
 pleasure as well as profit : 
 
 " That frae November till October, 
 Ae market-day thou was nae sober " ; 
 
 " For mony a plack they wheedle frae me 
 At dance or fair." 
 
 It is at " the Tryste o' Dalgarnock " that the 
 braw wooer meets his fate^
 
 132 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 DANCING 
 
 is practised indoors and out : 
 
 " Yestreen when tae the trembhn' string 
 The dance gaed thro' the lichtet ha' " ; 
 
 " He gaed \vi' Jeanie to the tryste, 
 
 An' danced wi' Jeanie on the down." 
 
 There is enough of it for the relative merits 
 of performers to be weighed : 
 
 "But when will he dance hke Tarn Glen?" 
 The dances in vogue are 
 
 " Nae cotillon brent new frae France," 
 but of a Hvely sort, 
 
 " Hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels 
 Put life and mettle in their heels " ; 
 
 " There's threesome reels and foursome reels, 
 There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man ! " 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 Music bulks largely among the pleasures of 
 life. Burns himself had a fine taste in music: 
 how ,co\ild he else, the greatest of song
 
 RECREATIONS 133 
 
 writers ? But music is never far to seek : 
 
 " On Fasten-e'en . , . 
 . . . we had a hearty yokin' 
 At sang about" ; 
 
 on Hallowe'en 
 
 " \Vi' merry sangs and friendly cracks, 
 I wat they dinna weary " ; 
 
 Tarn o' Shanter forgets the rough road home, 
 and the rough welcome that waits him, as 
 
 "The night drave on \vi' sangs an' clatter"; 
 
 at Poosie Nansie's splore 
 
 "They ranted and they sang"; 
 
 and the singers have got beyond mere plain 
 song, and 
 
 " Round and round take up the chorus." 
 
 There is an ample repertoire. From his pack 
 the " wight of Homer's craft " 
 
 " wales a sang, 
 A ballad o' the best" ; 
 
 and from 
 
 "Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide"
 
 134 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 the " priest-like father " 
 
 "... wales a portion with judicious care." 
 
 We have the very melodies. At the Ordina- 
 tion, with a liberal allowance of " double 
 verses four," they 
 
 "... skirl up the Bangor" ; 
 
 fechtin' Jamie Fleck " keeps his courage 
 cheery " to the tune of Lord Lennox' 
 March; 
 
 " An' Scotland draws her pipe and biaws, 
 ' Up, Willie, war them a', man ! ' " 
 
 to meet their " impatience for the chorus," the 
 "jovial throng" at Poosie Nansie's have "Jolly 
 Mortals, fill your glasses " ; and to " beet the 
 heavenward flame," 
 
 " Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise, 
 Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name ; 
 Or noble Elgin . . . 
 The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays." 
 
 The taste for song is of old standing. Tarn 
 o' Shanter " skelps through dub and mure," 
 
 " Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scotch sonnet,"
 
 RECREATIONS 135: 
 
 and sorrow and care are to be cured 
 
 " Wi' a cog o' guid swats an' an auld Scottish song." 
 
 The taste is not even confined to Scottish 
 song. The owner of Luath has named that 
 " gash an' faithfu' tyke " " after some dog in 
 Highland song." 
 
 There are many song-makers in the Land 
 of Burns besides "rhyming Robin, alias Burns." 
 At Ochiltree is "winsome Willie" Simpson; at 
 Tarbolton Davie Sillar, " ace o' hearts ; at 
 Muirkirk " bauld Lapraik, the king o' hearts " ;: 
 at Adamhill " rough, rude, ready-witted Ran- 
 kine." 
 
 And the very process is detailed by which 
 they evolve their songs from the old music : 
 
 " On braes when we please, then, 
 We'll sit an' sowth a tune ; 
 Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't, 
 And sing't when we ha'e done." 
 
 How easy it all is, to be sure ! 
 
 We have instrumental music as well as 
 vocal. There is not the variety of it that 
 might at first seem. I don't believe that the
 
 136 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 shepherd in the " birken shaw" really "stopp'd 
 
 his simple reed," or that the old bard who 
 
 laments Glencairn actually had a " trembling 
 
 harp," I am not even sure, in spite of all the 
 
 ^' chanters " named, that there was any literal 
 
 piper in the Land of Burns, except the 
 
 *' towsie tyke " who made the " roof and 
 
 rafters dirl " in Kirk Alloway. But there is 
 
 no mistake about the fiddlers ; they are real 
 
 flesh and blood— " little Sir Violino," "the 
 
 fairy fiddler," " the poor gut-scraper," 
 
 " The pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle, 
 Wha used at trysts and fairs to driddle," 
 
 is evidently a portrait, and " M'Lauchlan, 
 
 thairm-inspiring sage" is the rival of the 
 
 great Neil Gow. 
 
 The fiddle leads the dance : 
 
 " Yestreen, when tae the tremblin' string 
 
 The dance gaed through the Hchted ha' !" 
 
 it is a resource in trouble : 
 
 " Hale be your heart ! Hale be your fiddle ; 
 Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle, 
 Tae cheer you thro' the weary widdle 
 O' war'ly cares " ;
 
 RECREATIONS 137 
 
 and the fiddler loves his instrument as the 
 
 Arab loves his horse : 
 
 " An' parting wi' his fiddle, 
 
 The saut tear blin't his e'e." 
 
 GAMES. 
 
 1. Football: 
 
 " However fortune kick the ba'" ; 
 " Pursuing fortune's sHddery ba'." 
 
 2. Curling: 
 
 " When to the lochs the curlers flock 
 Wi' gleesome speed " ; 
 
 " The curlers quat their roarin' play." 
 
 3. Golfing: 
 
 " But, word an' blow, North, Fox, and Co. 
 Gowffed Willie like a ba', man." 
 
 Cricket of course is not named, nor, 
 curiously enough, shinty. 
 
 There is no notice of bathing. Swimming 
 
 is once mentioned, but rather as a dire 
 
 alternative : 
 
 "There's men o' taste wad tak the Ducat stream, 
 Tho' they should cast the very sark and swim."
 
 138 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 " Fechtin' " Jamie Fleck was a devotee of 
 the oldest and simplest of all sports. 
 
 TOBACCO. 
 
 The virtues of the soothing weed had been 
 
 discovered in the Land of Burns. Tobacco 
 
 is both snuff'd and smoked : 
 
 " The luntin' pipe and sneeshin' mull 
 Are handed round wi' richt guid will." 
 
 Ladies sometimes smoke, as they sometimes, 
 
 'tis whispered, do in our own days. At wee 
 
 Jenny's impious daring, Grannie 
 
 " fuff'd her pipe wi' sic a lunt, 
 In wrath she was sae vap'rin', 
 She noticed na, an aizle brunt 
 Her braw new worset apron 
 Out thro' that night." 
 
 The pleasures of strong drink are referred 
 to on pages 5 5-59-
 
 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 139 
 
 The pleasures of one other appetite and 
 their vogue come up over and over and over 
 again in Burns : lust runs liquor hard. If the 
 picture he draws of the profligacy of his 
 day is the truth, or anything like the truth, 
 we may be thankful that we live in times 
 when profligacy is less rampant, and profli- 
 gates are less shameless. No Juvenal of our 
 day would paint a country magnate as using 
 his power to punish " for speaking lichtly of 
 his limmer," or " Racer Jess and twa three 
 whores " as " blinking at the entry " of a 
 church bazaar ; no libertine of our day would 
 write to a man he had never seen, an old 
 man of sixty, as Burns at twenty-six writes 
 to Lapraik, of his bomies fortunes with poor 
 country girls, or would put his hand to the 
 " Address to an Illegitimate Daughter." 
 
 One remark and I have done. It will be 
 long before the stream run dry of pilgrims 
 to the scenes that Burns has sung into fame;
 
 I40 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 
 
 but the number of the pilgrims who under- 
 stand, or at least appreciate, his poems, who 
 catch the full flavour of the nectar, lessens 
 year by year. People have lately founded 
 a Chair of Gaelic. They had better have 
 founded a Chair of Scotch. Gaelic, with its 
 scientific structure and its relations to other 
 languages, will always interest a handful of 
 philologists, but its popular influence will be 
 nil, or will be hurtful : there is no literature 
 to reward the laborious study, and he is no 
 friend to the Highlands who would do any- 
 thing tending to keep apart Celt and Saxon. 
 A study of Scotch would have the opposite 
 effect. One of the strongest ties that used 
 here to bind class to class was a common 
 literature. Gentle and semple alike were 
 familiar with at least two books, their Bible 
 and their Burns. I will not ask how strong 
 the common interest still is in the Bible, but 
 Burns is grown almost a dead language to 
 the quality, and even the common folk, thanks 
 to School Boards and other modern influences,
 
 BURNS AND HIS TIMES 141 
 
 are fast losing their good Scotch. A return 
 to the old conditions would at least be a 
 make-weight (and we have none too many of 
 the sort) in drawing us together : " sympathy 
 is the universal solvent." And Scotch is well 
 worth studying for its own sake. It is easy, 
 and it is interesting ; it was the speech, 
 high and low, of an eager, a humorous, an 
 imaginative race, and has come down from 
 them the purest, the tersest, the most graphic 
 form of English, and if it had no literature in 
 it but Burns, one song of his has as much 
 poetry in it, as much passion and pathos, as — 
 dare I say it ? — all Ossian. 
 
 THE END.
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE ONIVERSITV PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
 
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