Robert Burns | Page 2

temper--a combination which, as his son remarks, does
not usually lead to worldly success. But his chief characteristic was his
deep-seated and thoughtful piety. A peasant-saint of the old Scottish
stamp, he yet tempered the stern Calvinism of the West with the milder
Arminianism more common in his northern birthplace. Robert, who,
amid all his after-errors, never ceased to revere his father's memory,
has left an immortal portrait of him in The Cotter's Saturday Night,
when he describes how
The saint, the father, and the husband prays.
William Burness was advanced in years before he married, and his wife,
Agnes Brown, was much younger than himself. She is described as an
Ayrshire lass, of humble birth, very sagacious, with bright eyes and
intelligent looks, but not beautiful, of good manners and easy address.
Like her husband, she was sincerely religious, but of a more equable
temper, quick to perceive character, and with a memory stored with old
traditions, songs, and ballads, which she told or sang to amuse her
children. In his outer man the poet resembled his mother, but his great
mental gifts, if inherited at all, must be traced to his father.
Three places in Ayrshire, besides his birthplace, will always be
remembered as the successive homes of Burns. These were Mount
(p. 004) Oliphant, Lochlea (pronounced Lochly), and Mossgiel.
MOUNT OLIPHANT.--This was a small upland farm, about two miles
from the Brig o' Doon, of a poor and hungry soil, belonging to Mr.

Ferguson, of Doon-holm, who was also the landlord of William
Burness' previous holding. Robert was in his seventh year when his
father entered on this farm at Whitsuntide, 1766, and he had reached
his eighteenth when the lease came to a close in 1777. All the years
between these two dates were to the family of Burness one long sore
battle with untoward circumstances, ending in defeat. If the hardest toil
and severe self-denial could have procured success, they would not
have failed. It was this period of his life which Robert afterwards
described, as combining "the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the
unceasing moil of galley-slave." The family did their best, but a
niggard soil and bad seasons were too much for them. At length, on the
death of his landlord, who had always dealt generously by him,
William Burness fell into the grip of a factor, whose tender mercies
were hard. This man wrote letters which set the whole family in tears.
The poet has not given his name, but he has preserved his portrait in
colours which are indelible:--
I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day, An' mony a time my heart's been
wae, Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, How they maun thole a factor's
snash; He'll stamp an' threaten, curse and swear, He'll apprehend them,
poind their gear, While they maun stan', wi aspect humble, And hear it
a', an' fear an' tremble.
In his autobiographical sketch the poet tells us that, "The farm proved a
ruinous bargain. I was the eldest of seven children, and (p. 005) my
father, worn out by early hardship, was unfit for labour. His spirit was
soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a freedom in the lease
in two years more; and to weather these two years we retrenched
expenses, and toiled on." Robert and Gilbert, the two eldest, though
still boys, had to do each a grown man's full work. Yet for all their
hardships these Mount Oliphant days were not without alleviations. If
poverty was at the door, there was warm family affection by the
fireside. If the two sons had, long before manhood, to bear toil beyond
their years, still they were living under their parents' roof, and those
parents two of the wisest and best of Scotland's peasantry. Work was
no doubt incessant, but education was not neglected--rather it was held
one of the most sacred duties. When Robert was five years old, he had

been sent to a school at Alloway Mill, and when the family removed to
Mount Oliphant, his father combined with four of his neighbours to
hire a young teacher, who boarded among them, and taught their
children for a small salary. This young teacher, whose name was
Murdoch, has left an interesting description of his two young pupils,
their parents, and the household life while he sojourned at Mount
Oliphant. At that time Murdoch thought that Gilbert possessed a
livelier imagination, and was more of a wit than Robert. "All the mirth
and liveliness," he says, "were with Gilbert. Robert's countenance at
that time wore generally a grave and thoughtful look." Had their
teacher been then told that one of his two pupils would become a great
poet, he would have fixed on Gilbert. When he tried to teach them
church music along with