MY DEAR SIR,
I find myself very comfortable here, neither oppressed by ceremony nor mortified by neglect. Lady Augusta is a most engaging woman, and very happy in her family, which makes one"s outgoings and incomings very agreeable. I called at Mr. Ramsay"s of Auchtertyre as I came up the country, and am so delighted with him that I shall certainly accept of his invitation to spend a day or two with him as I return. I leave this place on Wednesday or Thursday.
Make my kind compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Cruikshank and Mrs. Nicol, if she is returned.
I am ever, dear Sir,
Your deeply indebted,
R. B.
LXIX.
TO WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK, ESQ.
ST. JAMES"S SQUARE, EDINBURGH.
[At the house of William Cruikshank, one of the masters of the High School, in Edinburgh, Burns pa.s.sed many agreeable hours.]
_Auchtertyre, Monday morning._
I have nothing, my dear Sir, to write to you but that I feel myself exceedingly comfortably situated in this good family: just notice enough to make me easy but not to embarra.s.s me. I was storm-staid two days at the foot of the Ochillhills, with Mr. Trait of Herveyston and Mr. Johnston of Alva, but was so well pleased that I shall certainly spend a day on the banks of the Devon as I return. I leave this place I suppose on Wednesday, and shall devote a day to Mr. Ramsay at Auchtertyre, near Stirling: a man to whose worth I cannot do justice.
My respectful kind compliments to Mrs. Cruikshank, and my dear little Jeanie, and if you see Mr. Masterton, please remember me to him.
I am ever,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
LXX.
TO MR. JAMES SMITH.
LINLITHGOW.
[The young lady to whom the poet alludes in this letter, was very beautiful, and very proud: it is said she gave him a specimen of both her temper and her pride, when he touched on the subject of love.]
_June 30, 1787._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
On our return, at a Highland gentleman"s hospitable mansion, we fell in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid formal movements; the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at intervals; then we flew at Bab at the Bowster, Tullochgorum, Loch Erroch Side, &c., like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws prognosticating a storm in a hairst day.--When the dear la.s.ses left us, we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow hour of six; except a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond. We all kneeled; our worthy landlord"s son held the bowl; each man a full gla.s.s in his hand; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense, like Thomas-a-Rhymer"s prophecies I suppose.--After a small refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on Lochlomond, and reach Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another good fellow"s house, and consequently, pushed the bottle; when we went out to mount our horses, we found ourselves "No vera fou but gaylie yet." My two friends and I rode soberly down the Loch side, till by came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a tolerably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We scorned to be out-galloped by a Highlandman, so off we started, whip and spur. My companions, though seemingly gaily mounted, fell sadly astern; but my old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, she strained past the Highlandman in spite of all his efforts with the hair halter; just as I was pa.s.sing him, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before me to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his rider"s breekless a----e in a clipt hedge; and down came Jenny Geddes over all, and my bardship between her and the Highlandman"s horse. Jenny Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, that matters were not so bad as might well have been expected; so I came off with a few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of sobriety for the future.
I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon. I was going to say, a wife too; but that must never be my blessed lot. I am but a younger son of the house of Parna.s.sus, and like other younger sons of great families, I may intrigue, if I choose to run all risks, but must not marry.
I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the princ.i.p.al one, indeed, of my former happiness; that eternal propensity I always had to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish rapture. I have no paradisaical evening interviews, stolen from the restless cares and prying inhabitants of this weary world. I have only * * * *. This last is one of your distant acquaintances, has a fine figure, and elegant manners; and in the train of some great folks whom you know, has seen, the politest quarters in Europe. I do like her a good deal; but what piques me is her conduct at the commencement of our acquaintance. I frequently visited her when I was in ----, and after pa.s.sing regularly the intermediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return to ----, I wrote to her in the same style. Miss, construing my words farther I suppose than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning; and wrote me an answer which measured me out very completely what an immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her favour. But I am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, prudent reply, as brought my bird from her aerial towerings, pop, down at my foot, like Corporal Trim"s hat.
As for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and all my wise sayings, and why my mare was called Jenny Geddes, they shall be recorded in a few weeks hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memory, by
R. B.
LXXI.
TO MR. JOHN RICHMOND.
[Mr. John Richmond, writer, was one of the poet"s earliest and firmest friends; he shared his room with him when they met in Edinburgh, and did him many little offices of kindness and regard.]
_Mossgiel, 7th July, 1787._
MY DEAR RICHMOND,
I am all impatience to hear of your fate since the old confounder of right and wrong has turned you out of place, by his journey to answer his indictment at the bar of the other world. He will find the practice of the court so different from the practice in which he has for so many years been thoroughly hackneyed, that his friends, if he had any connexions truly of that kind, which I rather doubt, may well tremble for his sake. His chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood so firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices in robbery and plunder, will, now the piratical business is blown, in all probability turn the king"s evidences, and then the devil"s bagpiper will touch him off "Bundle and go!"
If he has left you any legacy, I beg your pardon for all this; if not, I know you will swear to every word I said about him.
I have lately been rambling over by Dumbarton and Inverary, and running a drunken race on the side of Loch Lomond with a wild Highlandman; his horse, which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather, zigzagged across before my old spavin"d hunter, whose name is Jenny Geddes, and down came the Highlandman, horse and all, and down came Jenny and my bardship; so I have got such a skinful of bruises and wounds, that I shall be at least four weeks before I dare venture on my journey to Edinburgh.
Not one new thing under the sun has happened in Mauchline since you left it. I hope this will find you as comfortably situated as formerly, or, if heaven pleases, more so; but, at all events, I trust you will let me know of course how matters stand with you, well or ill. "Tis but poor consolation to tell the world when matters go wrong; but you know very well your connexion and mine stands on a different footing.
I am ever, my dear friend, yours,
R. B.
LXXII.