beginning at Martinmas, in the family of a Colonel M'Ivor in Glasgow. A cousin of Mary's mother was the wife of one Peter Macpherson, a ship-carpenter at Greenock. It being determined that her younger brother Robert should be entered with Macpherson as an apprentice, her father came to Greenock to make the proper arrangements, and Mary accompanied him, professedly on her way to Glasgow for the purpose of entering on her service with Colonel M'Ivor, but secretly perhaps with the further design of taking a final farewell of Burns when he should depart for the West Indies; for Burns has expressly said that she crossed the sea [the Firth of Clyde] to meet him. There was what is called a brothering-feast at Macpherson's, on Robert Campbell being admitted to the craft, and Mary gave her assistance in serving the company. Next morning, the boy Robert was so indisposed as to be unable to go to his work. When Macpherson came home to breakfast, he asked what had detained him from the yard, and was told that the young man was very poorly. Mary jocularly observed that he had probably taken a little too much after supper last night, and Macpherson, to keep up the badinage, said: 'Oh, then, it is as well, in case of the worst, that I have agreed to purchase that lair in the kirk-yard;' referring to a place of sepulture which he had just secured for his family-a very important matter in Greenock, as there was then no resting-place for the remains of those who did. not possess such property, except the corner assigned to strangers and paupers, or a grave obtained by favour from a friend. The young man's illness proved more serious than was at first supposed, and Mary attended him with great tenderness and assiduity. In a few days Robert began to recover, but at the same time Mary drooped, and became seriously unwell. Her friends believed that she suffered from the cast of an evil eye, and recommended her father to go to a cross burn-that is, a place where two burns meet-and select seven smooth stones from the channel, boil them with new milk for a certain time, and then give her the milk to drink. It must be remembered that these were Highland people, and that the Highlanders are to this day full of superstitious notions. The drink was duly prepared, as had been recommended, and given to Mary; but her illness was soon declared to be fever, of a malignant species, then prevalent in the town, and in a few days the poor girl died. She was buried in the lair which her relative had so recently bought, being the first of the family who was placed in it. Such are the particulars derived from Macpherson's daughter, and from a male relative of the family' who has often conversed on the subject with Mary's mother. There seems to be no good reason for doubting them, or any of them. The only point in which the story is defective is the date, a matter regarding which the memory is apt to be less faithful than with respect to events. There is, unluckily, no register of deaths or funerals for this period in Greenock. On a visit to the town for the purpose of making investigations, the first attention of the editor was given to Mary's grave. It is in the burial-ground of the West Church, the original and principal parish of Greenock-a melancholy and halfdeserted precinct, so close to the Firth of Clyde, that a stone could be thrown into it from the passing steamers. In a central situation are two flat stones, recording the ancestors of the illustrious James Watt. Near the west end is the little plot which had belonged to Peter Macpherson, the ship-carpenter. Shading it from the setting sun is a tall elegant structure, which a few admirers of Burns have erected for the commemoration of her whom the poet loved. It contains a sculpture representing the parting of the lovers, surmounted by a figure weeping over an urn, on which is inscribed the name Mary. At the foot of this lofty structure nestles the original little head-stone of Macpherson. In its semilunar upper compartment are carved the tools of a carpenter, with the date 1760. Underneath, on the square body of the stone, is the legend: This Burying-place belongs to Peter Macpherson, ship-carpenter in Greenock, and Mary Campbell his spouse, and their children, 1787.' There was an uncertainty here. The stone might have been erected in 1760 by some member of Macpherson's family, from whom he had inherited it; and notwithstanding the legend and second date, Mary might have been buried there at any time from 1760 downward. It is, however, observable that the legend and second date are inscribed upon a surface half an inch or so inward from that on which the tools are carved, as if an earlier inscription had been obliterated-implying that the stone had undergone a renovation in 1787. If that was to be regarded as a doing of Macpherson when he became possessed of the lair, the tendency of the evidence might be said to be in favour of a late, rather than an early date for the death of Mary. Still, the matter was left at an unsatisfactory point. At this stage of the inquiry it was brought to mind that there 'Mr J. C. Douglas, clothier, Greenock. was a Register of Lairs, in which it might be hoped that the date of Macpherson's purchase was entered. A wretched tattered old volume was found buried in a mass of similar rubbish in the possession of Mr Teulon, superintendent of the burying-grounds of Greenock, by whose obliging assistance, with no small difficulty, an entry was at length found, to the following effect: '1760. This lair is this day transferred to Peter Macpherson, There could not of course remain the slightest doubt that the ground which contains the ashes of Highland Mary was bought by her relative at the very time when Robert Burns designed to sail from Greenock for the West Indies. Macpherson had, as conjectured, succeeded to a stone, which he had renovated, preserving only the sculpture of his predecessor's emblems of trade, because these were equally suitable for himself. Unless, then, we are to reject the family story entirely, and suppose it possible that Mary was buried here while Duncan Robertson possessed the ground, which the customs of sepulture in Greenock render to the last degree improbable, we must admit that her death took place in the latter part of 1786-consequently after her poet-lover had broken off his match with Jean Armour-in short, the pitcous tale of the Highland Lassie comes in as one of several episodes that checkered the main attachment of Burns's life, that which terminated in making him at length a husband. Mary's parents and other near relations, who afterwards settled. in Greenock, were of such a grade of mind and strain of sentiment as to shrink for many years from all acknowledgment of Burns as her lover. It cannot be surprising that a man who could think of administering a decoction of pebbles as a cure for his daughter's illness, was narrow-spirited enough to burn the letters of a great poet, and forbid his name to be mentioned in the family. The mother, who was a good, kind-hearted creature, was more relenting. She learned to sing the song of the Highland Lassie to her grandchildren. On being asked by her grand-nephew, Mr J. C. Douglas, if she thought that Mary would have married Burns, she said that she could not tell what might have happened if Mary had survived, but she did not think her sweet lassie could have ever been happy with so wild and profane a genius as Burns-yet she would immediately add, that he was a real warm-hearted chield,' for such was the impression he had made upon her when he had subsequently paid her a visit. The old woman always spoke of Mary, who was the eldest of her eight children, as a paragon of gentleness and amiability. Her sincerity was a quality which, above all others, the mother fondly dwelt on. There is, indeed, all desirable reason to believe that Mary was of a character to have graced, if not even rectified, a companion-spirit such as Burns-who, in subsequent years, might well have imagined that with her he could have been something different from what he was. 'What conquest o'er each erring thought Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought! I had not wandered wild and wide, With such an angel for my guide; Nor heaven nor earth could then reprove me If she had lived, and lived to love me.' We must now revert to Mossgiel, where the poet was living in an unsettled state, looking forward to the Jamaica voyage, but still hopeful that a ram would be caught in the thicket-that is, an Excise situation prove attainable-s e-so as to save him from exile. Mrs Begg remembers, that after the work of the season was over, and she had, as usual, taken to the big wheel, in which either her mother or one of her sisters was assisting herRobert and Gilbert being also present-a letter for the former was handed in. He went to the window to open and read it, and she was struck by the look of agony which was the consequence. He went out without uttering a syllable. The family learned nothing of the facts of the case till after the publication of some of the songs written upon Mary; and even then they became aware of this strange passage in their brother's history only as something too sacred for discussion or remark. Burns's reasons for maintaining a mystery on the subject can only be matter of conjecture. He might have some sense of remorse about this simple girl-he might feel some little shame on account of her humble position in life-he might dread the world's knowing that, after the affair of Jean Armour, in the midst of such calamitous circumstances, and facing a long exile in the West Indies, he had been so madly imprudent as to engage a poor girl to join him in wedlock, whether to go with him, or to wait for his return. Some remarks of Dr Currie, in which this affair is touched upon, and which significantly occur immediately after the recital of the rencontre with the Bonnie Lass of Ballochmyle, are here worthy of attention, as helping to verify a narration otherwise apt to appear a modern myth -The sensibility,' says he, of our bard's temper, and the force of his imagination, exposed him in a particular manner to the impressions of beauty; and these qualities, united to his impassioned eloquence, gave him in turn a powerful influence over the female heart. The banks of the Ayr formed the scene of youthful passions of a still tenderer nature, the history of which it would be improper to reveal, were it even in our power; and the traces of which will soon be discoverable only in those strains of nature and sensibility to which they gave birth. The song entitled Highland Mary is known to relate to one of these attachments. "It was written," says our bard, "on one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days." The object of this passion died early in life, and the impression left on the mind of Burns seems to have been deep and lasting.' It seems not unlikely that Currie had got a hint of the affair from Gilbert Burns, but with injunctions to touch on it lightly.' The letter which follows, though undated, is evidently of this period. It throws a valuable light on the inner feelings of Burns at a time when he appeared to the common minds around him as only a reckless son of song. May we not reasonably suspect that some of the wandering stabs of remorse' to which he alludes bore reference to Highland Mary?— то MR ROBERT AIKEN. [A little after Oct. 6 ?] SIR-I was with Wilson my printer t'other day, and settled all our bygone matters between us. After I had paid all demands, I made him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard of being paid out of the first and readiest, which he declines. By his account, the paper of 1000 copies would cost about twenty-seven pounds, and 1 Mr John Kerr of Glasgow, in a communication to the Scots Times in 1827, expresses his regret that none of the letters of Burns to Highland Mary are now in existence. After Mary's death,' he says, 'her father disliked all allusions to her or to her lover; and when Burns wrote a moving letter, requesting some memorial of her he loved so dearly, the stern old man neither answered it, nor allowed any one to speak about it in his presence.' The Bible in two volumes, presented by Burns to Mary, remained in possession of the mother for many years, and was given by her to her only surviving daughter, Mrs Anderson. From Mrs Anderson it came to her son, William Anderson, mason in Renton, Dumbartonshire. He emigrated to Canada, carried the Bible with him, and it was there purchased by a party of gentlemen for £25, and forwarded to the provost of Ayr, to be presented in their name to the trustees of Burns's monument. This was accordingly done on the 25th of January 1841, being the poet's birthday. On the next anniversary of the poet's birth, January 25, 1842, a handsome monument, which had cost about £100, raised by subscription, was consecrated to the memory of Highland Mary, on the spot of her sepulture in the West Kirk-yard of Greenock. |