BURNS AND HIS HIGHLAND MARY. 125 CHAPTER XII. THE TRUE STORY OF BURNS AND HIS HIGHLAND MARY. Highland Mary's Birth, Parentage, and Early Years-Not a ARY CAMPBELL was of Highland parentage, MARY born near Dunoon, on the Firth of Clyde, and the eldest of eight children. Her father was a sailor in a revenue cutter, whose station was at Campbelton, in Cantire, Argyleshire. Her mother numbered among her relatives the Rev. David Campbell, of Loch Ranza, Isle of Arran; and, at his house, Mary spent some of her youthful years; to which circumstance may doubtless be attributed her superiority in cast of mind, manner, and intelligence to her station in life. Her mother always spoke of her as a paragon of gentleness and amiability, and, above all her other qualities, loved to dwell most upon her sincerity. She would appear also to have grown up in beauty, a sweet, sprightly, blue-eyed creature;' and, although we cannot implicitly put faith in the exaggerations of a poet-lover, who can liken his loved one's 'form, sae fair and faultless,' to that of the 'powers celestial;' yet Burns had so keen an eye for the beautiful in nature, especially in her completest work, a beautiful woman, that we can hardly imagine that Highland Mary would have received so large a share of his attentions, and have made so great an impression on his mind, unless she had possessed that attractive gift- the gift of good looks. We may believe him, however, when he says that she was a warm-hearted, charming young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love.' She was induced to leave her uncle's house at Loch Ranza by the solicitations of another relative, Mrs. Isabella Campbell, who was housekeeper to a family in Ayrshire; and so Mary Campbell came across the water to that county where was Robert Burns. In what year this happened we do not precisely know; but she was nursemaid in the family of Mr. Hamilton, of Mauchline, at the time when his son Alexander was born, July 1785; and it is thought that she saw him through some of the early stages of infancy before leaving Mr. Hamilton's service. Mr. Chambers seems to think that she continued in that service up to the period of her betrothal and departure for Campbelton, but says that there is some obscurity about the situations and movements of Mary.' She is popularly spoken of as having been dairymaid* to Colonel Hugh Montgomery (afterwards the Earl of Eglintoun), whose mansion of Coilsfield was on the banks of the Ayr. This belief may have arisen from the scene of the * Hugh Miller goes farther than this, and, in his imaginary Recollections' of Burns, makes the poet thus introduce Mary Campbell to his friend :—' This, Mr. Lindsay, is a loved friend of mine, whom I have known and valued for years - ever, indeed, since we herded our sheep together under the cover of one plaid.' (Tales and Sketches.) HIGHLAND MARY NOT A DAIRYMAID. 127 'lovers' farewell being near to the Castle of Montgomery,' by which name Burns poetically designates Coilsfield House. But the Ayr was but two miles distant from Mauchline, and we may readily suppose that Mr. Hamilton's nurserymaid would often take the children for a walk upon its bonnie banks;' and it was barely four miles from Mauchline, where the betrothal and final parting of the lovers took place, in that picturesque valley shrouded by the Coilsfield woods, where the rivulet Fayle gurgles down to join the river Ayr. I know not what authority there may be for. making Highland Mary a dairymaid; but it seems improbable that she should have filled such a situation when the previous circumstances of her life are considered; and if it be correct-according to the belief of the surviving brothers-that she was nursemaid to little Alexander Hamilton for some time after his birth in July 1785, then it is hardly probable that she was dairymaid to, or otherwise in the service of, Colonel Montgomery, at the time of her final interview with Burns. For we can now safely assign the date of this interview to Sunday, May 14, 1786, which was the day before the term at which servants commenced, or completed, their engagements. It is evident from Highland Mary's history, that, at the time of the final interview, she was completing, and not commencing, a term of service, which term, according to the custom of the country, would in all probability be for a twelvemonth. It would therefore follow that she remained in Mr. Hamilton's service as nursemaid up to the very time (as we may suppose) of her departure for Campbelton, and that she was not (as is generally represented by authors, poets, painters, and sculptors) dairymaid to Colonel Montgomery. A slight confirmation of this-in addition to the traditions and recollections of the Hamilton family—is, that the poet's sister, Mrs. Begg, could not recollect any reference being made at Mossgiel to Mary Campbell but once, when Burns said to John Blane, that 'Mary had refused to meet him in the old castle.' Now this old castle' was the dismantled tower of the ruined Priory of Mauchline, close beside Mr. Hamilton's house, and a very likely place for Burns to make an assignation with one of Mr. Hamilton's maids. The John Blane just mentioned, to whom the poet appears to have entrusted his secrets, was his gaudsman—that is, the man who drove the horses in the plough; and he was driving Burns' team of four, the poet holding and guiding the plough, when the 'timerous beastie' of a mouse was turned up. John Blane ran after it to kill it, but was prevented by Burns, who became thoughtful and abstracted. His thoughts soon shaped themselves into that beautiful poem, which has since been read and admired in every quarter of the globe. It bears the date of November 1785. He afterwards read the poem to John Blane, and, doubtless, also to Highland Mary. Burns rented the Mossgiel farm from Mr. Gavin Hamilton, a writer,' (Anglice, a lawyer,) and his intimacy with him and his clerks-the boon companions of Burns-would give him many opportunities for seeing Mary, which would be facilitated by her nurserymaid walks. Doubtless the poet made the most of those opportunities, and their acquaintance soon ripened into a deep attachment on her part, and a warm passion on his; we say 'passion' advisedly: the why and the wherefore we shall soon see. 6 If Mary Campbell had lived as dairymaid at Coilsfield, it is probable that some trace thereof may have THE COTTAR'S SATURDAY NIGHT.' 6 129 crept into Burns' verse, and that he might (for example) have celebrated her as Montgomery's Mary,' in the same way that he spoke of Montgomery's Peggy (who may have been the real dairymaid), with whom, two years before he knew Highland Mary, he had fallen in love at church, and had persecuted with his rejected addresses for six or eight months, and whom he has celebrated in verses of such warmth that they are judiciously printed as terminating in a line of stars: a hiatus by no means valdè deflendus. But, whether or no Highland Mary was dairymaid at Coilsfield, and went about with bare legs and short petticoats, as Mr. Faed and other artists delight to depict her, or whether she took her walks abroad with shoes and stockings on her feet, and respectably attired, as became the niece of the Rev. David Campbell, and the nursemaid of the chief gentleman in the town of Mauchline however this may be, she parted from Burns, never to see him again, on that memorable Sunday, May 14, 1786. Burns was at this time in a desperate strait. Particular private affairs, of which I will not now speak, were driving him to desperation. His farming matters had also taken a wrong turn. He and his brother Gilbert had entered upon Mossgiel farm in the spring of 1784, and the two years that he had passed there had been far more fruitful to him in poetry than in agriculture. In the space of fifteen months, while at his plough and farming-work, he had composed those remarkable productions on which his fame chiefly rests, The Cottar's Saturday Night' alone doing for him (as has been well observed by Mr. Wilmott) what the Elegy did for Gray. But, as yet, the poems had not been turned into money, and the name of the poet was unknown to the world. In fact, it was K |