He went to the window to read it; a sudden change came over
his face, and he left the room without a word. Years afterwards, when
the story began to leak out, his family understood that he had then
learned the death of Highland Mary. Except in a few poems and a few dry
indications purposely misleading as to date, Burns himself made no
reference to this passage of his life; it was an adventure of which, for
I think sufficient reasons, he desired to bury the details. Of one thing
we may be glad: in after years he visited the poor girl's mother, and
left her with the impression that he was "a real warm-hearted chield." Perhaps a month after he received this intelligence, he set out for
Edinburgh on a pony he had borrowed from a friend. The town that winter
was "agog with the ploughman poet." Robertson, Dugald Stewart, Blair,
"Duchess Gordon and all the gay world," were of his acquaintance. Such
a revolution is not to be found in literary history. He was now, it must
be remembered, twenty-seven years of age; he had fought since his early
boyhood an obstinate battle against poor soil, bad seed, and inclement
seasons, wading deep in Ayrshire mosses, guiding the plough in the
furrow, wielding "the thresher's weary flingin'-tree"; and his
education, his diet, and his pleasures, had been those of a Scots
countryman. Now he stepped forth suddenly among the polite and learned. We can see him as he then was, in his boots and buckskins, his blue coat
and waistcoat striped with buff and blue, like a farmer in his Sunday
best; the heavy ploughman's figure firmly planted on its burly legs; his
face full of sense and shrewdness, and with a somewhat melancholy air of
thought, and his large dark eye "literally glowing" as he spoke. "I
never saw such another eye in a human head," says Walter Scott, "though
I have seen the most distinguished men of my time." With men, whether
they were lords or omnipotent critics, his manner was plain, dignified,
and free from bashfulness or affectation. If he made a slip, he had the
social courage to pass on and refrain from explanation. He was not
embarrassed in this society, because he read and judged the men; he
could spy snobbery in a titled lord; and, as for the critics, he
dismissed their system in an epigram. "These gentlemen," said he,
"remind me of some spinsters in my country who spin their thread so fine
that it is neither fit for weft nor woof." Ladies, on the other hand,
surprised him; he was scarce commander of himself in their society; he
was disqualified by his acquired nature as a Don Juan; and he, who had
been so much at his ease with country lasses, treated the town dames to
an extreme of deference. One lady, who met him at a ball, gave Chambers
a speaking sketch of his demeanour. "His manners were not
prepossessing--scarcely, she thinks, manly or natural. It seemed as if
he affected a rusticity or _landertness_, so that when he said the music
was 'bonnie, bonnie,' it was like the expression of a child." These
would be company manners; and doubtless on a slight degree of intimacy
the affectation would grow less. And his talk to women had always "a
turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged the attention
particularly." The Edinburgh magnates (to conclude this episode at once) behaved well
to Burns from first to last. Were heaven-born genius to revisit us in
similar guise, I am not venturing too far when I say that he need expect
neither so warm a welcome nor such solid help. Although Burns was only a
peasant, and one of no very elegant reputation as to morals, he was made
welcome to their homes. They gave him a great deal of good advice,
helped him to some five hundred pounds of ready money, and got him, as
soon as he asked it, a place in the Excise. Burns, on his part, bore the
elevation with perfect dignity; and with perfect dignity returned, when
the time had come, into a country privacy of life. His powerful sense
never deserted him, and from the first he recognised that his Edinburgh
popularity was but an ovation and the affair of a day. He wrote a few
letters in a high-flown, bombastic vein of gratitude; but in practice he
suffered no man to intrude upon his self-respect. On the other hand, he
never turned his back, even for a moment, on his old associates; and he
was always ready to sacrifice an acquaintance to a friend, although the
acquaintance were a duke. He would be a bold man who should promise
similar conduct in equally exacting circumstances. It was, in short, an
admirable appearance on the stage of life--socially successful,
intimately self-respecting, and like a gentleman from first to last. In the present study, this must only be taken by the way, while we
return to Burns's love affairs. Even on the road to Edinburgh he had
seized upon the opportunity of a flirtation, and had carried the
"battering" so far that when next he moved from town, it was to steal
two days with this anonymous fair one. The exact importance to Burns of
this affair may be gathered from the song in which he commemorated its
occurrence. "I love the dear lassie," he sings, "because she loves me";
or, in the tongue of prose: "Finding an opportunity, I did not hesitate
to profit by it; and even now, if it returned, I should not hesitate to
profit by it again." A love thus founded has no interest for mortal man. Meantime, early in the winter, and only once, we find him regretting
Jean in his correspondence. "Because"--such is his reason--"because he
does not think he will ever meet so delicious an armful again"; and
then, after a brief excursion into verse, he goes straight on to
describe a new episode in the voyage of discovery with the daughter of a
Lothian farmer for a heroine. I must ask the reader to follow all these
references to his future wife; they are essential to the comprehension
of Burns's character and fate. In June we find him back at Mauchline, a
famous man. There, the Armour family greeted him with a "mean, servile
compliance," which increased his former disgust. Jean was not less
compliant; a second time the poor girl submitted to the fascination of
the man whom she did not love, and whom she had so cruelly insulted
little more than a year ago; and, though Burns took advantage of her
weakness, it was in the ugliest and most cynical spirit, and with a
heart absolutely indifferent. Judge of this by a letter written some
twenty days after his return--a letter to my mind among the most
degrading in the whole collection--a letter which seems to have been
inspired by a boastful, libertine bagman. "I am afraid," it goes, "I
have almost ruined one source, the principal one, indeed, of my former
happiness--the eternal propensity I always had to fall in love. My heart
no more glows with feverish rapture; I have no paradisiacal evening
interviews." Even the process of "battering" has failed him, you
perceive.