Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography | Page 6

a light brown color,
given at the time, is preserved in the treasured volumes. A few steps
away is Alloway Kirk. The old sexton was standing by the grave of
Burns' father, and described to me the route of "Tam o' Shanter." He
showed me the chinks in the sides through which the kirk seemed "all
in a bleeze," and he pointed out the identical place on the wall where

Old Nick was presiding over the midnight revels of the beldames
when--
"Louder and louder the piper blew, Swifter and swifter the dancers
flew."
After the old man had finished his recital, I asked him whether he had
ever seen the poet. "Only aince," he replied. "That was one day when
he was ridin' on a road near here. I met a friend who told me to hurry
up, for Rabbie Burns was just ahead. I whippit up my horse, and came
up to a roughly dressed man, ridin' slowly along, with his blue bonnet
pulled down over his forehead, and his eyes turned toward the groond."
"Didn't you speak to him?" I said. "Nay, nay," replied the man, in a
tone of deep reverence, "he was Rabbie Burns. I dare na speak to him.
If he had been any other mon I would have said 'good morrow to ye.'"
Beautiful and eloquent tribute, paid by an unlettered peasant, not to
rank or to wealth, but to a soul--a mighty soul though clad in "hodden
grey" like himself!
The most interesting object was yet to be visited--the cottage of his
birth, I entered it with reverence; and a well dressed, but very old,
woman welcomed me in. "This is the room," she said. I looked around
on the rough stone walls and could not believe that it ever contained
such a soul; for the cottage, with all its subsequent repairs, was hardly
equal to the generality of our early log cabins. The old lady was very
affable. In her early life she had been connected with an inn at
Mauchline, and had seen the poet often. "Rabbie was a funny fellow,"
she said; "I ken'd him weel; and he stoppit at our hoose on his way up
to Edinburgh to see the lairds." I asked her if he was not always
humorous. "Nae, nae," she replied, "he used to come in and sit doun wi'
his hands in his lap like a bashful country lad; very glum, till he got a
drap o' whuskey, or heard a gude story, _and then he was aff!_ He was
very poorly in his latter days." Those closing days in Dumfries, steeped
in poverty to the lips, forms one of the most tragic chapters in literary
history; and I know scarcely anything in our language more pathetic
than the letter which he wrote describing his wretched bondage to the
dominion of strong drink. An old lady of Kilmarnock told my friend,

the late Dr. Taylor of New York, that when a young woman she had
gone to Burns' house to assist in preparations for his funeral, and stated
that there was not enough decent linen in the house to lay out the most
splendid genius in all Scotland! When I was at Ayr, a sister of Burns,
Mrs. Begg, was still living, and I am always regretting that I did not
call upon her. His widow, Jean Armour, had died but a few years
before; and when a certain pert American who called upon the old lady
had the audacity to ask her: "Can you show me any relics of the poet?"
answered with majestic dignity: "Sir, I am the only relic of Robert
Burns."
I went abroad on this first visit to Europe keen for lion hunting, and
with an eager desire to see some of the men who had been my literary
benefactors. On my arrival in London, having a letter of introduction to
Charles Dickens, which a mutual friend had given to me, I resolved to
present it. Charles Dickens was an idol of my college days, and I had
spent a few minutes with him in Philadelphia during his recent visit to
the United States. He had returned from his triumphal tour about a
month before I landed in Liverpool. I called at his house, but he was
not at home. The next day he did me the honor to call on me at
Morley's Hotel, and, not finding me in, invited me up to his house near
York Gate, Regents Park. It was a dingy, brick house surrounded by a
high wall, but cheerful and cozy within. I found him in his sanctum, a
singularly shaped room, with statuettes of Sam Weller and others of his
creations on the mantelpiece. A portrait of his beautiful wife was upon
the wall--that wife,