Robert Burns | Page 8

with debts, and in 1784 in the midst of a lawsuit about his lease, he died.
In spite of his struggle for a bare subsistence, the elder Burnes had not neglected the education of his children. Before he was six, Robert was sent to a small school at Alloway Mill, and soon after his father joined with a few neighbors to engage a young man named John Murdoch to teach their children in a room in the village. This arrangement continued for two years and a half, when, Murdoch having been called elsewhere, the father undertook the task of education himself. The regular instruction was confined chiefly to the long winter evenings, but quite as important as this was the intercourse between father and sons as they went about their work.
"My father," says the poet's brother Gilbert, "was for some time almost the only companion we had. He conversed familiarly on all subjects with us, as if we had been men; and was at great pains, as we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to lead the conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our knowledge, or confirm our virtuous habits. He borrowed Salmon's _Geographical Grammar_ for us, and endeavoured to make us acquainted with the situation and history of the different countries in the world; while, from a book-society in Ayr, he procured for us Derham's _Physics and Astro-Theology_, and Ray's _Wisdom of God in the Creation_, to give us some idea of astronomy and natural history. Robert read all these books with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled. My father had been a subscriber to Stackhouse's _History of the Bible_ ...; from this Robert collected a competent knowledge of ancient history; for no book was so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to dampen his researches. A brother of my mother, who had lived with us some time, and had learned some arithmetic by our winter evening's candle, went into a book-seller's shop in Ayr to purchase the _Ready Reckoner, or Tradesman's Sure Guide_, and a book to teach him to write letters. Luckily, in place of the _Complete Letter-Writer_, he got by mistake a small collection of letters by the most eminent writers, with a few sensible directions for attaining an easy epistolary style. This book was to Robert of the greatest consequence. It inspired him with a strong desire to excel in letter-writing, while it furnished him with models by some of the first writers in our language."
Interesting as are the details as to the antiquated manuals from which Burns gathered his general information, it is more important to note the more personal implications in this account. Respect for learning has long been wide-spread among the peasantry of Scotland, but it is evident that William Burnes was intellectually far above the average of his class. The schoolmaster Murdoch has left a portrait of him in which he not only extols his virtues as a man but emphasizes his zest for things of the mind, and states that "he spoke the English language with more propriety--both with respect to diction and pronunciation--than any man I ever knew, with no greater advantages." Though tender and affectionate, he seems to have inspired both wife and children with a reverence amounting to awe, and he struck strangers as reserved and austere. He recognized in Robert traces of extraordinary gifts, but he did not hide from him the fact that his son's temperament gave him anxiety for his future. Mrs. Burnes was a devoted wife and mother, by no means her husband's intellectual equal, but vivacious and quick-tempered, with a memory stored with the song and legend of the country-side. Other details can be filled in from the poet's own picture of his father's household as given with little or no idealization in _The Cotter's Saturday Night_.
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT
My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!?No mercenary bard his homage pays:?With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,?My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise:?To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,?The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;?The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;?What Aiken in a cottage would have been--?Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.
November chill blaws load wi' angry sough; [wail] The shortening winter-day is near a close;?The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;?The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:?The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,?This night his weekly moil is at an end,?Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,?Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,?And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,?Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;?Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through [stagger] To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an'