HREE miles from Tarbolton, on the banks of the Ayr, is Lochlea, the next brief resting-place of Robert Burns. Thither his

father removed, when ruined at Mount Oliphant. Here the poet established the Bachelors' Club; and here, an apt catechumen, he was, "'tis sixty years. since," initiated into the jovial mysteries of freemasonry. The little river Faile inspired one of the most humorous, and on the other hand one of the most tender, of his compositions-"Death and Dr. Hornbook"-and the verses on "Highland Mary."

SCENE OF DEATH AND DOCTOR HORNBOOK.

About two hundred yards from the village on the road to Mossgiel, and on the little tributary of the Faile, is Tarbolton Mill, called "Willie's Mill" from its occupier, William Muir, a friend of the poet and his family.

Here is the scene of an imaginary encounter with Death which the poet represents himself to have had,

DEATH AND DOCTOR HORNBOOK.

27

where Death is made ironically to complain of a worthy dominie of the name of Hornbook, who had added the business of doctoring the body to that of teaching the young ideas how to shoot. Burns had been offended by the pedantic ostentation of the chirurgical schoolmaster, and revenged himself by the satirical commemoration. He says that, in going home one night—

I was na fou, but just had plenty;

and when

The rising moon began to glow'r
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre;
To count her horns wi' a' my pow'r
I set mysel;
But whether she had three or four,
I cou'd na tell.

I was come round about the hill,
And todlin down on Willie's mill,
Setting my staff, wi' a' my skill,

To keep me sicker;

Though leeward whyles against my will,
I took a bicker.

In this comfortable state, he proceeds—

I there wi' something did forgather,
That put me in an eerie swither;
An awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther,
Clear-dangling, hang;

A three-taed leister on the ither

Lay, large and lang.

They begin to banter one another, but by and by shake hands, and Death, making a confidant of the

bard, laments the change that had come

prospects:

The very

Sax thousand years are near hand fled,
Sin' I was to the butching bred,

And mony a scheme in vain 's been laid,
To stap or scaur me;

Till ane Hornbook's taen up the trade,

And faith he'll waur me.

over his

weans haud out their fingers, laughin'," he "and poke his ribs," to tell him that his occupation's gone.

says,

He then describes with a most melancholy humour the wonderful exploits of the doctor in turning aside and blunting his darts, and prepares to acquaint the poet of a cunning plot he had laid to be even with his redoubtable adversary, when,—

Just as he began to tell,

The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell,
Some wee short hour ayont the twal,

Which rais'd us baith:

I took the way that pleas'd mysel,

And sae did Death.

OILSFIELD, the "Castle o' Montgomery," about half a mile from the village, was the residence of Col. Montgomery, afterwards Earl of Eglintoun. Here Mary

Campbell," Highland Mary," lived, an humble dairymaid, the poet's first love, to whom, laving their hands in the stream, and holding a Bible between them, he pronounced a vow of eternal constancy, and maintained it too, when she was Mary in Heaven; for that affection, doubtless, for ever hallowed his after loves -of the earth earthy-was, as it were, a part of them, even of that which he entertained in truth and sincerity for his bonnie Jean; long after his union with whom, yet without loss of love for her, he still in his heart addressed that planet that shone like another moon, in the noblest of his ballads:

Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,

Again thou usher'st in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

That sacred hour can I forget,
Can I forget the hallow'd grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love!

Eternity will not efface,

Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;

Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!

Ayr, gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning, green,
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.

The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing West,
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.

Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but th' impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.

My Mary, dear departed shade!

Where is thy blissful place of rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

This beautiful ballad was written sometime after his marriage with Bonnie Jean, who, we doubt not, was wise enough and unselfish enough to pardon the tender reminiscences connected with one endeared to all the gentlest feelings of the poet's mind, by the never to-beeradicated associations of sanguine youth; for while, among the banks and braes and streams around the