Notes on
the way through Ayrshire - 100 years ago
MAUCHLINE PARISH
East of Tarbolton. The
town of Mauchline stands 11 miles east-north-east of Ayr, on a beautiful
countryside that slopes gently down south to Ayr Water. It is.
sheltered on the west by the woods of Netherplace, and is
of a roundish shape, with a number of streets, presenting many varieties
of handsome new and old gray features-like proud young ladies and their
humble grandmas. We love the grandmas for the charming old histories
they give us. It has a railway station (nearly half-a-mile south), a
post! office (with telegraph, money order, and savings bank), a
Commercial Bank, two hotels; Established, Free, and United Presbyterian
Churches; a large public school, with an endowment, to the extent of
£120 pounds a-year, for the education of fifty poor children of the
town and neighhood; and extensive manufactories of fancy woodwork.
Population in 1871; 1574; in 1881, 1616. The history of Mauchline is
strongly marked by the courage of her people. So far back as 681,
it is said, an army of Irish invaders
were defeated here ; and in the times of persecution, Mauchline fought
and bled for the conservation of Scottish Rights with true Ayrshire
patriotism. At Mauchline Hill, in the vicinity of the town, the
Covenanters, in Episcopal
troops in 1647. In the town
is a monument to five martyrs
of the reign of James VII.
Another religious battle fought at Mauchline in the year 1785,
though no lives were lost, has attained a more, worldwide fame. In this
case the persecuting party was not the Episcopal Government - for it was
in the reign of George III.-
but it was the kirk-session of Mauchline,. and the persecuted
party was Mr. Gavin Hamilton,
writer, Mauchline. The kirk-session, mainly at the instigation. of
an elder named William Fisher,
better known as "Holy Willie,"
threatened to deprive Hamilton of church privileges, on the following
charges :-" (1) Unnecessary absence from church for five
consecutive Sundays; (2) Setting out on a journey to Carrick on a
Sunday; (3) Habitual, if not total Mr.
Hamilton, perceiving that his lawful
rights were being invaded by unscrupulous tyrants, as were those of, the
Covenanters before him, appealed for justice to the Presbytery of Ayr -
the case being argued ’ before
that reverend body by Robert Aiken,
writer in Ayr. Whether some or all of the above charges were
proved to be false does not appear, but the Presbytery gave a ,decision ’
in Hamilton’s
favour, July, 1785. After this exasperating ‘"
defeat, William Fisher it
seems, was heard to utter a long and horrible prayer, as the Pharisees
of old, and characterised by all the grossly vulgar familiarity with the
Almighty and his sacred name that marked the style of some self
conceited old-fashioned Calvinists, who believed themselves alone to be
the few elected from all eternity to live forever in glory, and who,
though they might, through Adams cause, be tempted to backslide into the
mire of carnal sin, could not by any possibility ,fall, while the. whole
human race besides must perish without hope. To correct this hideous
perversion of the saving Christian faith, and to forbide the vulgar
abuse of the sacred privilege of communication with Heaven by prayer,
the newly-inspired bard of Scotland, endowed with a spirit of
insight and a power of expression above all men, was stationed at Mossgiel.
The bard performed this part of his mission by recording
"Holy Willie's Prayer," as an example of the forbidden style,
in verse so bold, clear, and fascinating as to insure its being read,
remembered,and shunned with terror by men of prayer through all ages to
come. Another painful abuse of religion, besides that of sinful prayer,
at Mauchline and elsewhere, was turning the Communion Sabbath into a day
of festivity like a fair; and it was to put an end to that practice also
that the newly inspired Poet described " The Holy Fair."
The old Parish Kirk around which the festivities arose was a very plain
building - low, long, and dark. It stood in the Kirkyard more
than 500 years, where a handsome, lofty, steepled church of red
freestone now stands. " Poosie Nancie’s " house,
curious as the scene of the "Jolly Beggars:" is still
to be seen, as also Mauchline Castle, a small-sized old square
edifice, with crow-stepped gables and breast-work fortification. It
belonged originally to the ancient priory of Mauchline, now extinct, and
subsequently became the property and residence of Gavin
Hamilton, who was born 1753.
He was a writer by profession (as was his father before him in the same
place) ; was a man of superior education and culture; religious without
hypocrisy; generous, affable, free, open-hearted as a child; and,
withal, he was endowed with a strong manly individuality of character
that made him a " hero in the strife." He was thus well fitted
for the noble duty which he had to perform, as the first friend and
patron of the great poetic genius who was to redeem the nation from
superstition and hypocrisy, and to invest it anew with the spirit of
brotherly love which it had lost through ages of cruel warfare. Gavin
Hamilton was not only the friend
of the Poet, but of all the Burns
family. When the affairs of old William
Burns were reduced to ruin’s
brink by litigation with his landlord, and he was dying of consumption
at Lochlee, Mr Hamilton
granted to his family, in name of Robert
and Gilbert (the two eldest), a
lease of Mossgiel farm (118 acres), which he had himself leased
from the Earl of Loudoun.
The boys and girls had no capital to stock the Robert
had nothing at all, having lost all his savings in an unfortunate
flax-dressing enterprise at Irvine, when his uninsured stock and
premises were destroyed by fire. It was in
Mr. Hamilton’s frank and
generous nature to trust them. A warm and steady friendship grew up
between the young Poet at Mossgiel and his landlord at
Mauchline Castle - a sure evidence that the former,
not-withstanding his passionate self-reproaches, was an industrious,
well-behaved tenant, At the same time a warm , and steadfast love grew
up between him and Miss Jean
Armour, his future wife. It was
nothing very unreasonable for a man to be courting a woman in his own
station, only his income was rather small - £7 a-year and his food-and
that with the buying of working and kirk clothes he had been able to
save scarcely anything since the fire, and had not the wherewith to
furnish a house, and go through a public marriage ceremony. There was
also the perfect certainty that Jean’s
parents would forbid the marriage.
Driven by the forces of love and poverty, and approaching disgrace, to
their wits’ end, they took the advice of Gavin
Hamilton - performing a private
marriage between themselves by a written contract, that being a
legal form of marriage by the law of Scotland, and in the event of a
baby coming to the world, rendering it legitimate. It was arranged
between them that the young wife should continue with her parents for
some time, until her husbandMrs.
Burns had to disclose to her fond
parents the secret that she was a married woman, and they would soon be
grandpa and grandma, her father " fainted away." Was he so
overcome with joy at his daughter’s union with a greater than Homer
or Shakespeare?
Nay! He must have been of Holy
Willie’s
company ; believed his daughter’ ruined, prevailed upon her to give
her consent to the cancelling of her marriage certificate in the
presence of witnesses, and forbade her ever again to meet with her
husband. This adverse proceeding greatly affected Burns,
as can be seen from "The Lament," which he composed on this
occasion. "In the state of mind which this separation
produced," writes his brother Gilbert,
"he wished to leave the country as soon as possible, and agreed
with Dr.
Douglas
to go to Jamaica as an assistant overseer, or, as I believe it is
called, a book-keeper on his estate. As he had not sufficient money to
pay his passage, and the vessel in which Dr.
Douglas was to procure a passage
for him was not expected to sail for some time, Mr. Hamilton advised him
to publish his poems in the meantime by subscription, as a likely way to
provide him more liberally in necessaries for Jamaica. Agreeably to this
advice, subscription bills were printed immediately, and the printing
was commenced in Kilmarnock - his preparations going on at the same time
for his voyage." The volume was dedicated to Gavin
Hamilton. The publication realized
Hamilton’s expectations. The Poet had composed his farewell dirge to
his native land and he was
away on his road to catch the ship at Greenock, when a gentleman on
horseback came galloping after him. Was it the sheriff-officer again
hunting the poor, harassed national Poet, who had before fled to the
hills for refuge, and had now sent off his chest through the night for
fearof it being seized ? No ; it was
" The poor man’s
friend in need, The gentleman in word and deed,"
his warm-hearted friend,
Gavin Hamilton,
bearing the copy of a letter from the celebrated Dr.
Blacklock, of Edinburgh, to Burns’
friend, the Rev. Dr. Laurie,
minister of Loudoun, earnestly
suggesting the publication of a second edition of the poems, "for the
sake of the young man." His chest was thereupon ordered back. He
visited Edinburgh, cleared £500 by the new edition of his poems there ;
returned to Mauchline, and got married to his wife anew, but this
time by a minister, in the presence of witnesses, and in Gavin Hamilton’s
house. Burns now
removed to Dumfriesshire. Gavin
Hamilton died on 8th February, 1805,
at the age of 52. His sister, Charlotte,
"a charming girl," having removed to Harviestoun, a
residence on the south base of the Ochil Hills, with the river
Devon meandering through a green vale in front of it, was visited
there by Burns,
who made her the subject of the finest allegorical song in the language,
"The Banks of the Devon." She is also the subject of his
last song, "Fairest Maid on Devon Banks." This, too, may
be regarded as an allegory. She is this fair and beauteous world, and he
is her faithful lover; she was wont to smile on him, but she now frowns.
He is dying, literally dying of a broken heart. He has been unfit for duty
as an excise officer for some time, and had his salary reduced by one
half; has gone a little in debt to a haberdasher for bits of clothing for
his children; the haberdasher, taking it into his head that he is dying,
commences a lawsuit against him ; he writes this last song, in a state of
health in which the handwriting shows he was hardly fit to hold the pen,
at Brow, on the Solway Frith, 12th July, 1796, and sends it
the same day in a letter to Mr.
Thomson, publisher, Edinburgh,
imploring him for God’s sake to lend him £5 to prevent the haberdasher
from putting him into jail. Nine days after this, on the 21st of July,
1796, he died, aged thirty-seven years and six months. But he still lives,
above and beneath the sky.
" He haunts, he
haunts his native land, As an immortal youth ; his hand Guides every
plough ;
He sits beside each
ingle-nook, His voice is in each rushing brook, Each rustling bough."-Longfellow.
For want of space we
regret to omit some notes of the Poet’s life in Dumfriesshire. Jean
Armour, wife of
Robert Burns, was born at Mauchline,
February, 1765. Her father was a master stone mason, poor, but
respectable. She was six years younger than her husband, to whom she bore
a family of five sons and four daughters. The youngest, a boy, was born on
the day of the Poet’s funeral, and was soon after laid
in the same grave. She was then only thirty-one years of age. Though not a
literary character, Mrs. Burns
was a clever woman, pure and refined in her tastes; had a fine musical ear
and bright soprano voice, and "sang in a style but rarely equalled by
unprofessional singers. In ballad poetry her taste was good, and range of
reading rather extensive. Her memory, too, was strong, and she could quote
when she chose at considerable length and with great aptitude. Of these
powers the Bard was so well aware that he read to her almost every piece
he composed, and was not ashamed to own that he had profited by her
judgment." This love of poetry and music in her sweet and placid
disposition made her marriage with
Burns the most fortunate
circumstance to them both: After her bereavement a number of the admirers
of the Poet, and of her devoted kindness to him, collected a sum of money,
which, together with the profits of
Dr. Currie’s edition of the Poet’s
works, placed her in comfortable circumstances, and enabled her to give to
her surviving sons a respectable education. She continued to reside in the
same house in Dumfries, where for upwards of thirty years she was
visited by thousands and thousands of strangers of every rank, from the
peer to the ragged ballad singer, out of loving curiosity to see Burns’
house ‘and his "bonny
Jean." The latter were never refused an audience, or dismissed
without reward. She died of paralysis, 26th March, 1834, in the seventieth
year of her age, and 38th year of her widowhoood. Robert
Burns, their eldest son, was born at
Mauchline, September, 1786 ; educated at Dumfries Academy
; wrote one song; held an appointment in the Stamp Office, London ;
retired, and lived for many years at Dumfries, where he died, May William Nicol Burns
and James Glencairn Burns,
two younger sons, both entered the service of the East India Company,
and both rose to the rank of Lieut.-Colonel. The former, born at
Ellisland, ‘1791, died 1872,
aged 81 ; the latter, born at Dumfries, 1794, died 1865, aged 71.
The rest of the children died young. Father, mother, and five sons are
interred in the family vault, St. Michael’s Churchyard, Dumfries
; some of the daughters in Mauchline Churchyard.
Going north of Mauchline
half-a-mile, the road branches in two, that on the right going north to Kilmarnock,
this on the left going north-west to Lochlee and Tarbolton.
Between these two roads, at the distance of half-a-mile from their
diverging point, stands the farmhouse of Mossgiel. These are the
celebrated roads that were
" Clad, frae
side to side, Wi’ monie a
weary body, In droves that day.
" Here farmers
gash, in ridin’ graith, Gaed hodden by their cotters ;
There, swankies
young, in braw braid-claith, Are springin’ o’er the gutters.
The lasses, skelpin
bare-fit, thrang, In silks an’ scarlets glitter ;
Wi’ sweet-milk
cheese, in monie a whang, An’ farls bak’d wi’ butter Fu’ crump
that day."
Down a
wooded ravine of the Ayr is Ballochmyle Bridge, celebrated in a
strathspey tune of that name, by Mr.
Archibald M‘Alpin, the
blind violinist of Mauchline. Its grand
Haugh village,
with factories, lies a short way below it.
Near the town of
Mauchline is the great Ballochmyle Quarry of red freestone.
Crosshands public
school is fully two miles north of the town. The parish, dotted all
over with neat farm steadings, is finely cultivated and moderately wooded.
Its length, from Cessnock Water, north of Rodinghead House,
south to Dipple Burn at Auchinleck House, is six and a-half
miles; greatest breadth, four miles. Area, 8907 acres. Population, 2504.
and .co.uk