"And then there's something in her gait Gars ony dress look weel."
This touch of nature, which no modish artist would have attempted, marked the hand of one who painted from the life.
William Burness struggled along for twelve years at Mount Oliphant, and then removed to Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton. Here he rented a larger farm, the soil of which promised a surer maintenance for himself and the hostages he had given to Fortune. And there these loving hostages began to put away childish things, and to become men and women. They were cheerful, in spite of the frugality which their poverty imposed upon them; and were merry in their simple homely way, singing and dancing among themselves and among their friendly neighbors. Their hearts expanded in the healthy air about them, particularly the heart of Robert, which turned to thoughts of love,--not lightly, as in his boyish fancy for Nelly Kilpatrick, but seriously, as beseemed a man; for he was now in his nineteenth year, and as conscious of what he was to woman as of what woman was to him. A born lover, and a born poet, he discovered himself and his song at Tarbolton. The custom of the country and the time sanctioned a freedom of manners, and a frequency of meeting on the part of rustic amorists, of which he was not slow to avail himself. The love affairs of the Scottish peasantry are thus described by one of his biographers:--"The young farmer or plowman, after his day of exhausting toil, would proceed to the home of his mistress, one, two, three, or more miles distant, there signal her to the door, and then the pair would seat themselves in the barn for an hour or two's conversation." Burns practiced this mode of courtship, which was the only one open to him, and among the only women whom he knew at Tarbolton. "He made no distinction between the farmer's own daughters and those who acted as his servants, the fact after all being that the servants were often themselves the daughters of farmers, and only sent to be the hirelings of others because their services were not needed at home." We should remember this habit of the Scottish peasantry if we wish to understand the early songs of Burns; for they were suggested by it, and vitalized by it, as much as by his impassioned genius. He painted what he saw; he sang what he felt. We have a glimpse of him in one of his winter courtships in 'My Nanie, O'; another and warmer glimpse of him in one of his summer courtships in 'The Rigs o' Barley'; and another and livelier glimpse of him in one of his mocking moods in 'Tibbie, I hae seen the day.' But he was more than the lover which these songs revealed: he was a man of sound understanding and fine, active intelligence, gifted with ready humor and a keen sense of wit. If he had been other than he was, he might and probably would have been elated by his poetic powers, of which he must have been aware; but being what he was, he was content to enjoy them and to exercise them modestly, and at such scanty intervals as his daily duties afforded. He composed his songs as he went about his work, plowing, sowing, reaping; crooning them as he strode along the fields, and correcting them in his head as the hours dragged on, until night came, and he could write them down in his little room by the light of his solitary candle. He had no illusions about himself: he was the son of a poor farmer, who, do what he might, was never prosperous; and poverty was his portion. His apprehension, which was justified by the misfortunes of the family at Mount Oliphant, was confirmed by their dark continuance at Tarbolton, where he saw his honored father, bowed with years of toil, grow older and feebler day by day, dying of consumption before his eyes. The end came on February 13th, 1784; and a day or two afterwards the humble coffin of William Burness, arranged between two leading horses placed after each other, and followed by relations and neighbors on horseback, was borne to Alloway and buried in the old kirkyard.