The voice was gentle and concerned, and vaguely familiar. She dared to look up and recognised the big solid figure of the ploughman, Robert Burns. Still trembling, she allowed him to grasp her hands and ease her to a standing position. Her legs were too weak to support her, however, and she had to lean against him. She felt the roughness of his work clothes against her cheek and the warm sweaty smell of his body in her nostrils. She was still sobbing.
‘Please don’t tell my husband. Please don’t tell him you’ve seen me. Oh please.’
‘Sh, sh …’ Burns soothed. ‘I’m not going to tell a soul. I promise you.’
‘I’m afraid of him, you see. Terrified. I must get away …’ She couldn’t stop a torrent of words escaping. ‘I’m going to leave a note at my mother and father’s house explaining and pleading with them not to try to find me. But you see, they won’t believe me. They think Neil Guthrie is a gentleman and a good husband, but he’s neither. No-one will ever believe me.’
Her companion’s face darkened with anger.
‘I believe you, lass. You wouldn’t be in such a state if it wasn’t true. By God, I’d like to get my hands on Guthrie. Any man who gets his wife into such a state deserves a good thrashing.’
‘No, no, please!’ Susanna cried out. ‘I appreciate your concern but I just want to get away. I don’t want any more trouble. He will be angry enough as it is. Just forget you ever saw me or spoke to me.’
‘At least allow me to ride along with you to Tarbolton.’ Burns was obviously struggling with his anger. ‘And see you safely on your way again after you’ve delivered your note.’
‘Oh, would you?’ Susanna made an effort to regain some vestige of polite composure. ‘I’d be most obliged.’
Her horse had wandered some yards away and Burns retrieved it, then lifted her into the saddle as if she was as light as thistledown. In a few moments, they were galloping away side by side through the windswept darkness. Neither spoke until Burns said, ‘Have you some place to stay? Where exactly are you aiming for?’
She had no idea exactly where she was going.
‘I have good friends in the capital city,’ she lied. ‘They will keep me hidden and safe.’
‘Are you sure you will be all right on the journey? It’s a very long ride to Edinburgh.’
‘I will put up at an inn en route. I have travelled to Edinburgh before and know all the best places.’
‘I could accompany you further.’
‘No, no.’ Her voice quickened with agitation as the dark outlines of the village of Tarbolton came into view. ‘Wait here.’
She dismounted some way from her parents’ house and crept silently towards it.
The note for her mother and father, briefly stated that her life might appear normal and happy, but in fact she was suffering a secret life of hell, physical and mental torture at the hands of her husband. She’d come to the conclusion that he was both mad and cunning, and she could not live her life of terror with him any more. She had run away to make a new start for herself, somewhere she could feel safe.
‘Please try not to worry about me,’ she wrote. ‘Please, PLEASE, do not try to find me. I’ll be all right as long as I’m as far away as possible and free of Neil Guthrie.’
Slowly, painfully, she turned her key in the lock of the front door. Like a shadow, she slipped into the house, propped the note on her father’s desk and, hardly daring to breathe, slipped away again.
Burns was waiting for her, the reins of her horse dangling in one of his big hands.
‘I don’t like the idea of you riding all the way to Edinburgh alone and in such a state.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of making the journey on my own, I do assure you.’
Reluctantly, he assisted her back onto her horse.
She straightened her back and raised her chin in a desperate effort to regain some of her normal, ladylike composure.
‘Thank you for your help, Mr Burns, and I will trust you to completely forget about this incident.’
‘Oh, I cannot promise to forget our meeting, Mrs Guthrie. But rest assured, it will remain a secret between us.’
‘Thank you,’ she repeated before suddenly urging her horse on. Within moments it was flying away as if the devil was on its tail. All the time Susanna was thinking tearfully, if only she’d never left her parents’ house in the first place. At least she’d felt perfectly safe there. Now she realised how much she’d been loved and how well she’d been treated. How could she have been so stupid as to give that life up?
The sad and frightening thing was that because she’d been so reckless and stupid before, her parents – especially her mother – would think she was just being even more reckless and stupid now.
She didn’t want to risk stopping until she got to Edinburgh. It was too long a distance to travel without a stop, however, especially for the horse. Even when they’d visited the capital on previous occasions, the coach they’d used, pulled by several horses, had to stop and everyone stayed overnight at an inn while the horses were stabled, fed and watered.
Purposely, she avoided the inn that had been used before in case anyone remembered her. She chose another smaller and less reputable-looking place. None of the inns she’d ever frequented, either with Neil or previously with her brother, Alexander or, earlier still, when she’d been a child and made an occasional journey with her parents, none of the inns she remembered were very admirable places. Few had clean beds, most were bug-ridden. Servants were without shoes and stockings, coarse meal was served without a knife and fork and butter was thick with cow hair.
She remembered her mother had refused to drink anything when one glass or tin can was handed round the company, which included grubby-looking strangers, from mouth to mouth.
The small hostelry where fatigue forced Susanna to stop had not progressed one whit from the early days of the worst hostelries that she remembered.
The landlord’s wife was a loose-bosomed, filthy-looking woman with tousled hair, a short bed gown and no corsets. Susanna was shown by the light of one small candle into an attic room with a low sloping ceiling. The unmade bed had obviously been slept in and even by the flickering light of the candle, Susanna could see that it was moving with bugs.
She decided not to undress and just to try to get some rest sitting upright in a wooden chair, the only other furniture in the room. She had wisely brought her saddle bags in with her. The landlady and her equally disreputable-looking husband, she suspected, would not think twice about trying to steal some of her belongings. As well as money, she had brought every piece of jewellery she possessed.
Stuffing the saddle bags against the wall, she jammed the chair up against them. She slept fitfully, jerking awake at the slightest sound, and was glad when daylight came and she was able to be on her way once more.
After a short time in the saddle, she felt more exhausted than ever. She now ached in every bone as a result of sitting all night in such a painfully hard chair. She found herself nodding off to sleep as the horse plodded along. Until suddenly, looking around, she was startled to realise she was in the midst of a thickly wooded area. She had no recollection of seeing this place before on any of her journeys to Edinburgh.
Panic, so intense, almost caused her to faint. Gripping the reins, she fought to take deep breaths as she turned the horse around. She could see its hoof prints on the muddy ground between the overhanging trees and prayed that if she followed them back, she might get herself into the right direction for Edinburgh again.
Sometimes the prints disappeared and she floundered about in rising panic again. But eventually she came to a clearing where to her blessed relief, there was a wooden signpost bearing the faded word ‘Edinburgh’.
Now, wide awake with anxiety, she flicked at the horse’s rump with her whip and quickened its pace. She must reach the city before darkness enveloped it. She must find a caddie to lead her to respectable lodgings. The Edinburgh caddies were a bedraggled-looking bunch of
men who slept in closes or stood all day long and most of the night in the High Street waiting for employment. They were known for their honesty and their ability to perform any task, and faithfully execute all commands at a very reasonable price. They had formed themselves into a society with strict rules.
Her grandmother had once told her, ‘Trust them with any sum of money no matter how large and know that it will be perfectly safe. The rules of their order oblige them to make good everything they lose.’ She’d given an example of one man who’d once sent a caddie with a letter enclosing bills worth a hundred pounds. The caddie lost it, and the society restored the sum in full to the man.
Impudent, ragged, alert and swift, they darted about during the day and at night and they lighted their way in the dark streets with paper lanterns. They carried messages and parcels to any part of the town for a penny. They knew every lodging, who stayed there, and who had vacancies.
Susanna desperately needed the help of a caddie and must seek one out the moment she reached Edinburgh.
Once in Edinburgh, however, she could not see any of them. Fog had come down suddenly, thickened and darkened by hundreds of smoking chimneys. Coach lamps swayed from side to side. Torches flashed eerily on peering faces. In the distance, the torches looked like smouldering flames trying in vain to penetrate through the dense mass of smoke. Susanna put her handkerchief to her mouth and tried to control a bout of coughing. It was as if all the smoke that had ever gone up from Edinburgh’s chimneys had been kept somewhere above the clouds to rot, then had fallen down, thick and foul smelling, to catch at the throat and make the chest wheeze.
Eventually, seeing a tavern’s lights and hearing the sound of voices, she made her way towards the place. Once inside, however, she was dismayed to see it was crowded with at least twenty Scottish drovers regaling themselves with whisky and potatoes. Susanna felt even more shocked at the sight of a girl coming towards her dressed only in an indecently short linsey-woolsey petticoat, and with no shoes or stockings.
The girl informed her that this was the best inn in the metropolis and, although Susanna did not believe this, she was too fatigued to look any further. In daylight, she would feel more confident to search for a better place. She allowed the girl to lead her up a rickety stair to a room hardly better than the one in which she’d spent the previous night. It was a relief, however, to find that there was a bolt on the door.
It made a loud scraping noise as Susanna locked herself in.
17
Instead of Professor Purdie and Alexander taking Burns to meet the literati and people of quality, it became the other way around. Alexander, at Burns’ invitation, was accompanying him into exalted places where he, even as a doctor, had never dreamed of entering. He, Doctor Alexander Wallace, who had been educated in Paris and Leyden, was the one who, although he managed to retain a cool and dignified front, felt nervous and more than a little ill at ease. In the castles and sumptuous dining rooms and drawing rooms of the noble lords and earls, the wealthiest upper crust of society to which Burns was given such an enthusiastic welcome, Alexander felt out of place. It was Robert Burns who had never been educated in any university, who had never been anywhere, who appeared perfectly calm and quietly self confident in every social scene in which they found themselves. He also behaved, as Professor Dugald Stewart had already observed, ‘with total sobriety’.
The only criticism, if it could be called criticism, of his behaviour Alexander had heard was that Burns’ attitude appeared somewhat hard, as if he was always at the ready to squash any appearance of the haughty class snobbery that he so detested. But on the contrary, he was treated as if he was some sort of god that had favoured the nobility with his presence.
Even the celebrated Duchess of Gordon and every other noble lady was agog with curiosity and excitement and fluttered around him, flattering him and plying him with questions.
In between these invitations, he was forever engaged in business in connection with his original book and the second edition. There were innumerable letters to write about subscriptions and of course, there were visits to the printers to correct proofs. Edinburgh was full of stories about Burns which constantly buzzed around the town. Even his visits to the printers were excitedly reported and discussed. The printer’s name was Willie Smellie and Robert had written of him:
(Shrewd Willie Smellie to) Crochallan came;
The old cock’d hat, the brown surtout, the same;
His grisly beard just bristling in its might,
‘Twas four long nights and days from shaving-night;
His uncombed, hoary locks, wild-staring thatch’d,
A head for thought profound and clear unmatch’d;
Yet, tho’ his caustic wit was biting rude,
His heart was warm, benevolent and good.
Apparently, it was Robert’s habit to walk about the printing room three or four times cracking a whip he carried, much to the surprise and fascination of the men who worked there. He paid no attention to his own copy. Instead he looked at any other that he saw lying in the cases. One day, he’d asked a man how many languages he was acquainted with.
‘Indeed, sir,’ the man replied, ‘I’ve enough ado in my ain.’
Burns remarked that behind there was one of his companions setting up a Gaelic Bible and another composing a Hebrew Grammar.
‘These two,’ the compositor told him, ‘are the greatest dolts in the house.’
Burns apparently had been amused by the remark and said he’d make a note of it. That was so typical of Burns, Alexander thought. He was an observer – always fascinated by people and what they did or said. He had now become, of course, the most observed of observers.
There was a particular stool in the office which Burns always sat on while correcting his proof sheets. It came to be called Burns’ Stool. One day, Sir John Dalrymple came to the office to correct proofs of his Essay on the Properties of Coal Tar and he settled on Burns’ Stool. When Burns arrived, obviously looking for his favourite seat, he was quietly requested to step into the composing room for a moment. As soon as Burns had left the correcting room, the opportunity was taken to ask Sir John to give up his seat to the gentleman who’d just looked in, as it was his usual seat.
Sir John said, ‘I will not give up my seat to yon impudent, staring fellow.’
It was then revealed to him that the ‘impudent, staring fellow’ was the poet, Robert Burns.
Sir John immediately left the stool, exclaiming, ‘Good gracious! Give him all the seats in your house!’
Burns was then called in, took possession of his stool, and commenced the reading of his proofs.
Alexander felt all this adulation could not be good for Burns. It came from people of all levels of society and age groups. He had a regular correspondent of one of the Ayrshire gentry, an elderly widow – a Mrs Dunlop. Mrs Dunlop seemed to spend most of her time not only writing long letters to Burns, but to all her influential acquaintances, praising the poet and seeking whatever could be done for his benefit.
The whole business had got completely out of hand. Now it seemed all the Masonic lodges in the land wanted to honour Burns. And clubs like The Crochallan Fencibles, thanks to Willie Smellie, had roped him in. It was bound to affect Robert one way or another. He certainly was beginning to lose patience with some of the egotistical people who bombarded him with their poetry. He’d met a London business man called Symon Grey, who began pestering him with his verses. At first Burns had been polite and patient. Then Grey began posting large piles of his works to the poet. Robert was extremely busy but managed a hasty reply:
Symon Grey, you’re dull today.
Unabashed, Grey immediately posted another bulky package of poems. Robert promptly returned them with another couplet:
Dulness with redoubled sway
Has seized the wits of Symon Grey.
These two rebuffs were not sufficient, however, to blunt Grey’s vanity and yet another package of even more ornate poems
arrived for Burns’ ‘immediate attention’.
Burns now responded with a verse-epistle which ended with the crushing quatrain,
Such damned bombast no time that’s past
Will show, or time to come,
So, Symon dear, your song I’ll tear,
And with it wipe my bum.
Alexander thought it a good example of how the poet’s life in the capital city was beginning to strain his self control beyond endurance. He had advised Robert that a longer stay in the city would seriously affect his health, and even his work. Take the Crochallan Fencibles, for instance. It was a rule of the Club to subject candidates for admission to ridiculous and, Alexander felt, dangerous initiation ceremonies. Burns for instance admitted that he had been ‘thrashed’ in a style beyond all his experience but refused to say what particular form this hazing took. It hadn’t done him any good, Alexander was sure. There was also their insistence on Burns adding to their collection of bawdy ballads. He eventually obliged with a few on the understanding that they would never be published.
Eventually, Burns took Alexander’s advice but not exactly in the way he’d hoped. He had wanted Burns to return to his roots in Ayrshire. Burns himself had said that sooner or later it would be ‘back to the plough’.
Now was the time, Alexander felt. Let him get back to where he belonged, in his coarse stockings and broad bonnet, working on the earth among the animals. He didn’t belong in his now famous well-cut blue coat, buff-coloured waistcoat and buckskin breeches. Even his boots – for he still favoured knee-high boots – had acquired some sort of style. He had even worn the boots at the Duchess of Gordon’s salon and had sported lace at his neck and cuffs. Alexander felt his mind twist into a sneer – quite the dandy!
No, let him go back to being the coarse peasant that underneath the new clothes he still was and always would be.
‘All right,’ Burns had said in the end. ‘I believe it is time I left Edinburgh, Alexander. But not to go back to Ayrshire. At least not yet. I want to see something of my native country. I was thinking of embarking on a tour of the Borders. Then later, perhaps I could see something of the Highlands.’
A Darkening of the Heart Page 12