For a’ that and a’ that;
Their dignities and a’ that;
The pith o’ sense, and pride o’ worth,
Are higher rank than a’ that.
Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,
May bear the gree and a’ that; (come off best)
For a’ that, and a’ that,
It’s comin’ yet for a’ that,
That man to man, the warld o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that!
He had also been writing letters and poems (often under a pseudonym) for a London newspaper and the paper then offered him a post in London as a reporter and general contributor at a good salary. He felt he had to decline.
‘Your offer is indeed truly generous’, he wrote, ‘and most sincerely do I thank you for it; but in my present situation, I find that I dare not accept it. You well know my political sentiments; and were I an insular individual, unconnected with a wife and family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.’
He said he would write an occasional piece if he could do it in a way that would be safe from the spies with which his correspondence was now beset.
Troubles and worries of one kind and another came fast and furious. He was deeply upset on hearing of Robert Riddell’s death and immediately composed a sonnet for the Dumfries Journal which he said was ‘a small heart-felt tribute to the memory of the man I loved’. His rheumatic pains increased with a terrible fever. He was in agony from head to toe. A local man he’d become friendly with and who shared his political views was a doctor – William Maxwell – and he came to attend to him. Maxwell had seen something of the Revolution in France and had once joined the National Guard there. Previously Robert had told Mrs Dunlop, ‘Maxwell is my most intimate friend … on account of his politics is rather shunned by some high aristocrats, though his family and fortune entitle him to the first circles.’
Robert admired Maxwell enormously and was grateful to him for his many visits while the fever and rheumatic pains were at their worst, and especially grateful that he did not expect immediate payment for his medical services. Robert’s Excise pay had dropped severely and he was acutely worried about how to keep feeding his family.
Then, while he was still suffering from his illness, Elizabeth, his much loved and only daughter by his wife died while at Mauchline. He was distraught. He was not even able to travel to the child’s funeral. He still had not recovered from this blow when he wrote some months later to Mrs Dunlop, ‘I am so poorly today as to be scarce able to hold my pen, and so deplorably stupid as to be totally unable to hold it to any purpose. I know you are pretty deep read in medical matters but I fear you have nothing in the Materia Medica which can heal a diseased spirit.’
Because he’d had to run into debt with his landlord, he’d added wearily, ‘I think that the poet’s old companion, Poverty, is to be my attendant to my grave.’
Jean soon presented him with another child – a son that he called James Glencairn. He explained that the name was ‘in grateful memory of my lamented patron – I shall make all my children’s names altars of gratitude’.
He was grateful also to be given – albeit temporarily – the post of Supervisor because of the illness of the normal superior, Findlater. It meant a welcome, though not very large rise in his salary. Because of the war, things were very bad for the Excise with no French imports. Everybody was affected financially. He also thought the offer of the post might mean his political indiscretion had been forgiven and forgotten.
He had to work hard for a few extra pounds. There were long days in the saddle, sometimes starting at five o’clock with a fourteen-hour day. The monotonous creaking of leather saddle and stirrups as the sturdy pony plodded on endlessly almost sent him to sleep. Only the raw chaffing of his inner thighs and the cramping of his muscles kept him from dropping off. He had to stand up on the stirrups to ease the stiffness in his spine and buttocks, before slumping back into the saddle.
On Christmas Eve, he had to ride forty miles and visit twenty traders through hard frosts and heavy snowfalls. He tried to keep his spirits up and use sheer willpower to keep going. What strengthened his will more than anything was the fact that he desperately needed the money. What would happen after Findlater returned, he dared not think.
He worried that the powers in the Excise were just using him at the moment because they knew he was the only officer who could do the job as well as, if not better than, Findlater. The spies and the enemies would still be there, ready to pounce on any excuse to ruin him.
The world situation was no better. The Revolution in France had been taken over by men of property who were now moving to protect their ambitious plans. They did not want the Revolution to go any further towards democracy. Jacobins were guillotined. The dreams of liberty, equality and fraternity were being killed. This was the France that was now threatening to invade Britain.
With his usual and remarkable method of walking a dangerous political tightrope, he expressed his rebel streak and put his message across in the poems and songs about the world brotherhood of man. At the same time, as a fop to the establishment and for the sake of his family’s welfare, he joined the Dumfries Volunteers. He even wrote a song for them, ‘Does Haughty Gaul Invasion Threat’.
He knew his every utterance was being carefully scrutinised. Well, let’s see what they make of that, he thought.
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Robert wrote to his old friend, Mrs Dunlop, ‘May life to you be a positive blessing while it lasts, for your own sake; and may it yet be greatly prolonged, is my wish for my own sake and for the sake of the rest of your friends! What a transient business is life! Very lately I was a boy; but t’other day I was a young man; and I already begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast o’er my frame …’
He then went on at some length about his democratic views and in the process also made derogatory remarks about the French royal family. After that, he never heard from Mrs Dunlop again. He could not fathom how he had offended the old woman. Mrs Dunlop had warned him more than once, of course, not to express his political opinions to her because she could not agree with them. Four of her sons and one of her grandsons were army officers. One of her daughters had been married to a Frenchman and another married a Royalist refugee. But for years now, he had always been frank with her, and she with him. Now, even when he wrote telling her of his illness and the death of his little daughter, he was met with stony silence. He was deeply distressed. This loss, on top of the many other worries and troubles he was suffering, was very hard to bear.
To add to his financial worries, he had an extra, rather large expense. As a member of the Dumfries Volunteers, he had to have his uniform made by a tailor who was himself a member of the corps. The uniforms had all to be paid for by the members – white kerseymer breeches and waistcoat, short blue coat faced with red and a round hat surrounded by bearskin, similar to the helmets of the Horseguards.
All the Volunteers had to turn out in the park several times a week for drill and target practice. Soon, Robert became as quick with his musket as with his pen. His song, ‘Does Haughty Gaul Invasion Threat’, became a great favourite and not just locally, despite its last line in which behind Burns the patriot, Burns the democrat could still be glimpsed:
But while we sing God Save The King
We’ll ne’er forget The People!
Robert was unable to attend the inaugural march through Dumfries because of a severe attack of toothache, but he did manage to keep up the drills in the park. In private to his friend Syme (also a Volunteer), he called the Dumfries Royal Volunteers the ‘awkward squad’.
But Syme said, ‘Well you’ve surprised us, Robert, with your dexterity in handling arms.’ Syme told another friend, ‘Burns and I are one and indivis
ible, but what with his occupation and mine, we meet only by starts – or at least occasionally – and we drink as many cups of tea as bottles of wine together. We are two of the best privates in the Dumfries Royal Volunteers. But not to flatter myself nor him, I would say that hang me if I should know how to be happy were he not in the way of making me so at times.’
One light appeared on Robert’s otherwise bleak horizon and he suspected his dear little Susanna had had something to do with it. Maria Riddell wrote to him enclosing some poetry she had penned and asking for his opinion. He was thankful that at last she had forgiven him and that this was a first step in renewing their friendship. Maria invited him to accompany her on the King’s birthday celebration but he was so exhausted with the constant pain in his joints he was suffering, he had to refuse her invitation.
‘I am in such miserable health’, he wrote. ‘Rackt as I am with rheumatisms, I meet every face with a greeting like that of Balate of Balaam – “Come curse me Jacob; and come defy me Israel.” So, say I, come curse me that east-wind; and come defy me the north!’
He was struggling as defiantly as he could but as well as the pain, his financial worries kept increasing, partly because of a move from the Wee Vennel to bigger accommodation to house his growing family. The new house was in the Millbrae Vennel. It was a substantial, two-storey dwelling house with a comfortable parlour in which they could entertain guests, although now he had little, if any, strength left for entertaining. He concentrated as much as he was able on the education and religious instruction of his children. He read the Bible to them every night as his father had done before him. He would leave his children, however, to decide for themselves when they were older what their views on religion would be.
He never ceased worrying about Jean and the children and the poverty he might leave them in. His Excise income had now been halved. In desperation, he wrote to his old friend, the schoolteacher James Clarke. In addition to helping Clarke a few years before, he had also loaned him money that Clarke was still paying back in instalments. In acute embarrassment, he asked if Clarke could send him an advance of a guinea from the next payment due. Clarke did so immediately.
Some time later, Robert was forced to write again. Delicacy forbade him from sounding as if he was only calling in a debt. Instead he made excuses and apologies as if he were asking a favour: ‘My dear Clarke,
‘Still, still the victim of affliction, were you to see the emaciated figure who now holds the pen to you, you would not know your old friend. Whether I shall ever get about again, is only known to HIM, the Great Unknown, whose creature I am. Alas, Clarke, I begin to fear the worst! As to my individual self, I am tranquil; I would despise myself if I were not; but Burns’ poor widow! and half a dozen of his dear little ones, helpless orphans, there I am weak as a woman’s tear – Enough of this! ’tis half my disease! –
‘I duly received your last, enclosing the note. – It came extremely in time, and I was much obliged to your punctuality. – Again I must request you to do me the same kindness. – Be so very good as by return of post to inclose me another note. – I trust you can do it without much inconvenience, and it will seriously oblige me …’
He was also forced to write to Thomson, his musical publisher, saying, ‘After all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you to send five pounds … For God’s sake, send me that sum, and send it by return of post …’
Thomson, only too aware of the hundreds of songs Robert had given him without any payment in return, sent the five pounds at once. Indeed, Robert was still struggling to write and supply songs for Thomson, like ‘Fairest Maid on Devon Banks’. And
O, my luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O, my luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
This song made Susanna weep. But she was weeping at the sight of him as much as the sound of the song.
‘I’m sorry, it’s so beautiful,’ she sobbed.
His Bonnie Jean held Susanna close and comforted her as he would like to have done. He doubted, however, if he would have the strength any more.
His friend and doctor, Maxwell, tried potion after potion in an effort to help him, all to no effect. Eventually, he advised Robert to ‘take the waters’. By that, he meant that Robert should travel to Brow, a hamlet on the shores of the Solway, drink the water from the well, ride daily and walk every day up to his armpits in the waters of the Solway. Robert had his doubts about all this as a cure. He was even more doubtful that he would have the strength to either go riding or to plunge into the water every day. However, he decided to take Maxwell’s word for it and to try his very best to carry out his friend’s advice.
Brow was almost ten miles from Dumfries and so, at the beginning of July, Robert rode painfully out of the town and headed for the decayed and dismal hamlet of Brow. The place was used as a staging post by the cattle drovers taking their herds south to England. There were only a few run-down cottages and a very rough and ready inn where Robert lodged in a bedroom at the back.
It took all his spirit and manliness to struggle every day to the shore and force himself, despite his pain and the palpitations of his heart, to submerge himself in the icy water. Soon after he arrived, he heard that Maria Riddell had gone to nearby Lochmaben for her own health’s sake. She invited him to dine with her and sent her carriage to fetch him.
She wrote of this meeting, ‘I was struck by his appearance on entering the room. The stamp of death was imprinted on his features. He seemed already touching the brink of eternity. His first salutation was: “Well, madam, have you any commands for the other world?” I replied, that it seemed a doubtful case which of us should be the soonest, and that I hoped he would yet live to write my epitaph. He looked in my face with an air of great kindness, and expressed his concern at seeing me look so ill, with his accustomed sensibility. At table he ate little or nothing, and he complained of having entirely lost the tone of his stomach. We had a long and serious conversation about his present situation, and the approaching termination of all his earthly prospects. He spoke of his death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness as well as feeling, as an event likely to happen very soon, and which gave him concern chiefly from leaving his four children so young and unprotected, and his wife in so interesting a situation – in hourly expectation on the lying-in of a fifth. He mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfaction, the promising genius of his eldest son, and the flattering remarks of approbation he had received from his teachers, and dwelt particularly on his hopes of that boy’s future conduct and merit. His anxiety for his family seemed to hang heavy upon him, and the more perhaps from the reflection that he had not done them all the justice he was so well qualified to do.
‘Passing from this subject, he shewed great concern about the care of his literary fame, and particularly the publication of his posthumous works. He said he was well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that every scrap of writing would be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation: that letters and verses written with unguarded and improper freedom, and which he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence when no dread of his resentment would restrain them or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued malice or the insidious sarcasms of envy from pouring forth all their venom to blast his fame.
‘He lamented that he had written many epigrams on persons against whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters he should be sorry to wound; and many indifferent poetical pieces which he feared would now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust upon the world. On this account, he deeply regretted having deferred to put his papers in a state of arrangement, as he was now quite incapable of the exertion … The conversation was kept up with great evenness and animation on his side. I had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree of vivaci
ty in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and dejection I could not disguise damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed not unwilling to indulge.
‘We parted about sunset on the evening of that day; the next day I saw him again, and we parted to meet no more!’
Robert wrote to his friend Alexander Cunningham, from whom he’d just received a very comforting letter, ‘Alas! my friend, I fear the voice of the Bard will soon be heard among you no more! For these eight or ten months I have been ailing, sometimes bedfast & sometimes not; but these last three months I have been tortured with an excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to nearly the last stage. – You actually would not know me if you saw me. – Pale emaciated, & so feeble as occasionally to need help from my chair – my spirits fled! fled! – but I can no more on the subject –’
He promised to send his friend some songs after he returned to Dumfries, then continued: ‘Apropos to being at home, Mrs Burns threatens in a week or two, to add one more to my Paternal charge, which, if the right gender, I intend shall be introduced to the world by the respectable designation of Alexander Cunningham Burns. My last was James Glencairn, so you can have no objection to the company of Nobility.’
By this time, Robert had lost his appetite and all he could swallow was a little thin porridge laced with port. His landlord did not have any port, and when Robert’s bottle ran out, he had to struggle to the nearest inn a mile distant. Arriving there, Robert put the empty bottle on the counter and asked if the innkeeper, John Burney, had any port for sale. Robert added, in painful embarrassment, that he had no cash to pay for it but he offered his Armorial seal, the recent gift from George Thomson by way of payment for some of his songs. Robert began unfastening the seal from his watch fob but the landlady stamped on the floor in distress and indignation and her husband took Robert in his arms, gave him the port and led him gently to the door with tears in his eyes.
A Darkening of the Heart Page 24