Читать книгу The Wonder of All the Gay World - James William Barke - Страница 14

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Jane Maxwell remembered the days of her girlhood spent in Hyndford’s Close near the Netherbow at the foot of the High Street. They had been the happiest days of her life when, with her sister Eglantine, she was free to ride the backs of innkeeper Peter Ramsay’s pigs. She had never known such freedom since she had left the close as the second daughter of the late Sir William Maxwell of Monreath in order to become the wife of the fourth Duke of Gordon.

Jane was reckoned one of the most handsome women of her day: she herself was quite certain she had no rival. And even if she had not been born with good looks and an elegant figure she knew that her intense and magnetic sexuality would have won for her an unrivalled position with men. Holding such an infallible power over them, what consideration did she need to give to women?

From riding the back of an innkeeper’s pigs, it was an easy step to ride the back of Scottish convention. She broke all the laws of social etiquette and social decorum and, as a consequence, found herself the more toasted by the bucks and the beaux.

She had early discovered that men have one set of manners in the company of women and another set when they are by themselves. She did not relish the tame conversation meant only for ladies’ ears. She relished masculine bawdry and the jocose incongruities of sexual anecdote. But indeed her mind had a strong masculine bent: just as her sexual passion was ever aggressive. Women secretly hated and feared her; and though there were many men who feared her, only a John Knox could have routed her on the plane of morality. Many men in her circle thought her scandalously indecent; but this did not prevent them thinking her the more attractive for her daring charm... The Duke, in self-preservation, patronised the brothels...

Hearing that the Ayrshire ploughman’s poems were in places rather daring and given to ‘qualities of libertinism,’ she immediately borrowed a copy of them from Henry MacKenzie and read them through at a sitting... They were very much to her palate: and very much beyond her palate. She relished their uncompromising realism and thrilled to the touches of bawdry though here she found them rather tame. What she found she did not respond to was their social sentiment. There was a quality in The Twa Dogs and The Address to the King on the Occasion of his Birthday that caused her to wonder. This author, she was sure, was hiding more than one light under the bushel of his genius...

Jane did not for a moment doubt the high quality of his genius; and she needed no assistance from Henry MacKenzie here. She was not without a streak of genius herself.

She must get to know this man. She made enquiries. She spoke to the Earl of Glencairn. “James,” she said, “I believe you have taken the Ayrshire ploughman under your patronage? Is he presentable? Can I meet him? Or should I send him a couple of guineas and subscribe for his new edition?”

“You should meet him, Jane: he will surprise you much. He makes no pretense to being other than a ploughman. But he kens how to conduct himself before his superiors.”

“You make him sound very dull, Jamie.”

“I find him a trifle dull myself. But I fancy you micht be able to draw out his parts.”

“You, at least, Jamie, never flatter me. But I find authors disappointing—and damnably unlike their works.”

“I havena much interest in them myself, Jane. Maybe you’ll find Burns like enough his works.”

“I’ve heard that he has quite a small regiment of bastard bairns in your part of the country... Oh, I’m not censuring him: it becomes both his talent and his station in life.”

“It’s an untruth though. I’ve had the maist carefu’ enquiries made as to his conduct; and I find that his regiment of bastards amounts to no more than two very young recruits; and even they might have been lawfully born but for some disagreement with their mother’s parents.”

“Like patron, like poet! You’re a gey canny man yourself, Jamie. But I’ve seen the day you micht hae tried to seduce me! Now dinna blush: you’re too handsome as it is without that. Tell Andrew Erskine I would like to meet your poet at the Buccleuch Street Assembly—before the ball. I shall be at my best then...”

The Duchess was always something of a trial to James Cunningham. He found it difficult to keep up his end with her. To cover his embarrassment he produced his silver snuff box. The Duchess held out her hand: she took a liberal dose, paused for a moment and then returned the box. Her parting shot left him speechless.

“Your poet, Jamie, had better have more kick in him than your snuff.”

There were two main assembly rooms in the Town. The New Assembly Rooms in George Street, soon to be opened, were as grand and spacious as the New Town. But in Buccleuch Street, in the South Town, the Assembly Rooms, if smaller and less pretentious, had a charm of their own. The Duchess of Gordon, whose Town house was in George’s Square, liked to think of them as her own: she looked rather sharply down her sharp nose at the New Assembly Rooms.

In this she was not wholly snobbish. There was much that was raw in the New Town. But George’s Square was still the residential gem of Edinburgh. It was a self-contained socially-powerful community lying in the eye of the sun and on the flank of the Meadows, the pride of its owners and a credit to its builder, James Brown.

The Assembly Rooms adjacent to the elegant and tasteful square might be fighting a losing battle with the New Town; but the battle was not yet lost; and as long as the Duchess of Gordon led fashion within its precincts there could be no thought of defeat.

Indeed the Duchess would not allow herself to be on the losing side. She was beginning to formulate a plan of campaign for the conquest of London. Meantime, if this was to be her last winter in Edinburgh, she would continue to dominate it on her own terms.

“Ah! Mr. Burns! Welcome to Edinburgh... No, no, no, no! Please don’t let us have any ceremony: there’s no one at the moment who can overhear us: unless you shout. You are not my humble servant at all: only formally. And I would much rather have my poets informal.”

“And it please your Grace, then, you have me as God made me.”

“I shall remember in my prayers to-night to thank Him for His handiwork. But don’t let’s bandy pretty compliments, Mr. Burns. May I congratulate you on the excellence of your poetry? It would be wrong of me to say I found it charming; but I did find it wonderfully fascinating.”

“Then in the reader my volume has met its compeer! But perhaps I should first ask you to excuse the rusticity of my manners. Perhaps I am over-bold in telling a duchess that she is fascinating?”

“Of course you are over-bold, Mr. Burns: I should think that is part of your fascinating charm... But I should be very annoyed with you if you didn’t tell me I was fascinating: I am well aware of the fact: just as you are aware of your boldness... Am I not right?”

“I am aware that your Grace has a sense of character above that possessed by some of the more discerning of the literati; but boldness in a poet of humble station in life is not an advantage...”

“When you make the mistake of being born into the wrong family, Mr. Burns, you must try to remedy the defect by suitable marriage.”

“But one of the disadvantages of being a poet is that a poet marries for love.”

“Then poets are bigger fools than I tak’ them to be. They should marry for money—and love for pleasure.”

“Then I perceive your Grace has not yet been loved by a poet.”

“Now, Mr. Burns! You are in danger of taking me out of my depth.”

“Nay, madam; but I may be in some danger of taking you into your depth—did not the mountain barrier of our respective social positions prove insurmountable.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t the barrier that is insurmountable but rather your inordinate consciousness of your class. I guessed that too from your poems. It is perhaps their one defect. You canna forget that I am a duchess and you are a ploughman; and that is a gey pity...”

“In the harvest field, I make so bold to suggest, you would find the barrier even more insurmountable.”

“I should do very well in the harvest field; and when the hairst was hame I should have earned my nicht’s frolic at your kirn dance.”

“And I’d be poet enough, and dancer enough, to give you frolic.”

“I fancy you would be no gentle shepherd, Mr. Burns!”

Internally Jane Gordon began to quiver. She rocked for a split second and took a half-step backwards. This man overwhelmed her. It was not what he said: it was not even how he said it, though she had never heard from any man a timbre of voice so powerfully and yet so exquisitely moulded. It was not the unnatural purity of his English though it was, as English, purer than she had ever heard. What was it then? His eyes? She could not look for long into them without fear that she might betray, in weakness, the weakness of her sex. What was it then? The total impact of all his qualities, his personality? She could not put words on it; but she was overwhelmingly conscious of the waves that vibrated from him—and vibrated through her. Ah yes—she had it now! Behind those great burning pools of his eyes was a sharp penetrating intelligence. Not cleverness, though it was obvious that he had cleverness enough. Not cleverness, not mere intelligence, not wit, not cunning... Insight: that was it! Nothing was hidden from this man—and yet he had the devilish cunning to hide what he knew—to seem not to see all that he saw...

This flashed through Jane Gordon’s keen receptive analytical mind. She felt uncomfortable. She wanted to escape. She had used the wrong tactics with this man who was no more a ploughman than she was a scullery maid. She could not change her tactics without lowering herself in his eyes. But next time they met she would be prepared. She had not expected at her age, and with her experience, to be caught on the wrong foot by any man.

Hitherto she had always been the one who had done the catching—and triumphed in the catching.

She plied her fan with quite uncharacteristic agitation and looked round her. Then she saw the elegant figure of the Honourable Henry Erskine, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, advancing towards her.

Her breath came in a quick gasp as the tension eased within her and she turned her eyes to those of the poet. And then she knew his had never left hers.

“No—no gentle shepherd, Mr. Burns. No... Ah! but here’s Harry Erskine to shepherd you away... Harry: I have just been telling Mr. Burns that you must bring him round some afternoon for tea.”

“Delighted, my dear Jane; shall we settle on a day now?”

“If Mr. Burns has a fancy for some of our Edinburgh belles, let me know, Harry, and I’ll extend them—or her—an invitation ... if I approve!”

“I would rather I left the choice to your Grace. I could survive the disapproval of the literati for my verses; but I could not survive your Grace’s disapproval of a belle fille.”

Again the quivering agitation shot down from her diaphragm. The man was like a charge of gunpowder, like the twang of a bow string—and the barbed arrow that sped from it to flash in the target’s heart.

There was no reply she could make. She must divert the attention from herself. Again, beneath her heavily brocaded dress, her foot slipped backwards and she raised her fan.

“Harry: I see that the agitated bosoms of many of the young ladies threaten to burst their stays apart. Introduce Mr. Burns to them and put an end to their misery. Enjoy yourself, Mr. Burns! You may be sure I shall sing your praises—with genuine enthusiasm.”

Instinctively the Bard bowed; and, to the astonishment of the eager onlookers, the Duchess returned him a very pretty curtsey.

“Aye, aye, Mr. Burns! I begin to see why you’re the famous Bard of Ayrshire!” said Henry Erskine. “Well, for my part, I’d rather hae a full belly than a belle fille—partial as I am to the belles! Aye... But now that you hae won the approval o’ the Gay Duchess—and she used to be fully gayer—you need hae nae fear o’ Edinburgh society.”

“Does it mean as much as that, Mr. Erskine?”

“Certes, there’s no’ a hostess i’ the Toon but apes her—in so far as she can; but ye ken what monkeys the women can be. Invitations’ll pour into you now. Your difficulty’ll no’ be knowing which to accept but which to refuse.”

“In that event, sir, I’ll be glad to have your good advice and guidance.”

“And by the look o’ things you’ll be the better o’ a chaperon too. You’re in a fair way to capturing the Toon, Mr. Burns. My guid-brither Glencairn and his sister were singing your praises. It’s a pity you hadna a supply o’ your verses wi’ you. Everybody’s raving mad to lay hands on a copy; and such copies that are i’ the Toon hae been read to tatters—or so I hear. But there’s one thing does surprise me—I meant to speak about it afore—and that’s whaur you got your English tongue. I canna see you learned that ahint the plough in your native Ayrshire.”

“It seems to surprise most folks—but it’s a long story, sir. And dinna think that guid braid Lallans doesna lie warmer till my tongue and my heart nor the English. Only I see nae reason why a man shouldna hae the twa tongues. Nae doubt if I hadna had the English hammered into me as a scule-laddie I wad hae thocht different. But there you are—and I see nae need to apologise for mysel’. I will say, however, that I had thought to hear more polished English in the Capital than ever I heard in my rural shades.”

“Oh, there’s some hae polished themselves up till you wadna ken what they were saying. It’s the fact that you’ve nae Anglified accent to your English that surprises me. But I’m neglecting my duty to you. I see there’s plenty here waiting to meet you.”

Erskine was a pleasant fellow. The Bard could appreciate his intelligence and the wit that twinkled in his eye. If his tongue was not Anglified his dress was. And he carried his sartorial finery with a very gallant and becoming air. He was some dozen years older than the Bard; but a life of comparative ease, and the skilful use of silks and powders, enabled him to carry his years with a touch of lightness that was deceptively youthful. The women adored him for his great personal charm; and as the younger brother of the Earl of Buchan and a relation by marriage to the Earl of Glencairn, he was a man to whom much social deference was naturally due. So sound indeed was his social position that the extreme liberal views he held concerning the affairs of state were not counted seriously against him even in reactionary circles dominated by uncompromising Whigs. For all his reforming zeal Erskine’s fundamental Whiggery was not in any doubt even by his bitterest enemies who were closest to Henry Dundas. And as things were going nicely for Premier Pitt’s Scottish henchman he had no wish to exercise the more brutal side of his dictatorship merely for dictation’s sake. He knew his powers and how best in his own interest to exercise them.

As the elegant people gathered in the large rectangular hall and chatted in little groups or sat into the small tables by the red plush-lined wall-seats, the Bard experienced a moment of fear. This gathering was much bigger and much grander than he had been led to expect. He consulted Henry Erskine.

“Oh, this is nothing—just a preliminary to the grand Hunt Ball which will be held in the New Assembly Rooms in George Street. Just a gathering o’ folk that matter are here. I canna introduce you to them a’—nor wad you enjoy that. But here’s a man you should get to ken—a grand fellow: Willie Dunbar.”

Colonel William Dunbar was a different specimen of manhood from Henry Erskine. Willie was a bluff bachelor and a successful Writer to the Signet with chambers in Princes Street. He had once served as an officer in the Earl of Home’s regiment and he liked to think of himself as a military man who dabbled in the law more as a hobby than as a means of earning an excellent living. But his bluffness was not assumed: there were many things for which the Colonel did not give a damn; and the scraping and bowing of the foppish rising generation was one of them: his approach to life was fairly honest and direct.

He grasped the Bard firmly by the hand and looked him keenly in the eye.

“There’s nae good in me saying that I’ve read your poems, sir: I dinna read much beyond the necessity o’ legal documents. But I promise I’ll give your book a ca’-through when it comes out: I canna do fairer than that, can I, Harry?”

“If you have ony skill wi’ a bawdy ballad, Mr. Burns, Willie’s your man: maybe you’ll meet him at the Crochallan Fencibles’ Club one night and you’ll hear him bawling like a Gilmerton coal-vendor. But I’ll tell you, Willie: I was thinking of introducing Mr. Burns to the Lodge. What d’you think? He is depute-master of his own Lodge in Ayrshire...”

“Aye; and I’ll warrant ye can pass and raise in your country wi’ a bit o’ honest ceremony: they’re a damned genteel lot o’ beggars gotten in the Capital. But up in my hame country, by certes, we used to gie them something they didna forget in a hurry... Certainly, Harry: bring Mr. Burns alang to the Lodge... How are you enjoying your stay in the Town, sir?”

“I’ve hardly had time to know whether I’m enjoying myself or not. Everybody seems to be set to show me the heights of hospitality and kindness. To be taken by the hand by so many of the nobility makes it difficult for me to find my way among them.”

“We’re a’ nobility hereabouts. To hell: what’s a title amang friends?”

“Ah! but you’ll find that our friend is a stickler for the niceties concerning such matters. Still he’s done no’ bad: he’s gotten the Gay Duchess on a string after two minutes o’ conversation.”

“Hae a look out, sir. By God, Harry, gin she took a notion o’ me I would post out o’ the Town by the crack o’ dawn... I was hearing about you from Willie Smellie, Mr. Burns. I don’t give a damn for the Duchess o’ Gordon; but when Auld Smellie tak’s a notion o’ onybody that’s enough for me. And I think by the look in your eye, Mr. Burns, we could hae a grand session at the Club. Smellie’ll fix you up... I think, Harry, we’ll better arrange to assume Mr. Burns into the Lodge...”

Erskine took him by the arm and whispered in his ear: “Here’s a worthy gentleman that you maun meet: Sir James Hunter Blair, Baronet ... almost brand new ... Provost of the Town and a partner in Coutts’ Bank.”

They moved towards the burly provost.

“Sir James: may I present Mr. Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Bard?”

The banker’s stern-cast features relaxed into a broad smile of welcome. He extended a ready hand. “Man, man, Mr. Burns: this is a verra welcome meeting. Ayrshire’s Bard? That’s the Wast country for you again, Harry. I’m an Ayr man mysel’, Mr. Burns, and real proud o’ the fac’; and real proud that ye’ve done such honour to our native land. I’ve no great interest in books; but if I can be of ony assistance to ye, Mr. Burns, ye hae only to seek me out and say the word. Now dinna hesitate, Mr. Burns, for I’ll count it a verra great privilege to serve your interests ony way I can; baith for yoursel’, sir, and for the honour ye hae done for the Wast. Noo, Harry: I tak’ you for witness here. See that Mr. Burns is no’ keepit standing oot in the cauld where I can be of assistance...”

When they had passed on, Erskine said: “That was an honest welcome you got from Sir James: actually he’s a bit of a terror and brooks interference from naebody. But an administrative genius, to give him the fair. He has carried through far-reaching plans—like the brig over the Cowgate—that have been for the Town’s good; and he’ll do more good yet—despite the opposition. That’s why I’m glad he took to you for he’ll probably be the biggest man in Scotland before he’s done: that’s why so many fear him. But that’s how it is, Mr. Burns: to be successful you’ve got to drive over all opposition and do good by force where you canna do it by stealth. It wouldn’t suit my temperament; but then it takes all kinds to make a world just as it takes all kinds of writers to make a literature... Now we maun return to the ladies so that they may not burst their stays, as the Duchess had it. And there I’ll leave you for a time. A man gets on better with the ladies when he has them to himsel’... But you see that one there wi’ the haughty air and a meikle mouth you’d think had been made wi’ a trowel? That’s her. Well ... avoid her as you would the plague. She’d deave you wi’ her Anglified accent. That’s Jane Elliot: wrote a version of The Flowers o’ the Forest but doesna like onybody to ken aboot it. And come back when you’ve tired o’ the ladies: I see Captain Matthew Henderson’s come in and I’d like you to meet him.”

But the Bard found the ladies a great trial. He had never imagined that he could possibly be asked so many foolish questions about the writing of poetry: questions not so naïve as downright silly. But he did not lose his patience and answered their queries with such a mock gravity that they never suspected for a moment his tongue was in his cheek and were convinced that not even Henry MacKenzie had created a character so full of sensibility as this heaven-taught ploughman.

Who the young ladies were into whose hands he had fallen he had not the slightest idea. Though he had been introduced to them with the usual formalities he could not distinguish one from the other and rested content by addressing them in the most general terms.

But he could not help reflecting that if they were the products of the fine boarding-schools for young ladies of title, of which the Town was so proud, he would rather have any one of the Machlin belles for wit, looks or intelligent conversation. They simpered and blushed and lowered their eyes so affectedly (and shamelessly) over the edges of their fans that there were moments when he thought they must be creatures from a different planet.

Their dress also amused him. They were so tightly laced that they could hardly breathe. Their breasts were forced upwards to their chins and their bare shoulders were draped with the flimsiest of scarf-shawls. Some of their dresses were hooped with canes; and they stuck out behind like lop-sided haycocks. Others had such great padded artificial bums resting on their natural hurdies that they were totally unable to sit down and, in dancing, must have sweated like brood mares heavily yoked...

Yet he stood there with his arms folded across his chest, his head held erect, his weight resting on one leg while the other, placed slightly forward and bent at the knee, gave to his posture an independence and an elegance that drew admiring glances and comments from the older folks.

The Duchess of Gordon, stopping for a moment to talk to the Dowager-Countess of Glencairn and indicating the Bard with a slight movement of her fan, said: “You must be proud, my Lady, of James’s protégé. He behaves very well for a ploughman: you see how he has captivated the young ladies.”

But beneath her title, the Dowager-Countess could never forget that she was Lizzie MacGuire, the Ayr joiner’s hard-bitten daughter. “Tach! a wheen silly gawkin’ bitches couldna wash through a luggie o’ clarty hippens. That’s a decent ploughman-laddie that didna ken when he was weel at himsel’ in his ain but and ben.”

The Duchess laughed heartily: she always appreciated the Dowager’s sallies. “But he’s a gey guid poet as weel.”

“I dinna need you to tell me that, Jane; but we’ll see how mony bawbees that’ll put in his pouch.”

Some of the younger fops thought to ridicule his dress—the same dress he had donned that Sunday he had gone round the Town with Peter Hill. His tied hair was innocent of any powder or grease. But his dress, though it was so individual as to be almost eccentric, suited his character so well that it could not have been bettered; and since he was well aware of this, he suffered no embarrassment on its account. He might be dressed outside the character of a tenant-farmer or a ploughman; but he knew he was dressed within the character of a ploughman who was also a poet, and a poet who was essentially a peasant. He never sought to contradict anyone who described him as a ploughman, and of himself never hinted that he was also a tenant-farmer in his own right. Ploughman he had been all his life; and if they sought to add that he was heaven-taught, he had no objection to that either. It saved a lot of tiresome explanations and was the perfect disguise to enable him to pursue his hobby of catching manners living as they rose. Only to those who proved themselves worthy of his confidence would he bestow his confidence; and there was plenty of time to think about that.

John Richmond listened to his recital of the evening’s proceedings.

“I don’t know, Jock. Here I have invitations to dine or sup, aye, or even breakfast with half the nobility of Scotland and every family of note in the Town. There’s something wrong somewhere. Some of them have read some of my poems—those printed by Sibbald. Most have read none. A few, a very few, have read the Kilmarnock volume. But it seems to make no difference. They are all equally enthusiastic, tumbling over themselves to do me some honour or kindness. Oh, I’m a ploughman—a prodigy, a wonder, a seven days’ wonder——”

“You’re not complaining, are you?”

“No ... I’m not complaining, Jock. The tide o’ good fortune’s running high just now. Higher than it should by all natural laws. It’ll ebb, Jock.”

“Wait till it ebbs—though why should it? It winna turn in twenty-four hours.”

“They don’t know me, Jock. I very much doubt if they want to know me. I’m a curiosity—much like that performing pig in the Grassmarket. I doubt if they know the difference between a good poem and a bad pig.”

“If you sell your book and make some money what does it matter? And get after them for a job while they’re thinking so highly o’ you.”

“The Duchess o’ Gordon has a glimmering o’ the truth. By God, Jock, that’s a woman for you. They tell me she’s had six o’ a family: you wouldna think she’d had one.”

“Aye ... and she couldna tell you the father o’ any o’ the children—so they tell me.”

“I could believe that. The martial chuck I met in Poosie Nancie’s in Machlin and her hae much in common. A crab-louse is but a crab-louse still... She may have a woman’s body; but she’s gotten a man’s brains: the best quality at that.

“And I’ve to be introduced to Lodge Canongate-Kilwinning by Henry Erskine and William Dunbar—and it seems everybody will be there.”

“I only wish Daddy Auld and the Kirk Session o’ Machlin could see you now, Rab. Aye: or the Armours. Huh! And you werena good enough to marry Jean! I wonder what they’ll say when they get to know?”

“They won’t believe it. Nobody but Daddy Auld will believe it. Auld was well acquaint wi’ the Town in his day: so I’ve been hearing. It seems he used to be a great friend o’ James Boswell o’ Auchinleck the time Boswell stayed in Saint James’s Court up the Landmarket there. Aye: Auld will understand—and Doctor MacKenzie ... and maybe Gavin Hamilton...

“Howsomenever, Jock, you’ve to go to work in the morning and I’ve to have breakfast wi’ Mr. Creech at Craig’s Close.

“It’s a gay world all right. Gay and mad. Starved, dirty and stinking like a cesspool. Painted and powdered and hanging in rags. And a ploughman, because he’s a poet, made the toast o’ the Town...”

But while the Bard was talking to John Richmond (indeed long after they were stretched together on their chaff-packed mattress) many of the assembly gentry were drinking and wenching.

The Earl of Glencairn, Dalrymple of Orangefield, Harry Erskine, Henry MacKenzie, Sir James Hunter Blair, and others had been carried in sedan-chairs to Fortune’s to finish the night’s celebration.

The tavern had been warned in advance of their coming and was ready for them with platters of tasty food and plenty of drink—and bawds to hand.

The long low-roofed dining-room was given over to them...

A couple of hours later, too drunk to rise from his chair, Glencairn said: “Where’s my poetic ploughman till I get him to sing for us?”

“Burns is awa’ hame to his lodgings, Jamie,” Dalrymple informed him.

“Awa’ hame! That’s—that’s——Send for him! Send for him——You! MacKenzie! MacKenzie! Stop fiddling wi’ that lass and go and fetch Burns. See here, cousin James, I maun hae Burns. Damnit, I’m his patron, amn’t I? Ah weel ... if I canna hae my ploughman-poet I maun hae my wench. Wha’s got my wench?”

Beads of spirit were beginning to condense on the low roof. The stench was appalling. The Provost was lying sick in the corner; and a wench was trying to clean his waistcoat with a large napkin. At the same time she was feeling in his pockets for any loose change...

Only two candles had been left burning on the table. The light was so dim that it was hardly possible to distinguish who was in the room...

There was a dull thud on the floor and Henry MacKenzie slid off his chair taking his lass with him. Seeing that he was insensibly drunk and that she had already been through his pockets, she staggered to her feet and, clutching the table, made her unsteady way towards Glencairn... She put her arms round his neck.

“Tak’ me to bed,” he mumbled. “Tak’ me ... to ... bed.” He buried his face between her naked breasts. “My ploughman-poet,” he moaned in a thick drunken slobber: “my ploughman-poet’s awa’ and left me...”

Harry Erskine came staggering into the room oxtering the Duke of Gordon. Both were very drunk. “Where is she?” demanded the Duke. Erskine, swaying on his feet, bleered round the room.

“There she’s—wi’ Jamie Cunningham. The best wench in the High Street. Come on—Jamie’s ower drunk to bother wi’ her... Where did you leave Jane? Can you mind?”

“Ah ... she’ll be lying in some corner wi’ the ploughman-poet.”

“The ploughman-poet’s in his bed sleeping. He left early. Damn you, Sandy, d’you want this wench or do ye no’?”

“No ... I want nane o’ Glencairn’s... Come on, Harry—oot o’ here. We’ll tak’ a chair to Baxters’ Close... I ken a lass there ... and we can lie till mornin’...”

“Is she young?”

“Fresh’s a daisy—there’s a dizzen o’ them. Fresh’s daisies and cheap.”

The wench freed herself from Glencairn. He toppled sideways from his chair and sprawled on the floor.

She lurched towards the Duke of Gordon, tearing apart the remnants of her torn clothes.

The Duke staggered back and then, coming forward with a lurch that nearly upset Erskine, gave her a shove that sent her reeling backwards, screaming.

“Come on, Harry! Come ye to Baxters’ Close and I’ll show you wenches...”

The Bard got little sleep till the late hours of the morning. He had never heard such a noise from the bawds above him.

The Duchess of Gordon came to earth in a corner of Lucky Pringle’s howff in the Buccleuch Street pend above which Mr. Nicol of the High School was sound asleep. Drunk though she was, Jane had all her wits about her—as had her companion, Captain Matthew Henderson.

“I wish I’d been twenty years younger, Matthew.”

“You’re as young as you feel, Jane.”

“No ... I’m forty, Matthew. And you’re?”

“Fifty.”

“A nice age for a man...”

“No’ so nice an age as Burns is at—in the prime o’ his life.”

“God! but he’s a handsome coarse beggar, Matthew.”

“Coarse?”

“Aye, coarse as a bull or a stallion—but handsome, Matthew, in the same way. I ken he’s a poet——What do you ken aboot him?”

“I like the man, Jane—damnit, I thocht he stood head and shoulders above every other man at the Assembly.”

“ ’Coorse he did—and he kent it.”

“Think sae?”

“Yes, Matthew: he kens his worth—baith as man and poet... If he hadna been a ploughman and I had been ten years younger... Get mair gin, Matthew... I’m upset the nicht ... you ken me.”

“No ... I admire you, Jane; and aye have. But I canna say that I ken you... Come on, Lucky, I ken we’re keeping you oot o’ bed. Fetch ben a bottle o’ gin and ane o’ whisky—and ye can gae till your bed.”

“Aye ... awa’ to your bed, Mistress Pringle. Matthew and me winna steal ocht—or set the place on fire.”

“Thank ye, your Leddyship—gie a rap ben when ye gan awa’.”

“You’ve read his poetry?”

“Aye ... wonderfu’ stuff.”

“A genius, Matthew—a genius that only a woman can understand. But a silly headstrong independent beggar for a’ that. Pride and poverty’ll mak’ his bed gey sair to lie on.”

“D’you think so, Jane? I think he’s modest enough—and sensible too.”

“He despises us, Matthew—he thinks we’re gay and stupid.”

“No, no: ye canna think that.”

“Oh yes, I can. Robert Burns, the heaven-taught ploughman! No: he’s prouder than Lucifer. Aye; but whoever marries him will be a lucky woman.”

“Damnit, he seems to hae impressed you, Jane.”

“You’re a good man, Matthew—and very gallant to me. I can tell you what I wouldna tell anither living soul. Of all the men I’ve ever known that ploughman-poet ... Well: as a poet he’s a genius. As a man he’s got something of the quality Adam had when he walked in the Garden of Eden. Oh! I’m getting poetical myself, Matthew——”

“You havena fallen in love wi’ him, have you?”

“Puif! I’m a duchess and he’s a ploughman! I micht overlook the fact that I am Duchess Gordon. But would he ever forget that he’s a ploughman! You winna breathe a word of this, Matthew!”

“Jane: for a’ the time I’ve kent you, you’ve never even given me a kiss.”

“Oh, Matthew! I never suspected you had feelings that way.”

“D’ye ken what I’m for doing when I’ve finished this bottle?”

“You’re going under the table.”

“Aye, and you wi’ me, Jane. I’ll tak’ the taste o’ Robert Burns oot o’ your mouth.”

“You’ll do nothing o’ the kind—you’ll go out and fetch me a chair!”

“There’s nae chairs at this time o’ the morning—and you ken that.”

“When I was the toast o’ the Toon, Matthew, there were chairs whenever I lifted my pinkie. The Toon’s changed... To think this is probably my last winter in Auld Reekie—and I have to meet Poet Burns ... and walk hame on my ain feet... You could at least offer to carry me on your back, Matthew... Why didn’t Burns stay... ? I could talk to him now. I’d mak’ his lugs burn and put him fidgin’ fain even if I am forty. I’ve done it wi’ younger men than him... Maybe if I’d been a milkmaid... He said he’d give me a dance—at a barn dance. Give me a dance, Matthew! Did you ever see the man I couldn’t dance to his knees?”

“I never did, Jane.”

“No... But maybe Burns could dance me to my knees. I ... I believe he could, Matthew.”

“Damnit, Jane, what’s come over you? This is maist unlike you.”

“You dinna ken me either, Matthew. You’re the only man in Edinburgh I’d trust... I believe I could tell you my life story, Matthew. And what I told you would never pass your lips.”

“Weel ... I hae some few points o’ honour, Jane. I canna say I ever betrayed a confidence in my life.”

“Aye ... I ken that. There’s no’ a woman in the Toon but adores you, Matthew.”

“Maybe they do, Jane. But if they do they bestow nane o’ their favours on me.”

“That’s why they adore you, Matthew.”

“Weel, to speak the truth, Jane, womanising’s never had much appeal to me.”

“I ken, Matthew... You were jilted?”

“Weel ... I suppose I was—you’ve heard the story?”

“I’ve heard... I made a mistake too, Matthew. There was a fine lad I loved: the only lad I ever loved. I heard how he’d got killed abroad. Heart-broken, I married the Fourth Duke... That was a mistake, Matthew. He wasna killed, he cam’ hame again... I’ll tell you a great secret, Matthew——”

“You had twa bairns to him?”

“God in heaven, Matthew! Does everybody ken that?”

“Only me, Jane. You told me that one night... Ye mind we were in the Coffin at John Dowie’s?”

“What else did I tell you, Matthew?”

“You told me that o’ your six bairns not one o’ them was to the Duke.”

“Did I tell you that?”

“That and a lot mair I forget noo.”

“I blether a lot when I get melancholy fu’.”

“Ye shouldna drink gin.”

“It’s easy on the water-works, Matthew. And sometimes I like a good greet.”

“Oh, you women ... I’m afear’d I never kent the sex, Jane.”

“That’s how you got jilted. A man that kens the ways o’ women never gets jilted—neither does a woman that kens the ways o’ men.”

“D’you think the ploughman-poet kens the ways o’ the women?”

“Nane better that ever trod the planestanes o’ Auld Reekie.”

“I wadna hae thocht that, Jane. How d’ye arrive at a’ this after five minutes on the Assembly floor wi’ him?”

“I learned more about Robert Burns in that talk than I would gin I’d spent a nicht in bed wi’ him... I learned a lot about mysel’ too... But what was it he wrote, in one o’ his poems? ‘Aye keep something to yoursel’ you scarce wad tell to ony?’ I’m getting tired, Matthew—tired o’ the men aboot the Toon. There’s no’ the gallants there were...”

And Jane, Duchess of Gordon, sighed a deep nostalgic gin-sodden sigh and rested her head on Captain Matthew Henderson’s broad and gallant shoulder.