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In her infancy her family removed to the vicinage of Dunoon, on the western shore of the Firth, eight miles below Greenock, leaving the oldest daughter at Ardrossan. Mary grew to young womanhood near Dunoon then returned to Ayrshire, and found occupation at Coilsfield, near Tarbolton, where her acquaintance with Burns soon began.
He and I were living "doon the watter," at Dunoon, on the Clyde, one summer month. A Fancy Dress Bazaar was on at the time. The first evening we went to it, and he, unobserved, made furtive sketches of the most prominent people and the prettiest girls. We both sat up all that night, he working at and finishing the sketches.
Out in the middle of the Frith we can see the long, low, white line of buildings on either side of it, nestling at the foot of the hills. We are drawing near Dunoon. That opening on the right is the entrance to Loch Long and Loch Goyle; and a little further on we pass the entrance to the Holy Loch, on whose shore is the ancient burying-place of the family of Argyle.
I ha' been trying to retire it will no be so lang, noo, before I do, and settle doon for good in my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon on the Clyde. But there is no excitement about an engagement now; I could fill five times as many as I do, if there were but some way of being in twa or three places at once, and of adding a few hours to the days and nichts.
When there was a good way on her the work at the oars became easier and the song sank down into a subdued crooning sound that was soothing to hear. The shipmaster steered them out into the broader sea past Toward Point, and two hours' good rowing up the firth brought them abreast of the fortress of Dunoon.
That great voyage he was to have, to see the world and all its peoples! It was proud I was that I could give it to him. He was but it may be I'll tell you more of John later in this book! My pen runs awa' with me, and my tongue, too, when I think of my boy John. We came to the pier at Dunoon, and there she lay, the little ferry steamer, the black smoke curling from her stack straight up to God.
"Tell me a few more facts, then, about him, than I know at present." He gave her rapidly a sketch of the life and antecedents of Lord Donald of Dunoon gambler, wastrel, divorcé, et cetera, speaking quite frankly, almost as he would have spoken to a man. For there was nothing at all distasteful to him in Cynthia's knowledge of life. In a woman of forty it was natural and even attractive.
And when I thought of the Germans who had killed my boy a terrible and savage hatred swept me, and I longed to go out there and kill with my bare hands until I had avenged him or they had killed me too. But then I was a little softened. I thought of his mother back in our wee hoose at Dunoon.
Next morning by the first boat and first train, we took them to Glasgow, had six hundred lithographic copies struck off; back post-haste to Dunoon; in the evening to the Bazaar, and sold the copies at threepence each.
He had come to the right place to be cured, though, and his mother was the nurse he needed. It was quiet in the hills of the Clyde, and there was rest and healing in the heather about Dunoon. Soon his sleep became better and less troubled by dreams. He could eat more, too, and they saw to it, at home, that he ate all they could stuff into him.
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