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The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, "Rab, my man, puir Rabbie" whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess; and off went the three.
It was in Perth that, puzzling over a grimy statue, I was accosted by a bare-footed newsboy with his raucous cry of "Hair-r-ald, Glasgow Hair-r-ald!" "I'll take one," quoth I, "if you'll tell me whose statue that is." "'T is Rabbie Burns" replied he, on the nail. "Thank you," said I, taking the paper. "And what did he do, to deserve the statue?" My newsboy scratched his head.
They made puir Rabbie Burns an anything-arian, wi' their blethers, an' he was near gaun the same gate." And, besides, he absolutely refused to enter any place of worship where there were pews. "He wadna follow after a multitude to do evil; he wad na gang before his Maker wi' a lee in his right hand.
The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, "Rab, ma man, puir Rabbie," whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess; and off went the three.
We had a pleasant chat about the anti-slavery, temperance and other moral reforms; and I went home with something of the feeling that Walter Scott says he had after seeing "Rabbie Burns," Whittier was a retiring, home-keeping man. He never crossed the ocean and seldom went even outside of his native home in Massachusetts.
As he uttered the last words he heard a laugh, and, looking up, saw his host, Felix Matier, standing at the door of the room. "Well, Neal, good morrow to you. You're well enough in body, to judge by your voice. But if that poem's a measure of the state of your mind you're sick at heart. Never mind Mary, man. There's better stuff in Burns than that. He's no bad poet, is Rabbie Burns.
An' tell 'em this, too" and, as he rose, his whole face and figure assumed a dignity, an awfulness, which I had never seen before in him "tell them that ha' driven out and , an' every one that daur speak a word o' common sense, or common humanity them that stone the prophets, an' quench the Spirit o' God, and love a lie, an' them that mak the same them that think to bring about the reign o' love an' britherhood wi' pikes an' vitriol bottles, murther an' blasphemy tell 'em that ane o' fourscore years and mair ane that has grawn grey in the people's cause that sat at the feet o' Cartwright, an' knelt by the death-bed o' Rabbie Burns ane that cheerit Burdett as he went to the Touer, an' spent his wee earnings for Hunt an' Cobbett ane that beheld the shaking o' the nations in the Ninety-three, and heard the birth-shriek o' a newborn world ane that while he was yet a callant saw Liberty afar off, an' seeing her was glad, as for a bonny bride, an' followed her through the wilderness for threescore weary waeful years sends them the last message that e'er he'll send on airth: tell 'em that they're the slaves o' warse than priests and kings the slaves o' their ain lusts an' passions the slaves o' every loud-tongued knave an' mountebank that'll pamper them in their self-conceit; and that the gude God'll smite 'em down, and bring 'em to nought, and scatter 'em abroad, till they repent, an' get clean hearts and a richt speerit within them, and learn His lesson that he's been trying to teach 'em this threescore years that the cause o' the people is the cause o' Him that made the people; an' wae to them that tak' the deevil's tools to do his wark wi'! Gude guide us!
The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, "Rab, ma man puir Rabbie," whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled and were comforted; the two friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess, and off went the three.
"Only aince," he replied. "That was one day when he was ridin' on a road near here. I met a friend who told me to hurry up, for Rabbie Burns was just ahead. I whippit up my horse, and came up to a roughly dressed man, ridin' slowly along, with his blue bonnet pulled down over his forehead, and his eyes turned toward the groond." "Didn't you speak to him?" I said.
"Nay, nay," replied the man, in a tone of deep reverence, "he was Rabbie Burns. I dare na speak to him. If he had been any other mon I would have said 'good morrow to ye." Beautiful and eloquent tribute, paid by an unlettered peasant, not to rank or to wealth, but to a soul a mighty soul though clad in "hodden grey" like himself!
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