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He was summoned back to Edinburgh to reprint them, to make a considerable profit by them, and to be lionised without stint by the society of the Scottish capital. He then settled down, marrying Jean Armour, at Ellisland in Dumfriesshire, on a small farm and a post in the Excise, which, when his farming failed and he moved to Dumfries itself, became his only regular means of support.
He did not wholly, however, sever his connection with the service, for later, after he had purchased an estate in the Border, and had married, he became a major in the Dumfries Militia. It is given to few to pass a youth so stormy as Kerr's, and to end, as he did, by becoming a peaceful, prosperous Border laird. "St. Agnes' Eve ah, bitter chill it was!
'I must take up the thread of my story, my dearest Matilda, where I broke off yesterday. 'For two or three days we talked of nothing but our siege and its probable consequences, and dinned into my father's unwilling ears a proposal to go to Edinburgh, or at least to Dumfries, where there is remarkably good society, until the resentment of these outlaws should blow over.
At this period, however, there is something remarkably exciting in the proceedings of the French army under Pichegru; or Fox, Adam, or Sheridan, is expected to make an onslaught upon the ministry in the House of Commons. The post comes into Dumfries at eight o'clock at night. There is always a group of gentlemen on the street, eager to hear the news.
She had now and then, at long intervals, a supply from a relation from Dumfries, of a particular kind of thread which she used to knit into little socks and mittens for sale. This knitting was now too fine for her eyes: but the steward did not know this; and he would no doubt take her order, as he had done before. She believed he would come up to return the letters quite early in the morning.
When Burns removed from Ellisland to Dumfries, he took up his abode in a small house of three apartments in the Wee Vennel. Here he stayed till Whitsunday 1793, when the family removed to a detached house of two storeys in the Mill Vennel. A mere closet nine feet square was the poet's writing-room in this house, and it was in the bedroom adjoining that he died.
The men who, working upon the materials supplied by preceding generations, brought the propulsion of boats by steam nearest to perfection, just before the commencement of navigation, were Mr Miller of Dumfries, Mr Taylor, his friend, and tutor in his family, and Mr Symington. All of these were, in a very important degree, instrumental in ushering in the great event.
In Dumfries Corners, even were there no rich red upon the trees, no calendar upon the walls, no invigorating tonic in the air to indicate the season, all would know when autumn had arrived by the anxious, hunted look upon the faces of the good women of that place as they ride on the trains to and from the intelligence offices of the city looking for additions to their ménage.
He went to Dumfries, and on making enquiry, he found that the Queen was right in her shrewd estimate of the proposed superintendent, and took means to prevent the election. It turned out, too, that she had kept her promise about citing offenders, and no fewer than forty-eight persons, one of them an Archbishop, had been indicted.
Mistaken prejudice or unguarded passion may mislead, have often misled me; but when called on to answer for my mistakes, though no man can feel keener compunction for them, yet no man can be more superior to evasion or disguise. I have the honour to be, Sir, your ever grateful, etc., DUMFRIES, 20th Feb. 1793. What are you doing?
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