God knows if any of those, even Burns himself, who were gathered about the fire that night dreamed that, as I believe now, those lines would echo down the ages, nor that the time was coming when that evening might be a thing to boast upon and hand the memory of to children and to children's children as a precious heirloom:
"November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh: The shortening winter-day is at its close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh, The black'ning trains o'craws to their repose:----"
And at the end, fed perhaps by the adulation of their faces, as well as their spoken words, he laid some open flattery to himself upon the way he'd been received in town and at the noise his name was making there at the time, and stirred Nancy's sense of humor, which, Heaven is a witness, needed little to move it at any time.
"A'weel, a'weel," she said at length, "I make verses myself, Mr. Burns."
"Say you so!" he cried; "and that's a surprise to me! Would you word us one of your poems?" he asked, laughingly.
"I sing mine," she says, going over to the spinet.
"They're not like yours," an apology in her voice; "just off-hand rhymes like, that come to my head on the moment. If you could sooth me Bonnie Dundee now, I might rhyme something to it," and the minute he began, she said:
"Oh! I know that--'tis an old tune, like this"--and striking a chord or two, she was off before the rest had any guess of her intention, with a merry devil in her eye and her face glowing like a flower in the firelight:
"At 'The King's Arms' in Mauchline, Rab Burns said to me, 'I'm just back from Edinbro' as you may see, Where all the gay world has been bowin' to me, For I am the lad who wrote _Bonnie Dundee_! And just for a smile or a glance of my eye The lassies are ready to lie down and die; So don't give yourself airs, but just bow before me, For I am the lad who wrote _Bonnie Dundee_!'
"Now a'weel, Mr. Burns, I have somewhat to say I've sweethearts as many as you any day; And I've eyes of my own, as you've noticed, maybe, If you've glanced from the author of _Bonnie Dundee_! And Duncan of Monteith my suitor has been, And Stewart of MacBride's, who has served to the Queen. And if any one bows, it will sure not be me, For I don't give a groat who wrote _Bonnie Dundee_!"