He’ll hae misfortunes great and sma’, But aye a heart aboon them a’; He’ll be a credit till us a’-- We’ll a’ be prood o’ Robin.
If all gipsy predictions were as well fulfilled as this concerning the poet, the dark-skinned race assuredly would be far sought and courted.
A few strides beyond the stream his grey mare had to carry Tam past a dark, uncanny spot--“the cairn whare hunters fand the murdered bairn.” It was covered then with trees, and one of them still stands marking the place. To the left of the old road here, and hard by the newer highway, lies the humble cottage, of one storey, where Robert Burns was born. It has been considerably altered since then, having been used until recently as an alehouse, and further accommodation having been added at either end. But enough of the interior remains untouched to allow of its original aspect being realised. The house is the usual “but and ben,” built of natural stones and clay, and neatly whitewashed and thatched. In the “but,” the apartment to the left on entering from the road, there is little alteration; and it was here, in the recessed bed in the wall, that the poet first saw light. The plain deal dresser, with dish-rack above, remains the same, and the small, square, deep-set window still looks out behind, over the fields his father cultivated. An old mahogany press with drawers still stands next the bed; the floor is paved with irregular flags; and the open fireplace, with roomy, projecting chimney, occupies the gable. An extra door has been driven through the south-east corner to allow the profane crowd to pass through, and a larger window has been opened towards the road that they may see to scratch their names in the visitors’ book; but the rest of the apartment, towards the back, is little changed, if at all, since the eventful night when “Januar’ winds blew hansel in on Robin.”
The hour of his ride was too dark, however, for the galloping farmer to see so far over the fields. A weirder sight was in store for him.
A few hundred yards farther on, when, by a well which is still flowing, he had passed the thorn, now vanished, where “Mungo’s mither hanged hersel,” just as the road plunged down along the woody banks of Doon, there, a little to his left,
