1. Alloway, Mount Oliphant, and Lochlea
William Burnes, the father of the poet, came of a family of farmers
and gardeners in the county of Kincardine, on the east coast of
Scotland. At the age of twenty-seven, he left his native district for
the south; and when Robert, his eldest child, was born on January 25,
1759, William was employed as gardener to the provost of Ayr. He had
besides leased some seven acres of land, of which he planned to make a
nursery and market-garden, in the neighboring parish of Alloway; and
there near the Brig o' Doon built with his own hands the clay cottage
now known to literary pilgrims as the birthplace of Burns. His wife,
Agnes Brown, the daughter of an Ayrshire farmer, bore him, besides
Robert, three sons and three daughters. In order to keep his sons at
home instead of sending them out as farm-laborers, the elder Burnes
rented in 1766 the farm of Mount Oliphant, and stocked it on borrowed
money. The venture did not prosper, and on a change of landlords the
family fell into the hands of a merciless agent, whose bullying the
poet later avenged by the portrait of the factor in _The Twa Dogs_.
I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day,--
And mony a time my heart's been wae,--
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash,
How they maun thole a factor's snash;
He'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear,
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear;
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble,
And hear it a', and fear and tremble!
In 1777 Mount Oliphant was exchanged for the farm of Lochlea, about
ten miles away, and here William Burnes labored for the rest of his
life.
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