Show Burns Highland Mary The pilgrims in Burnsland will find no shrines more touchlinsrly pathetically impressive than those associated with thai most famous heroine of modern poetry the Highland Mary of Burns sweetest and tenderest stanzas Fifteen miles Up the coast from auld Ayr is vArdrossan and her birthplace in thehut of a common sailor From the narrow street we look across the Firth and beyond Doon to the heighths of the West Highlands where she grew to young womanhood In the port of Can tire behind Arrans mountain aisle we And the site of the poor abode where she spent the last summer of her short life in preparation for her oyrpected wedding with Burns At Coilsfield we seethe see-the great rambling whitepillared mansion man-sion where she was employed when the poet first saw and loved her and about it we waader by wood and stream amid the scenes wfa inol < Htereawitlilierloverand ti where after one day of parting loveJ7 athe pair tore themselves asunder never to meet more By Alloways CC Jhaunted kirk we find memento of 0 that partingthe Bibla Burns gave her L that day and upon which their vows I 9 L Q a a Q 1 J were said and the tress of her shining hair which she gave to him Here also is her spinning wheel Near the church of The Holy Fair at Mauchline is the somber old house of Hamilton of which she was some time an inmate where she and the bard often met and where according to kis niece Miss Beggjliis mother saw > iMary and noted the pleasing description and incidents which Miss Begg had heard the mother repeat At Greenock in a dingy side street was the humble dwelling of Marys paternal aunt wife to Peter Mc Crackin a ships carpenter where Mary stopping on her way to a new place of service lound her brother stricken with a contagious fever bravely nursed him to convalescence and then succumbed to his malady mercifully saved by the fever from dying of a broken heart Ladies Home Journal |