obably
because of it, details have been raked up from time to time, some grey
and colourless fossil-remains of what was once fresh and living fact.
From Burns himself we know that the lovers took a tender farewell in a
sequestered spot by the banks of the Ayr, and parted never to meet
again. All the romance and tragedy are there, and what need we more? We
are not even certain as to either the place or the date of her death.
Mrs. Begg, the poet's sister, knew little or nothing about Mary
Campbell. She remembered, however, a letter being handed in to him
after the work of the season was over. 'He went to the window to open
and read it, and she was struck by the look of agony which was the
consequence. He went out without uttering a word.' What he felt he
expressed afterwards in song--song that has become the language of
bereaved and broken hearts for all time. The widowed lover knows 'the
dear departed shade,' but he may not have heard of Mary Campbell.

It was in May that Burns and Highland Mary had parted; in June he wrote
to a friend about ungrateful Armour, confessing that he still loved her
to distraction, though he would not tell her so. But all his letters
about this time are wild and rebellious. He raves in a tempest of
passion, and cools himself again, perhaps in the composition of a song
or poem. Just about the time this letter was written, his poems were
already in the press. His proposal for publishing had met with so hearty
a reception, that success financially was to a certain extent assured,
and the printing had been put into the hand of John Wilson, Kilmarnock.
Even yet his pen was busy. He wrote often in a gay and lively style,
almost, it would seem, in a struggle to keep himself from sinking into
melancholy, 'singing to keep his courage up.' His gaiety was 'the
madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner.'
_A Bard's Epitaph_, however, among the many pieces of this season, is
earnest and serious enough to disarm hostile criticism; and his loose
and flippant productions are read leniently in the light of this
pathetic confession. It is a self-revelation truly, but it is honest,
straightforward, and manly. There is nothing plaintive or mawkish about
it.

We next find Burns flying from home to escape legal measures that Jean
Armour's father was instituting against him. He was in hiding at
Kilmarnock to be out of the way of legal diligence, and it was in such
circumstances that he