his time? He measured himself with
those he met, we may be sure, for Burns certainly (as he says of his
father) 'understood men, their manners and their ways,' as it is given
to very few to be able to do. Of the ploughmen, farmers, lairds, or
factors, he saw round about him there was none to compare with him in
natural ability, few his equal in field-work. 'At the plough, scythe, or
reap-hook,' he remarks, 'I feared no competitor.' Yet, conscious of easy
superiority, he saw himself a drudge, almost a slave, while those whom
nature had not blessed with brains were gifted with a goodly share of
this world's wealth.

It's hardly in a body's power
To keep at times frae being sour,
To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want,
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
An' ken na how to wair 't.'

His father, his brother, and himself--all the members of the family
indeed--toiled unceasingly, yet were unable to better their position.
Matters, indeed, got worse, and worst of all when their landlord died,
and they were left to the tender mercies of a factor. The name of this
man we do not know, nor need we seek to know it. We know the man
himself, and he will live for ever a type of tyrannous, insolent
insignificance.

'I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day,
An' 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 an' threaten, curse an swear,
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear:
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble,
An' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble.'

Is it to be wondered at that Burns's blood boiled at times, or that he
should now and again look at those in easier circumstances with snarling
suspicion, and give vent to his feelings in words of rankling
bitterness? Robert Burns and his father were just such men as an
insolent factor would take a fiendish delight in torturing. 'My
indignation yet boils,' Burns wrote years afterwards, 'at the
recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent, threatening letters,
which used to set us all in tears.' Had they 'boo'd and becked' at his
bidding, and grovelled at his feet, he might have had some glimmering
sense of justice, and thought it mercy. But the Burnses were men of a
different stamp. 'William Burness always treated superiors with a
becoming respect, but he never gave the smallest encouragement to
aristocratical arrog