," but I can hardly believe this
when we remember that Lochlea saw the composition of _The Death and
Dying Words of Poor Mailie_, and of _My Nannie, O_, and one or two more
of his most popular songs. It was during those days that Robert, (p. 010)
then growing into manhood, first ventured to step beyond the range of
his father's control, and to trust the promptings of his own social
instincts and headlong passions. The first step in this direction was
to go to a dancing school, in a neighbouring village, that he might
there meet companions of either sex, and give his rustic manners "a
brush," as he phrases it. The next step was taken when Burns resolved
to spend his nineteenth summer in Kirkoswald, to learn mensuration and
surveying from the schoolmaster there, who was famous as a teacher of
these things. Griswold, on the Carrick coast, was a village full of
smugglers and adventurers, in whose society Burns was introduced to
scenes of what he calls "swaggering riot and roaring dissipation." It
may readily be believed that with his strong love of sociality and
excitement he was an apt pupil in that school. Still the mensuration
went on till one day, when in the kail-yard behind the teachers house,
Burns met a young lass, who set his heart on fire, and put an end to
mensuration. This incident is celebrated in the song beginning--

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring Autumn's pleasant weather,--

"the ebullition," he calls it, "of that passion which ended the school
business at Kirkoswald."

From this time on for several years, love making was his chief
amusement, or rather his most serious business. His brother tells us
that he was in the secret of half the love affairs of the parish of
Tarbolton, and was never without at least one of his own. There was
not a comely girl in Tarbolton on whom he did not compose a song, and
then he made one which included them all. When he was thus inly (p. 011)
moved, "the agitations of his mind and body," says Gilbert, "exceeded
anything of the kind I ever knew in real life. He had always a
particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself, or had
more consequence. His love therefore rarely settled on persons of this
description." The jealousy here noted, as extending even to his loves,
was one of the weakest points of the poet's character. Of the ditties
of that time, most of which have been preserved, the best specimen is
_My Nanni