The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

3IO Ihe Highland Monthly.
is everywhere in it a healthy breath as of mountain breezes,
a native manliness, veracity and geniality which is withal
so rare just now as to be doubly, trebly precious." Striking?
however, as are the poems just mentioned, with those of The
Holy Cottage, My Mother's Grave, Frank Sylvan's Walk,
to fully understand how true a poet Aird was, he required
to be known. A keen obserxer and a passionate lover of
nature, a walk with him was like a poem, and his conversation
on books and authors was deeply interesting and
instructive. As a talker he was deeply suggestive, and his
words vi\'idly recalled the scene he wished to bring to
remembrance. I remember a friend telling me that on one
occasion, iti walking into Dumfries with Aird, they saw
Carlyle standing with his brother before the house in which
Burns died, and considering it with attention. " Let us
leave them alone," he said, strikingly, " they are looking
upon the shell of the Tragedy." The last time I saw him
was in his own house. He had asked me to come over and
see his birds, for his garden was one vast aviary. Leaving
me in his room he went out, and from all the trees around
they came down and settled around, and some of them were
.so familiar that they came close to his side. On joining
him, for he had been speaking of Burns, he said, turning to
the river flowing almost beneath our feet and coming
towards us rippling in streams of silver in the full light of a
July day, " Let us never forget, however they may disfigure
it, that it is Burns' river." Then, directing my attention to
the churchyard opposite, he said, " Many people wonder
that I selected this for the position of my house, for the
sight opposite must often be dull and depressing ; but I
never find it so. For thinking of the men lying opposite
only brings me the consciousness of a great peace." Mr
Aird died on April 25th, 1876.
From the poets w^ho flourished within the period I have
had to deal with I have selected the four men who stand
out most prominently in the literature of the Border Land,
after throwing aside the greater name of Scott. And no