3obn Koun0er 389 



helpless life-partner, totally blind from cataracts on 

 both eyes, listening always to the sound of the step 

 she knew and loved so well. The old man would 

 gently take her hand, whisper some tender words, 

 and, bending down, bestow the longed-for kiss. Then, 

 wiping away the tear that would gather in his own eye, 

 John would return to his lapstone and his labour, leaving 

 the loving heart to count the minutes till he should return. 

 The auld guidwife went away to " the land of the leal " 

 about four years before John, and there was thus 

 fulfilled the wish he had expressed years before in one 

 of his sweet songs : 



'Mid a' the thoughts that trouble me, 



The saddest thought of any 

 Is wha may close the other's e'e 



May it be me or Nannie? 



The ane that's left will sairly feel, 



Amid a world uncanny; 

 I'd rather face auld age mysel' 



Than lanely leave my Nannie. 



The Fates were kind to him, and Nannie was not 

 left lonely. It was John who had to face old age 

 without her, waiting for the time to come when he 

 should be laid beside her. 



At the great Burns celebration in 1859 to commemo- 

 rate the centenary of the poet's birth, John Younger 

 came out in a new character. He appeared as a 

 lecturer on the national bard, whose poems had been 

 a revelation to his own soul. 



" It was a treat," says one who heard him, " to see 

 the unaffected bonhomie of ' the old man eloquent ' 



