24 SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 



similar to that from which Burns started, to take the 

 natural and plain, common-sense view of the poet's 

 case. At the very period that old William Burnes* 

 was breaking his heart, and working the flesh off his 

 bones with vexation on the " seven poor acres of 

 nursery ground," near to Alloway Kirk, John 

 Younger's father was making a hard fight to get 

 ends to meet by cobbling shoes and renting a four- 

 teen acre farm on the Langnewton barony. Old 

 Younger had " to thole a factor's snash," like him 

 of Doonside, and the son remembered that the crisis 

 of the household arrived when the cow was distrained 

 for rent. 



Like Burns, John Younger, from infancy, had 

 cherished a deep and earnest sympathy with nature. 

 He had all his days loved the country, and never had 

 been a denizen of city or town. The woods, the green 

 fields, the dingles and dells, and shady coverts of the 

 river side, the red-breast perking among the berry 

 bushes of the cottager's garden on a grave autumn 

 day, the blackbird or throstle piping in the budding 

 beech, the great crow armies blackening the fields, 

 or drifting up into mid air with many-throated 

 clangour, and scattering themselves away in the 

 endless fields of sky, the fresh, newly furrowed land, 



* Robert Burns spelled his name differently from his father. [EDR. J 



