out in his social activities, in spite of the depressing grind of the
farm. He attended a dancing school (much against his father's will),
helped to establish a "Bachelors' Club" for debating, and found time
for further love-affairs. That with Ellison Begbie, celebrated by him
in _The Lass of Cessnock Banks_, he took very seriously, and he
proposed marriage to the girl in some portentously solemn epistles
which remain to us as the earliest examples of his prose. In order to
put himself in a position to marry, he determined to learn the trade
of flax-dressing; and though Ellison refused him, he went to the
neighboring seaport of Irvine to carry out his purpose in the summer
of 1781. The flax-dressing experiment ended disastrously with a fire
which burned the workshop, and Burns returned penniless to the farm.
The poems written about this time express profound melancholy, a mood
natural enough in the circumstances, and aggravated by his poor
nervous and physical condition.

But his spirit could not remain permanently depressed, and shortly
after his return to Lochlea, a trifling accident to a ewe he had
bought prompted him to the following delightful and characteristic
production.


THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE

As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither, [together]
Was ae day nibbling on the tether, [one]
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, [hoof, looped]
An' owre she warsled in the ditch; [over, floundered]
There, groaning, dying, she did lie,
When Hughoc he cam doytin by. [doddering]