celestial fire! I never was more
delighted, therefore, than with his company for two days'
_tete-a-tete_.' Of his residence with Sir William Murray he has left two
poetical souvenirs, one _On Scaring some Water Fowl in Loch Turit_, and
the other, a love song, _Blithe, Blithe, and Merry was She_, in honour
of Miss Euphemia Murray, the flower of Strathearn.

Returning to Harvieston, he went back with Dr. Adair to Edinburgh, by
Kinross and Queensferry. At Dunfermline he visited the ruined abbey,
where, kneeling, he kissed the stone above Bruce's grave.

It was on this tour, too, that he visited at Clackmannan an old Scottish
lady, who claimed to be a lineal descendant of the family of Robert the
Bruce. She conferred knighthood on the poet with the great double-handed
sword of that monarch, and is said to have delighted him with the toast
she gave after dinner, 'Hooi Uncos,' which means literally, 'Away
Strangers,' and politically much more.

The year 1787 was now drawing to a close, and Burns was still waiting
for a settlement with Creech. He could not understand why he was kept
hanging on from month to month. This was a way of doing business quite
new to him, and after being put off again and again he at last began to
suspect that there was something wrong. He doubted Creech's solvency;
doubted even his honesty. More than ever was he eager to be settled in
life, and he fretted under commercial delays he could not understand. On
the first day of his return to Edinburgh he had written to Mr. Miller of
Dalswinton, telling him of his ambitions, and making an offer to rent
one of his farms. We know that he visited Dalswinton once or twice, but
returned to Edinburgh. His only comfort at this time was the work he had
begun in collecting Scottish songs for Johnson's Museum; touching up old
ones and writing new ones to old airs. This with Burns was altogether a
labour of love. The idea of writing a song with a view to money-making
was abhorrent to him. 'He entered into the views of Johnson,' writes
Chambers, 'with an industry and earnestness which despised all money
considerations, and which money could not have purchased'; while Allan
Cunningham marvels at the number of songs Burns was able to write at a
time when a sort of civil war was going on between him and Creech.
Another reason for staying through the winter in Edinburgh Burns may
have had in the hope that through the influence of his aristocratic
friends some office of