uilt with his own hands the clay cottage
now known to literary pilgrims as the birthplace of Burns. His wife,
Agnes Brown, the daughter of an Ayrshire farmer, bore him, besides
Robert, three sons and three daughters. In order to keep his sons at
home instead of sending them out as farm-laborers, the elder Burnes
rented in 1766 the farm of Mount Oliphant, and stocked it on borrowed
money. The venture did not prosper, and on a change of landlords the
family fell into the hands of a merciless agent, whose bullying the
poet later avenged by the portrait of the factor in _The Twa Dogs_.

I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day,--
And mony a time my heart's been wae,--
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash,
How they maun thole a factor's snash;
He'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear,
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear;
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble,
And hear it a', and fear and tremble!

In 1777 Mount Oliphant was exchanged for the farm of Lochlea, about
ten miles away, and here William Burnes labored for the rest of his
life. The farm was poor, and with all he could do it was hard to keep
his head above water. His health was failing, he was harassed with
debts, and in 1784 in the midst of a lawsuit about his lease, he died.

In spite of his struggle for a bare subsistence, the elder Burnes had
not neglected the education of his children. Before he was six, Robert
was sent to a small school at Alloway Mill, and soon after his father
joined with a few neighbors to engage a young man named John Murdoch
to teach their children in a room in the village. This arrangement
continued for two years and a half, when, Murdoch having been called
elsewhere, the father undertook the task of education himself. The
regular instruction was confined chiefly to the long winter evenings,
but quite as important as this was the intercourse between father and
sons as they went about their work.

"My father," says the poet's brother Gilbert, "was for some time
almost the only companion we had. He conversed familiarly on all
subjects with us, as if we had been men; and was at great pains,
as we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to lead the
conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our
knowledge, or confirm our virtuous habits. He borrowed Salmon's
_Geographical Grammar_ for us, and endeavoured to make us
acquainted with the situation and history