A Link With the Past.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 199, 25 August 1886, Page 4

A Link With the Past.

A eoHUKr-TOKPESTj writing to the "Fall Mall Ga/Dlle," said : —It will surprise many, and may interest v fow, of your readers to loam thnt there died in Mofl'at, Scotland, lately, a veritable, though illegitimato, dauphttr of the poet Eurns. Tho old lady in question, Helen Armstrong by name, who was !•? cr 05 yeara of age, resided for many yeara in Motlat, in tho tame little back streot in which she was born eomewhere . about tho year 178 S. The fact of her rolationsdip to Burns was woll known in Mollat and the neighbourhood. Her mother Nolly Hyslop, was a beauty in her day, and Burns waa for some time a devoted admirer of hers. Helen ia said to have borne a strong rosomblanco to Burns in her earlier day?, and indeed tho likeness to tho portraits of Burns wns traceable to (ho last in the contour of the face and in the dark bright eye?, dimmed as they wero by age and sickness. Kor was the likeness confined to physical pointe : in her mental po-wcra Helen showed a strain of the poetic blood. A few years ago her conversational powers and her quickncß3 uf repartee wore most amusing and attractive. Even a fow months ago, when well enough to talk,her conversation waa highly interesting. Helen's life, as fai as 1 can learn, wae not a very eventful one. Sho wont te servico at a very early age—7,l think. She belonged to that genus of Scottish servants, still extant through rather rare, whorcmainyearsin one "'place" and identify their employers' inferete witb their own. Sbo was thirty years in one situation at the Buccleuch Arms Inn at Thornhill, with a family named Glendinniug. I believo sho lived there till all tho family had died out. ThomhilU a? overy schoolboy knows or ought to know, i« cloco to Drumlanrig Castle, ono of the ducal palaces of the Buccleuch family, Helen told mo she once saw Sir Walter Scott at tho old inn on his way to visit tho Duko at Drumlanrig. He came into tho kitchen and shook hands with the cook in hia bright and genial way, and stopping up to tho tiro, where hung a huge pot of skinny potatoes, he lifted up tho lid, took out a potato, and proceeded leisurely to oat it without the aid of knife or fork. The cook, who was very proud of nor kitchen, had all hor metal ware brightly burnished, and Sir Walter, looking round on it, remarked, ■' Eh, Lucky, ye hae a' bricht aud shining like tho siller." To which Lucky replied, "Ay, Sir Walter ; but it's? no' a' gould that glitters." Helen thought that was a "cry eharp answer, and believed Sir Walter thought so too, as lie Mibseuuently related it at dinner "aman;; the gentry." Helen's reminiscences, when ;>ho was woll enough to be iv quod conversational trim, wero euch as might bo expected iv the caso of one who, iv her own word?, " had had ii long life and seen a jnucklo. ; Sho added, with pious thanksgiving, and a tuuch uf true Scottish indepondenc!:, that in all her long lite the had nevor had to ask charity from any uno. Tho old lady lived entirely aloae, her husband having beon dead for many years, and she had no family. It is pleasing to know that hor lust d;iya were relieved and brightened by tho kindness ol friends in MohV, who had a great respect aud likiDg for old Helen, not ouly na an inlorestirg link with a past which already seoms far distant, but also as a type ol Scottish character which is unfortunatelj growing rapidly rarer. Independently o! tho interest attaching to hor as a daughtei of Burns, she waa a character worth know ing Indignant father.—" Here ia a prettj state of things." -"What's the matter?' " A young doctor who hai been engager to my daughter for the last two years and has been calling on her almost ever.' evening, has broken off tho match.' " Well, I expoct it is a good thing to go rid of him." " 1 don't mind hia break ing off the match, but tho scoundie has the cheek to send mo in a bill for al the call? ho haa made on her.'