The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-06-19 00:00:00

A LINK WITH THE PAST,

It will surprise many, and may interest a few, of
your readers (says a correspondent of the Fall Mall
Gazeae) to learn that there died at Moffatt, on the
13th of last month, a veritable, though illegitimate,
daughter ef the poet Burns. The old lady in question,
Helen Armstrong by name, who was ninety-seven or
ninety-eight years of age, resided for many years in
Moffat, in the same little back street in which she
was born somewhere about the year 1788. The fac
of her relationship to Burns was well known in Moffat
and the neighbourhood. Her mother, Nelly Hyslop,
was a beauty in her day, and Burns was for some time
a devoted admirer of hers. Helen is said to have
borne a strong resemblance to Burns in her earlier
days, and indeed the likeness to the portraits of Burns
was traceable to the last id the contour of the face
and in the dark bright eyes, dimmed as they were by
age and sickness. Nor was the likeness
.confined to
physical points; in her mental power Helen showed a
strain of the poetic blood. A few years ago her con-
versational powers and her quickness of repartee were •
most amusing and attractive. Even a few months since,
when well enough to talk, her conversation was highly
interesting. Helen's life, as far as I can learn, was
not a very eventful one. She went to service at a
very early age—seven, I think. She belonged to that
genus of Scotch servants, still extant though rather
rare, who remain years in one "place," and identify
their employers' interests with their own. She was
30 years in one situation at the Buccleuch Arms inn
at Thornhill, with a family named Glendinning. I
believe she lived there till all the family had died
out. Thornhill, as every schoolboy knows or ought
to know, is close to Drumlanrig Castle, one of the
ducal palaces of the Buccleuch family. Helen told
me she once saw Sir Walter Scott at the old inn on
his way to visit the Doke at Drumlanrig. He came
into the kitchen and shook hands with the cook in
his bright and genial way, and stepping up to the fire,
where hung a huge pot of skinny potatoes, he lifted
up the lid, took out a potato, and proceeded leisurely
to eat it without the aid of knife or fork. The cook,
who was very proud of her kitchen, had all her
metal ware brightly burnished, and Sir Walter, look-
ing round on it, remarked, "Eh, Lucky, ye hae
bricht and shining like the Biller." To which Lucky
replied, "Ay, Sir Walter; but it's no' a' gould that
glitters." Helen thought that was a very sharp
answer, and believed Sir Walter thought so too, as he
subsequently related it at dinner " amang the gentry."
Helen's reminiscences, when she was well enough to
be in good conversational trim, were such as might be
expected in the case of one who, in her own words,
"had had a long life and had seen muckle." She
added, with pious thanksgiving and a touch of true
Scottish independence, that in all her long life she bad
never had to ask charity from any one. The old lady
lived entirely alone, her husband having been dead for
many years, and she had no family. It is pleasing
to know that her last • days were relieved and
brightened by the kindness of friends in Moffatt, who
had a great respect and liking for old Helen, not
onlyas an interesting link with a past which already
seems far distant, but also as a type of Scotch cha-
racter which is unfortunately growing rapidly rarer.
Independently of the interest attaching to her as a
daughter of Burns, she was a character worth know-
ing.