When it became evident that the few acres at Alloway could not continue to support his growing family, William Burnes rented from his old employer, Provost Fergusson, the larger farm of Mount Oliphant. Gilbert Burns, who seldom used superlatives, declared that Mount Oliphant was almost the poorest land he had ever seen in cultivation. Yet for its seventy bleak and stony acres William Burnes undertook to pay £40 a year for the first six years of his lease, and £45 for the next six. It may not be too uncharitable to assume that the Provost saw in the tenancy of the stubbornly independent Burnes a chance to get a poor farm raised to a better level of cultivation. At any rate he showed his confidence in his tenant by advancing a hundred pounds towards stocking the place. Without this help the venture would probably have been impossible; nevertheless it saddled the family with an additional load of debt. The weight of the burden can be realized from the fact that in the 1770’s in nearby Clydesdale twopence a dozen was a fair price for eggs, and chickens sold for sixpence a pair. Despite all handicaps, however, things went fairly well for the first half of the lease. In 1771 the family failed to take advantage of their privilege of relinquishing the farm, and accordingly were committed to another six years at an increased rental. Then began the series of disasters which ultimately killed William Burnes and permanently undermined the health of his eldest son. Just at the onset of these dark days William Burnes, vexed at his children’s bad handwriting, managed to send Robert and Gilbert, turn about, to Dalrymple parish school for instruction in penmanship and grammar, that they might be better qualified to teach their brothers and sisters. By the following summer (1773), John Murdoch had returned to Ayr and Robert was spared from the farm for three weeks’ additional tutoring. The lad clutched at the opportunity like a famished man at food. He was with Murdoch ‘day and night, in school, at all meals, and in all [his] walks’. At the end of the first week, Murdoch says, ‘I told him, that as he was now pretty much master of the parts of speech, &c., I should like to teach him something of French pronunciation; ... and immediately we attacked the French with great courage. Now, there was little else to be heard but the declension of nouns, the conjugation of verbs, &c. When walking together, and even at meals, I was constantly telling him the names of different objects, ... so that he was hourly laying in a stock of words, and sometimes little phrases. In short, he took such pleasure in learning, and I in teaching, that it was difficult to say which of the two was most zealous in the business; and about the end of the second week of our study of the French, we began to read a little of the _Adventures of Telemachus_ in Fénelon’s own words.’ How much French Murdoch really knew is doubtful, though