Whatever this young girl may have been in person or condition, she must have possessed some striking qualities and charms to have inspired a passion so ardent, and regrets so lasting, in a man of Burns's character. She was not his first love, nor his second, nor his third; for from the age of sixteen there seems to have been no interregnum in his fancy. His heart, he says, was "completely tinder, and eternally lighted up by some goddess or other." His acquaintance with Mary Campbell began when he was about two or three and twenty: he was then residing at Mossgiel, with his brother, and she was a servant on a neighbouring farm. Their affection was reciprocal, and they were solemnly plighted to each other. "We met," says Burns, "by appointment, on the second Sunday in May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of the Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farewell, before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life." "This adieu," say Mr. Cromek, "was performed with all those simple and striking ceremonials which rustic sentiment has devised to prolong tender emotions and to impose awe. The lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook; they laved their hands in the stream, and holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other." This very Bible has recently been discovered in the possession of Mary Campbell's sister. On the boards of the Old Testament is inscribed, in Burns's handwriting, "And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, I am the Lord."--_Levit._ chap. xix. v. 12. On the boards of the New Testament, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths."--_St. Matth._ chap. v. v. 33., and his own name in both. Soon afterwards, disasters came upon him, and he thought of going to try his fortune in Jamaica. Then it was, that he wrote the simple, wild, but powerful lyric, "Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary?" Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave old Scotia's shore? Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, Across the Atlantic's roar? O sweet grows the lime and the orange, And the apple on the pine; But all the charms o' the Indies Can never equal thine. I hae sworn by the heavens to my Mary, I hae sworn by the heavens to be true; And sae may the heavens forget me When I forget my vow! O plight me your faith, my Mary! And plight me your lily-white hand; O plight me your faith, my Mary, Before I leave Scotia's strand. We hae plighted our faith, my Mary, In mutual affection to join; And curst be the cause that shall part us-- The hour, and the moment of time!