A Day With the Poet Burns

[...]who could shoot a hare at this season, when they all of them have young ones." It is on record that he threatened to throw the culprit-a neighbouring farmer's son-into the Nith to reward his inhumanity. The ploughing is finished for the day, but the poet must now needs betake himself to those official duties as an exciseman, which are perhaps even less congenial to him than agricultural pursuits. He has to cover some two hundred miles' riding every week; he is forced to earn a scanty living for himself and his family, by incessant[...].