O whare are ye gaen, &c.
The shooten' o' guns, an' rattlin' o' drums,
The bugle in woods, the pipes i' the ha',
The beagles a howlin', the hounds a growlin';
These soundings will soon gar Gight gang awa'.
O whare are ye gaen, &c.
Soon after the marriage, which took place, I believe, at Bath, Mr.
Byron and his lady removed to their estate in Scotland; and it was
not long before the prognostics of this ballad-maker began to be
realised. The extent of that chasm of debt, in which her fortune was
to be swallowed up, now opened upon the eyes of the ill-fated heiress.
The creditors of Mr. Byron lost no time in pressing their demands; and
not only was the whole of her ready money, bank shares, fisheries,
&c., sacrificed to satisfy them, but a large sum raised by mortgage on
the estate for the same purpose. In the summer of 1786, she and her
husband left Scotland, to proceed to France; and in the following year
the estate of Gight itself was sold, and the whole of the purchase
money applied to the further payment of debts,--with the exception of
a small sum vested in trustees for the use of Mrs. Byron, who thus
found herself, within the short space of two years, reduced from
competence to a pittance of 150_l._ per annum.[10]
From France Mrs. Byron returned to England at the close of the year
1787; and on the 22d of January, 1788, gave birth, in Holles Street,
London, to her first and only child, George Gordon Byron.
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