Peggy Thompson

She lived with her parents, next door to the school, and Robert Burns recorded that she "over-set my trigonometry, and set me off in a Tangent from the sphere of my studies".

The remaining week I staid, I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet with her; and the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, I was innocent.

I returned home very considerably improved..."[5] Thomas Orr, a fellow pupil at Kirkoswald, stated that he carried letters between Burns and Peggy in the summers of 1782 and 1783.

[6] Upon her marriage Burns wrote "I am very glad that Peggy is off my hands as I am at present embarrassed enough without her" .. no doubt a reference to Elizabeth Paton's pregnancy.

[7] In 1785, ten years later, while he was making plans to emigrate, Burns presented Peggy with a copy of his poems, having composed a special inscription for her on the fly leaf, namely "To an old Sweetheart.