flax-dressing

Still, even should our pseudo bride and bridegroom each indulge in a rapid day-dream, it must quickly come to an end, seeing that they have speedily to put off their fancy attire and attend that night to the flax-dressing.

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873 Various

His first effort, at eighteen, to better his condition, by the study of surveying at a neighboring town, resulted chiefly in throwing him into contact with bad companions; a venture in the business of flax-dressing ended in disaster; and the same ill-fortune attended the several successive attempts which he made at general farming.

A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher

Irvine, hoping that in this flax-dressing center they could increase their income by dressing the flax raised on their own farm.

Stories of Authors, British and American Edwin Watts Chubb 1912

In 1771 the family move to Lochlea, and Burns went to the neighboring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing.

Introductory Note 1909

The flax-dressing experiment ended disastrously with a fire which burned the workshop, and Burns returned penniless to the farm.

Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907

In order to put himself in a position to marry, he determined to learn the trade of flax-dressing; and though Ellison refused him, he went to the neighboring seaport of Irvine to carry out his purpose in the summer of 1781.

Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907

With these specimens are skeins of thread, spindles, and knitting-needles; bronze sewing needles; and a hackle for flax-dressing.

How to See the British Museum in Four Visits W. Blanchard Jerrold 1855

Irvine was at that time a centre of the flax-dressing art, and as

Robert Burns John Campbell Shairp 1852

Burns was robbed by his partner in trade, his flax-dressing shop was burnt to the ground by fire during the carousal of a New Year's morning, and himself, impaired in purse, in spirits, and in character, returned to Lochlea to find misfortunes thickening round his family, and his father on his death-bed.

Robert Burns John Campbell Shairp 1852

[This was written by Burns in his twenty-third year, when learning flax-dressing in Irvine, and is the earliest of his letters which has reached us.

The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham Robert Burns 1777