Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told us was that in which Burns turned up the mouse’s nest.  It is the inclosure nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a rather remarkably unfertile one.  A little farther on, the ground was whitened with an immense number of daisies,—­daisies, daisies, everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was the field where Burns ran his ploughshare over the daisy.  If so, the soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he bestowed on that first immortal one.  I alighted, and plucked a whole handful of these “wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers,” which will be precious to many friends in our own country as coming from Burns’s farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it.

From Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns.  We skirted, too, along a portion of the estate of Auchinleck, which still belongs to the Boswell family,—­the present possessor being Sir James Boswell, [Sir James Boswell is now dead.] a grandson of Johnson’s friend, and son of the Sir Alexander who was killed in a duel.  Our driver spoke of Sir James as a kind, free-hearted man, but addicted to horse-races and similar pastimes, and a little too familiar with the wine-cup; so that poor Bozzy’s booziness would appear to have become hereditary in his ancient line.  There is no male heir to the estate of Auchinleck.  The portion of the lands which we saw is covered with wood and much undermined with rabbit-warrens; nor, though the territory extends over a large number of acres, is the income very considerable.

By-and-by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass of Ballochmyle.  It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements.  But, in honest truth, the great charm of a woman, in Burns’s eyes, was always her womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her.

Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle, through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her.  The song implies no such interview.  Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows:  the river flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the foot of high and precipitous cliffs.  This beautiful estate of Ballochmyle is still held by the family of Alexanders, to whom Burns’s song has given renown on cheaper terms than any other