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We hurried quickly through Dumfries, not to see or think of the Burns associations there until we should come back; but at Lincluden Abbey, close by, we were forced to think of him although, as far as our trip was concerned, he wasn't born.
"It would be silly to forget, and have to make his acquaintance over again at Edinburgh," I said. "He asked me particularly to think of him during our trip whenever I should see the Douglas Heart. Now I have just seen it at Lincluden." "Douglas Heart indeed! Douglas cheek!" I heard Sir S. mutter.
There's a mound, too, by the side of the ruined church, and it is called a Mote, which means something desperately interesting and historic, and there's a Peel-tower in ruin. Indeed, all is in ruin at Lincluden Abbey; but that makes it the sweeter and sadder. And as we came, the red of the crumbling sandstone burned in the fire of sunset like a funeral pyre heaped with roses.
A common walk of his when he was in the poetical vein was to the ruins of Lincluden Abbey, whither he was often accompanied by his eldest boy; sometimes towards Martingdon ford, on the north side of the Nith.
A mile on the way is Lincluden Abbey, in whose seclusion Burns wrote many of his poems, the most famous of which, "The Vision of Liberty," begins with a reference to the ruin: "As I stood by yon roofless tower Where wall flowers scent the dewy air, Where the owlet lone in her ivy bower, Tells to the midnight moon her care "
His uncle Agnew, the Lady Elizabeth's childless brother, who for the sake of the favour of a strongly Protestant aunt had left the mother church of the Greatorix family, had been expected to do something for Agnew; but up to this present time he had received only his name from him, in lieu of all the stately heritages of Holywood in the Nith Valley hard by Lincluden, and Stennesholm in Carrick.
And Lincluden is so sweet a place that my thoughts of it, mingling very humbly with the great poet's thoughts, will lie together in my memory as pressed flowers lie between the pages of a book. The road which leads from Dumfries to Lincluden seems like a quiet prelude to a lovely burst of music, so gentle and pretty it is.
I am indebted for some of these particulars to the courtesy of William Constable Maxwell, Esq., present owner of Terregles, Carlaverock, and also of the beautiful hereditary property of Lincluden.
Later in the day, he takes a solitary walk along the Dock Green by the river side, or to Lincluden, and composes the most part of a new song; or he spends a couple of hours at his folding-down desk, between the fire and window in his parlour, transcribing in his bold round hand the remarks which occur to him on Mr Thomson's last letter, together with some of his own recently composed songs.
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