Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 6.djvu/393

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. VOL. VI. OCTOBER, I860. NO. XXXVI. SOME OF THE HAUNTS OF BURNS. BY A TOURIST WITHOUT IMAGINATION OR ENTHUSIASM. WE left Carlisle at a little past eleven, street. With not a tree, of course, or a and within the half-hour were at Gretna blade of grass between the paving-stones, Green. Thence we rushed onward into the narrow lane was as hot as Tophet, Scotland through a flat and dreary tract and reeked with a genuine Scotch odor, of country, consisting mainly of desert being infested with unwashed children, and bog, where probably the moss-troop- and altogether in a state of chronic filth ; ers were accustomed to take refuge after although some women seemed to be hope- their raids into England. Anon, how- lessly scrubbing the thresholds of their ever, the hills hove themselves up to wretched dwellings. I never saw an view, occasionally attaining a height outskirt of a town less fit for a poet's which might almost be called mountain- residence, or in which it would be more ous. In about two hours we reached miserable for any man of cleanly predi- Dumfries, and alighted at the station lections to spend his days, there. We asked for Burns's dwelling ; and a Chill as the Scottish summer is reputed woman pointed across the street to a two- to be, we found it an awfully hot day, story house, built of stone, and white- not a whit less so than the day before ; washed, like its neighbors, but perhaps but we sturdily adventured through the of a little more respectable aspect than burning sunshine up into the town, in- most of them, though I hesitate in saying quiring our way to the residence of Burns, so. It was not a separate structure, but The street leading from the station is call- under the same continuous roof with the ed Shakspeare Street ; and at its farther next. There was an inscription on the extremity we read " Burns Street " on a door, bearing no reference to Burns, but corner house, the avenue thus dcsignat- indicating that the house was now occu- ed having been formerly known as " Mill- pied by a ragged or industrial school. Hole Brae." It is a vile lane, paved with On knocking, we were instantly admitted small, hard stones from side to side, and by a servant-girl, who smiled intelligent- bordered by cottages or mean houses of ly when we told our errand, and showed white-washed stone, joining one to an- us into a low and very plain parlor, not other along the whole length of the more than twelve or fifteen feet square. VOL. vi. 25