[Ayr—Friday, 25 June 1869]
Friday. Saw Mossgiel, Mauchline, passing the Castle of Montgomery, the estate of the laird of Ballochmyle, and Gavin Hamilton; the grandson of the latter came out to speak with us. He was proud to recall that Burns was married in his house & to show us the haunts he preferred in the village. Came at eight to Dumfries—where the whole town seemed drunk. Nothing but Pinwell’s picture of the Pied Piper ever gave the smallest idea on paper of the way in which the ragged riff-raff of Dumfries danced and flung their caps (when they had any around a band of soldiers in red coats). The soldiers on their side swelled & strutted like turkey cocks as if they were bound to tread them down.
The next day we saw the house where Burns died and his dusty, forlorn, dreary, crumbling resting place. What a contrast to the everlasting springtime of his spirit. From Dumfries
