is buildings or over his fields; and if you lost sight
of him for an hour, perhaps you might see him returning from Friars
Carse, or spurring his horse through the hills to spend an evening in
some distant place with such friends as chance threw in his way."
Before his new house was ready, he had many a long ride to and fro
through the Cumnock hills to Mauchline, to visit Jean, and to return.
It was not till the first week of December, 1788, that his lonely
bachelor life came to an end, and that he was able to bring his wife
and household to Nithsdale. Even then the house at Ellisland was not
ready for his reception, and he and his family had to put up for a
time in a neighbouring farm-house called the Isle. They brought with
them two farm-lads from Ayrshire, and a servant lass called Elizabeth
Smith, who was alive in 1851, and gave Chambers many details of the
poet's way of life at Ellisland. Among these she told him that her
father was so concerned about her moral welfare that, before allowing
her to go, he made Burns promise to keep a strict watch over her
behaviour, and to exercise her duly in the Shorter Catechism; and that
both of these promises he faithfully fulfilled.

The advent of his wife and his child in the dark days of the year kept
dulness aloof, and made him meet the coming of the new year (1789)
with more cheerful hopes and calmer spirits than he had known for
long. Alas, that these were doomed to be so short-lived!

On New Year's morning, 1789, his brother Gilbert thus (p. 100)
affectionately writes to the poet: "Dear Brother,--I have just
finished my New Year's Day breakfast in the usual form, which
naturally makes me call to mind the days of former years, and the
society in which we used to begin them; and when I look at our family
vicissitudes, 'through the dark postern of time long elapsed,' I
cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good the God of
seasons is to us, and that, however some clouds may seem to lower over
the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all
will turn out well." On the same New Year's Day Burns addressed to
Mrs. Dunlop a letter, which, though it has been often quoted, is too
pleasing to be omitted here. "I own myself so little a Presbyterian,
that I approve set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of
devotion for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and
thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind