that remained to him from the sale of the second edition of his poems,
and for this the crops he had hitherto reaped had given no adequate
return. Three years, however, were a short trial, and there was a good
time coming for all farmers, when the war with France broke out, and
raised the value of farm produce to a hitherto unknown amount. If
Burns could but have waited for that!--but either he could not, or he
would not wait. But the truth is, even if Burns ever had it in him to
succeed as a farmer, that time was past when he came to Ellisland.
Independence at the plough-tail, of which he often boasted, was no
longer possible for him. He could no more work as he had done of yore.
The habits contracted in Edinburgh had penetrated too deeply. Even if
he had not been withdrawn from his farm by Excise duties, he could
neither work continuously himself, nor make his servants work.
"Faith," said a neighbouring farmer, "how could he miss but fail? (p. 133)
He brought with him a bevy of servants from Ayrshire. The lasses
did nothing but bake bread (that is, oat-cakes), and the lads sat by
the fireside and ate it warm with ale." Burns meanwhile enjoying
himself at the house of some jovial farmer or convivial laird. How
could he miss but fail?

When he had resolved on giving up his farm, an arrangement was come to
with the Laird of Dalswinton by which Burns was allowed to throw up
his lease and sell off his crops. The sale took place in the last week
in August (1791). Even at this day the auctioneer and the bottle
always appear side by side, as Chambers observes; but then far more
than now-a-days. After the roup, that is the sale, of his crop was
over, Burns, in one of his letters, describes the scene that took
place within and without his house. It was one which exceeded anything
he had ever seen in drunken horrors. Mrs. Burns and her family
fortunately were not there to witness it, having gone many weeks
before to Ayrshire, probably to be out of the way of all the pain that
accompanies the breaking up of a country home. When Burns gave up his
lease, Mr. Miller, the landlord, sold Ellisland to a stranger, because
the farm was an outlying one, inconveniently situated, on a different
side of the river from the rest of his estate. It was in November or
December that Burns sold off his farm-stock and implements of
husbandry, and moved his family and furniture into the town of
Dumfries, leaving at Ellisland no memorial of himself,