"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--"

Ellisland Farm is only a few miles farther on the road, never to be
forgotten as the spot where "Tam-O'-Shanter" was written. The farm home
was built by Burns himself during what was probably the happiest period
of his life, and he wrote many verses that indicated his joyful
anticipation of life at Ellisland Farm. But alas, the "best laid plans
o' mice and men gang oft agley," and the personal experience of few men
has more strikingly proven the truth of the now famous lines than of
Robert Burns himself! Many old castles and magnificent mansions crown
the heights overlooking the river, but we caught only glimpses of some
of them, surrounded as they were by immense parks, closed to the public.
Every one of the older places underwent many and strange vicissitudes in
the long years of border warfare, and of them all, Drumlanrigh Castle,
founded in 1689, is perhaps the most imposing. For ten years its
builder, the first Earl of Queensbury, labored on the structure, only to
pass a single night in the completed building, never to revisit it, and
ending his days grieving over the fortune he had squandered on this
many-towered pile of gray stone.

We may not loiter along the Nithdale road, rich as it is in traditions
and relics of the past. Our progress through such a beautiful country
had been slow at the best, and a circular sign-board, bearing the
admonition, "Ten Miles Per Hour," posted at each of the numerous
villages on the way, was another deterrent upon undue haste. The
impression that lingers with us of these small Scotch villages is not a