I peeped into the open gateway of the
churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead
people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular
and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless
there, and the Armours among them, except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by
her poet's side. The family is now extinct in Mauchline.
Arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely
gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. He proved to
be a Mr. Alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the Alexander of
Ballochmyle, a blood-relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy
of a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago on this old
gentleman's white hair! These Alexanders, by-the-by, are not an old
family on the Ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a
fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed
proprietor of his name in these parts. The original family was named
Whitefoord.
Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a
cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a
woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we
see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly
direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to
the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the
town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices;
although there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking
houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place.
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