THE house is finished and furnished, and it must be taken possession of with accustomed rites and in due form. The road to it from the Isle, a short half-mile in length, is along a high, bush-fringed margin of the river; and over this always beautiful and henceforth classic ground Burns and his partner, arm-in-arm – he, muscular and swarthy, she, light, handsome, and fair – travelled with solemn pace and slow, preceded by a peasant girl carrying the Family Bible and a bowl of salt. With such propitiatory accompaniments Ellisland was reached, and Burns entered into the occupancy of what was comparatively to him “the great Babylon that he had built.”