AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY. 65 for a good many years to come. The guide books and Highland travellers - and high-thoughted travellers will keep them alive-if the critics do not; and I think you will find no better forereading for a trip along the Tweed or through the Trosachs than Marmion, and the Lady of the Lake. The Waverley Dispensation. a mar Meantime, our author has married riage, Goldwin Smith says, of "intellectual disparagement"; which I suppose means that Mrs. Scott was not learned and bookish - as she certainly was not; but she was honest, true-hearted, and domestic. Mr. Redding profanely says that she was used to plead, "Walter, my dear, you must write a new book, for I want another silk dress." I think this is apocryphal; and there is good reason to believe that she gave a little hearty home huzza at each one of Mr. Scott's quick succeeding triumphs. Our author has also changed his home; first from the pretty little village of Lasswade, which is down by Dalkeith, to Ashestiel by the Yarrow; and thence again to a farm-house, near to that unfortunate pile of Abbotsford, which stands on the Tweed bank, shadowed by the trees he planted, and shadowed yet more heavily by the story of his misfortunes. I notice a disposition in some recent writers to disparage this notable country home as pseudo-Gothic and flimsy. This gives a false impression of a structure which, though it lack that singleness of expression and subordination of details which satisfy a professional critic, does yet embody in a singularly interesting way, and with solid construction, all the aspirations, tastes, clannish vanities and archæologic whims of the great novelist. The castellated tower is there to carry the Scottish standard, and the cloister to keep alive reverent memory of old religious houses; and the miniature Court gate, with its warder's horn; and the Oriole windows, whose de tails are, maybe, snatched from Kenilworth; the mass, too, is impressive and smacks all over of Scott's personality and of the traditions he cherished. I am tempted to introduce here some notes of a visit made to this locality very many years ago. I WALK ON TWEED-SIDE. 67 had set off on a foot-pilgrimage from the old border town of Berwick-on-Tweed; had kept close along the banks of the river, seeing men drawing nets for salmon, whose silvery scales flashed in the morning sun. All around swept those charming fields of Tweed-side, green with the richest June growth; here and there were shepherds at their sheep washing; old Norham Castle presently lifted its gray buttresses into view; then came the long Coldstream bridge, with its arches shimmering in the flood below; and after this the palace of the Duke of Roxburgh. In thus following up leisurely the Tweed banks from Berwick, I had slept the first night at Kelso; had studied the great fine bit of ruin which is there, and had caught glimpses of Teviot-dale and of the Eildon Hills; had wandered out of my way for a sight of Smailholme tower, and of Sandy Knowe-both associated with Scott's childhood; I passed Dryburgh, where he lies buried, and at last on an evening of early June, 1845, a stout oarsman ferried me across the Tweed and landed me in Melrose. I slept at the George Inn- dreaming (as many a young wayfarer in those lands has since done), of Ivanhoe and Rebecca, and border wars and Old Mortality. Next morning, after a breakfast upon trout taken from some near stream (very likely the Yarrow or the Gala-water), I strolled two miles or so along the road which followed the Tweed bank upon the southern side, and by a green foot-gate entered the Abbotsford grounds. The forest trees -not over high at that time-were those which the master had planted. From his favorite outdoor seat, sheltered by a thicket of arbor-vitæ, could be caught a glimpse of the rippled surface of the Tweed and of the turrets of the house. It was all very quiet-quiet in the wood-walks; quiet as you approached the court-yard; the master dead; the family gone; I think there was a yelp from some young hound in an out-building, and a twitter from some birds I did not know; there was the unceasing murmur of the river. Besides these sounds, the silence was unbroken; and when I rang the bell at the entrance door, the jangle of it was very startling; startling a little terrier, too, whose quick, sharp bark rang noisily through the outer court. ABBOTSFORD. 69 Only an old house-keeper was in charge, who had fallen into that dreadful parrot-like way of telling visitors what things were best worth seeing - which frets one terribly. What should you or I care (fresh from Guy Mannering or Kenilworth) whether a bit of carving came from Jedburgh or Kelso? or about the jets in the chandelier, or the way in which a Russian Grand Duke wrote his name in the visitors' book? But when we catch sight of the desk at which the master wrote, or of the chair in which he sat, and of his shoes and coat and cane-looking as if they might have been worn yesterday-these seem to bring us nearer to the man who has written so much to cheer and to charm the world. There was, too, a little box in the corridor, simple and iron-bound, with the line written below it, "Post will close at two." It was as if we had heard the master of the house say it. Perhaps the notice was in his handwriting (he had been active there in 1831-2-just thirteen years before) -perhaps not; but-somehow-more than the library, or the portrait bust, or the chatter of the well-meaning house-keeper, it brought back the |