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+Project Gutenberg's Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, by Washington Irving
+#7 in our series by Washington Irving
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+Title: Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey
+
+Author: Washington Irving
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7948]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 4, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY
+
+BY
+
+WASHINGTON IRVING
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  ABBOTSFORD
+  NEWSTEAD ABBEY
+  ARRIVAL AT THE ABBEY
+  ABBEY GARDEN
+  PLOUGH MONDAY
+  OLD SERVANTS
+  SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ABBEY
+  ANNESLEY HALL
+  THE LAKE
+  ROBIN HOOD AND SHERWOOD FOREST
+  ROOK CELL
+  LITTLE WHITE LADY
+
+
+
+
+ABBOTSFORD.
+
+
+By WASHINGTON IRVING.
+
+
+I sit down to perform my promise of giving you an account of a visit
+made many years since to Abbotsford. I hope, however, that you do not
+expect much from me, for the travelling notes taken at the time are so
+scanty and vague, and my memory so extremely fallacious, that I fear I
+shall disappoint you with the meagreness and crudeness of my details.
+
+Late in the evening of August 29, 1817, I arrived at the ancient little
+border town of Selkirk, where I put up for the night. I had come down
+from Edinburgh, partly to visit Melrose Abbey and its vicinity, but
+chiefly to get sight of the "mighty minstrel of the north." I had a
+letter of introduction to him from Thomas Campbell, the poet, and had
+reason to think, from the interest he had taken in some of my earlier
+scribblings, that a visit from me would not be deemed an intrusion.
+
+On the following morning, after an early breakfast, I set off in a
+postchaise for the Abbey. On the way thither I stopped at the gate of
+Abbotsford, and sent the postilion to the house with the letter of
+introduction and my card, on which I had written that I was on my way
+to the ruins of Melrose Abbey, and wished to know whether it would be
+agreeable to Mr. Scott (he had not yet been made a Baronet) to receive
+a visit from me in the course of the morning.
+
+While the postilion was on his errand, I had time to survey the
+mansion. It stood some short distance below the road, on the side of a
+hill sweeping down to the Tweed; and was as yet but a snug gentleman's
+cottage, with something rural and picturesque in its appearance. The
+whole front was overrun with evergreens, and immediately above the
+portal was a great pair of elk horns, branching out from beneath the
+foliage, and giving the cottage the look of a hunting lodge. The huge
+baronial pile, to which this modest mansion in a manner gave birth was
+just emerging into existence; part of the walls, surrounded by
+scaffolding, already had risen to the height of the cottage, and the
+courtyard in front was encumbered by masses of hewn stone.
+
+The noise of the chaise had disturbed the quiet of the establishment.
+Out sallied the warder of the castle, a black greyhound, and, leaping
+on one of the blocks of stone, began a furious barking. His alarum
+brought out the whole garrison of dogs:
+
+  "Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
+  And curs of low degree;"
+
+all open-mouthed and vociferous.--I should correct my quotation;--not a
+cur was to be seen on the premises: Scott was too true a sportsman, and
+had too high a veneration for pure blood, to tolerate a mongrel.
+
+In a little while the "lord of the castle" himself made his appearance.
+I knew him at once by the descriptions I had read and heard, and the
+likenesses that had been published of him. He was tall, and of a large
+and powerful frame. His dress was simple, and almost rustic. An old
+green shooting-coat, with a dog-whistle at the buttonhole, brown linen
+pantaloons, stout shoes that tied at the ankles, and a white hat that
+had evidently seen service. He came limping up the gravel walk, aiding
+himself by a stout walking-staff, but moving rapidly and with vigor. By
+his side jogged along a large iron-gray stag-hound of most grave
+demeanor, who took no part in the clamor of the canine rabble, but
+seemed to consider himself bound, for the dignity of the house, to give
+me a courteous reception.
+
+Before Scott had reached the gate he called out in a hearty tone,
+welcoming me to Abbotsford, and asking news of Campbell. Arrived at the
+door of the chaise, he grasped me warmly by the hand: "Come, drive
+down, drive down to the house," said he, "ye're just in time for
+breakfast, and afterward ye shall see all the wonders of the Abbey."
+
+I would have excused myself, on the plea of having already made my
+breakfast. "Hout, man," cried he, "a ride in the morning in the keen
+air of the Scotch hills is warrant enough for a second breakfast."
+
+I was accordingly whirled to the portal of the cottage, and in a few
+moments found myself seated at the breakfast-table. There was no one
+present but the family, which consisted of Mrs. Scott, her eldest
+daughter Sophia, then a fine girl about seventeen, Miss Ann Scott, two
+or three years younger, Walter, a well-grown stripling, and Charles, a
+lively boy, eleven or twelve years of age. I soon felt myself quite at
+home, and my heart in a glow with the cordial welcome I experienced. I
+had thought to make a mere morning visit, but found I was not to be let
+off so lightly. "You must not think our neighborhood is to be read in a
+morning, like a newspaper," said Scott. "It takes several days of study
+for an observant traveller that has a relish for auld world trumpery.
+After breakfast you shall make your visit to Melrose Abbey; I shall not
+be able to accompany you, as I have some household affairs to attend
+to, but I will put you in charge of my son Charles, who is very learned
+in all things touching the old ruin and the neighborhood it stands in,
+and he and my friend Johnny Bower will tell you the whole truth about
+it, with a good deal more that you are not called upon to believe--
+unless you be a true and nothing-doubting antiquary. When you come
+back, I'll take you out on a ramble about the neighborhood. To-morrow
+we will take a look at the Yarrow, and the next day we will drive over
+to Dryburgh Abbey, which is a fine old ruin well worth your seeing"--in
+a word, before Scott had got through his plan, I found myself committed
+for a visit of several days, and it seemed as if a little realm of
+romance was suddenly opened before me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After breakfast I accordingly set oft for the Abbey with my little
+friend Charles, whom I found a most sprightly and entertaining
+companion. He had an ample stock of anecdote about the neighborhood,
+which he had learned from his father, and many quaint remarks and sly
+jokes, evidently derived from the same source, all which were uttered
+with a Scottish accent and a mixture of Scottish phraseology, that gave
+them additional flavor.
+
+On our way to the Abbey he gave me some anecdotes of Johnny Bower to
+whom his father had alluded; he was sexton of the parish and custodian
+of the ruin, employed to keep it in order and show it to strangers;--a
+worthy little man, not without ambition in his humble sphere. The death
+of his predecessor had been mentioned in the newspapers, so that his
+name had appeared in print throughout the land. When Johnny succeeded
+to the guardianship of the ruin, he stipulated that, on his death, his
+name should receive like honorable blazon; with this addition, that it
+should be from, the pen of Scott. The latter gravely pledged himself to
+pay this tribute to his memory, and Johnny now lived in the proud
+anticipation of a poetic immortality.
+
+I found Johnny Bower a decent-looking little old man, in blue coat and
+red waistcoat. He received us with much greeting, and seemed delighted
+to see my young companion, who was full of merriment and waggery,
+drawing out his peculiarities for my amusement. The old man was one of
+the most authentic and particular of cicerones; he pointed out
+everything in the Abbey that had been described by Scott in his "Lay of
+the Last Minstrel:" and would repeat, with broad Scottish accent, the
+passage which celebrated it.
+
+Thus, in passing through the cloisters, he made me remark the beautiful
+carvings of leaves and flowers wrought in stone with the most exquisite
+delicacy, and, notwithstanding the lapse of centuries, retaining their
+sharpness as if fresh from the chisel; rivalling, as Scott has said,
+the real objects of which they were imitations:
+
+  "Nor herb nor flowret glistened there
+  But was carved in the cloister arches as fair."
+
+He pointed out, also, among the carved work a nun's head of much
+beauty, which he said Scott always stopped to admire--"for the shirra
+had a wonderful eye for all sic matters."
+
+I would observe that Scott seemed to derive more consequence in the
+neighborhood from being sheriff of the county than from being poet.
+
+In the interior of the Abbey Johnny Bower conducted me to the identical
+stone on which Stout "William of Deloraine" and the monk took their seat
+on that memorable night when the wizard's book was to be rescued from
+the grave. Nay, Johnny had even gone beyond Scott in the minuteness of
+his antiquarian research, for he had discovered the very tomb of the
+wizard, the position of which had been left in doubt by the poet. This
+he boasted to have ascertained by the position of the oriel window, and
+the direction in which the moonbeams fell at night, through the stained
+glass, casting the shadow to the red cross on the spot; as had all been
+specified in the poem. "I pointed out the whole to the shirra," said
+he, "and he could na' gainsay but it was varra clear." I found
+afterward that Scott used to amuse himself with the simplicity of the
+old man, and his zeal in verifying every passage of the poem, as though
+it had authentic history, and that he always acquiesced in his
+deductions. I subjoin the description of the wizard's grave, which
+called forth the antiquarian research of Johnny Bower.
+
+  "Lo warrior! now the cross of red,
+  Points to the grave of the mighty dead;
+  Slow moved the monk to the broad flag-stone,
+  Which the bloody cross was traced upon:
+  He pointed to a sacred nook:
+  An iron bar the warrior took;
+  And the monk made a sign with his withered hand,
+  The grave's huge portal to expand.
+
+  "It was by dint of passing strength,
+  That he moved the massy stone at length.
+  I would you had been there to see,
+  How the light broke forth so gloriously,
+  Streamed upward to the chancel roof,
+  And through the galleries far aloof!
+    And, issuing from the tomb,
+  Showed the monk's cowl and visage pale,
+  Danced on the dark brown warrior's mail,
+    And kissed his waving plume.
+
+  "Before their eyes the wizard lay,
+  As if he had not been dead a day:
+  His hoary beard in silver rolled,
+  He seemed some seventy winters old;
+  A palmer's amice wrapped him round;
+  With a wrought Spanish baldrie bound,
+    Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea;
+  His left hand held his book of might;
+  A silver cross was in his right:
+    The lamp was placed beside his knee."
+
+The fictions of Scott had become facts with honest Johnny Bower. From
+constantly living among the ruins of Melrose Abbey, and pointing out
+the scenes of the poem, the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" had, in a
+manner, become interwoven with his whole existence, and I doubt whether
+he did not now and then mix up his own identity with the personages of
+some of its cantos.
+
+He could not bear that any other production of the poet should be
+preferred to the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." "Faith," said he to me,
+"it's just e'en as gude a thing as Mr. Scott has written--an' if he
+were stannin' there I'd tell him so--an' then he'd lauff."
+
+He was loud in his praises of the affability of Scott. "He'll come here
+sometimes," said he, "with great folks in his company, an' the first I
+know of it is his voice, calling out 'Johnny!--Johnny Bower!'--and
+when I go out, I am sure to be greeted with a joke or a pleasant word.
+Hell stand and crack and lauff wi' me, just like an auld wife--and to
+think that of a man who has such an awfu' knowledge o' history!"
+
+One of the ingenious devices on which the worthy little man prided
+himself, was to place a visitor opposite to the Abbey, with his back to
+it, and bid him bend down and look at it between his legs. This, he
+said, gave an entire different aspect to the ruin. Folks admired the
+plan amazingly, but as to the "leddies," they were dainty on the
+matter, and contented themselves with looking from under their arms. As
+Johnny Bower piqued himself upon showing everything laid down in the
+poem, there was one passage that perplexed him sadly. It was the
+opening of one of the cantos:
+
+  "If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
+  Go visit it by the pale moonlight:
+  For the gay beams of lightsome day,
+  Gild but to flout the ruins gray." etc.
+
+In consequence of this admonition, many of the most devout pilgrims to
+the ruin could not be contented with a daylight inspection, and
+insisted it could be nothing unless seen by the light of the moon. Now,
+unfortunately, the moon shines but for a part of the month; and, what
+is still more unfortunate, is very apt in Scotland to be obscured by
+clouds and mists. Johnny was sorely puzzled, therefore, how to
+accommodate his poetry-struck visitors with this indispensable
+moonshine. At length, in a lucky moment, he devised a substitute. This
+was a great double tallow candle stuck upon the end of a pole, with
+which he could conduct his visitors about the ruins on dark nights, so
+much to their satisfaction that, at length, he began to think it even
+preferable to the moon itself. "It does na light up a' the Abbey at
+since, to be sure," he would say, "but then you can shift it about and
+show the auld ruin bit by bit, whiles the moon only shines on one
+side."
+
+Honest Johnny Bower! so many years have elapsed since the time I treat
+of, that it is more than probable his simple head lies beneath the
+walls of his favorite Abbey. It is to be hoped his humble ambition has
+been gratified, and his name recorded by the pen of the man he so loved
+and honored.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After my return from Melrose Abbey, Scott proposed a ramble to show me
+something of the surrounding country. As we sallied forth, every dog in
+the establishment turned out to attend us. There was the old stag-hound
+Maida, that I have already mentioned, a noble animal, and a great
+favorite of Scott's, and Hamlet, the black greyhound, a wild,
+thoughtless youngster, not yet arrived to the years of discretion; and
+Finette, a beautiful setter, with soft, silken hair, long pendent ears,
+and a mild eye, the parlor favorite. When in front of the house, we
+were joined by a superannuated greyhound, who came from the kitchen
+wagging his tail, and was cheered by Scott as an old friend and
+comrade.
+
+In our walks, Scott would frequently pause in conversation to notice
+his dogs and speak to them, as if rational companions; and indeed there
+appears to be a vast deal of rationality in these faithful attendants
+on man, derived from their close intimacy with him. Maida deported
+himself with a gravity becoming his age and size, and seemed to
+consider himself called upon to preserve a great degree of dignity and
+decorum in our society. As he jogged along a little distance ahead of
+us, the young dogs would gambol about him, leap on his neck, worry at
+his ears, and endeavor to tease him into a frolic. The old dog would
+keep on for a long time with imperturbable solemnity, now and then
+seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his young companions. At length he
+would make a sudden turn, seize one of them, and tumble him in the
+dust; then giving a glance at us, as much as to say, "You see,
+gentlemen, I can't help giving way to this nonsense," would resume his
+gravity and jog on as before.
+
+Scott amused himself with these peculiarities. "I make no doubt," said
+he, "when Maida is alone with these young dogs, he throw's gravity
+aside, and plays the boy as much as any of them; but he is ashamed to
+do so in our company, and seems to say, 'Ha' done with your nonsense,
+youngsters: what will the laird and that other gentleman think of me if
+I give way to such foolery?'"
+
+Maida reminded him, he said, of a scene on board an armed yacht in
+which he made an excursion with his friend Adam Ferguson. They had
+taken much notice of the boatswain, who was a fine sturdy seaman, and
+evidently felt flattered by their attention. On one occasion the crew
+were "piped to fun," and the sailors were dancing and cutting all kinds
+of capers to the music of the ship's band. The boatswain looked on with
+a wistful eye, as if he would like to join in; but a glance at Scott
+and Ferguson showed that there was a struggle with his dignity, fearing
+to lessen himself in their eyes. At length one at his messmates came
+up, and seizing him by the arm, challenged him to a jig. The boatswain,
+continued Scott, after a little hesitation complied, made an awkward
+gambol or two, like our friend Maida, but soon gave it up. "It's of no
+use," said he, jerking up his waistband and giving a side glance at us,
+"one can't dance always nouther."
+
+Scott amused himself with the peculiarities of another of his dogs, a
+little shamefaced terrier, with large glassy eyes, one of the most
+sensitive little bodies to insult and indignity in the world. If ever
+he whipped him, he said, the little fellow would sneak off and hide
+himself from the light of day, in a lumber garret, whence there was no
+drawing him forth but by the sound of the chopping-knife, as if
+chopping up his victuals, when he would steal forth with humble and
+downcast look, but would skulk away again if any one regarded him.
+
+While we were discussing the humors and peculiarities of our canine
+companions, some object provoked their spleen, and produced a sharp and
+petulant barking from the smaller fry, but it was some time before
+Maida was sufficiently aroused to ramp forward two or three bounds and
+join in the chorus, with a deep-mouthed bow-wow!
+
+It was but a transient outbreak, and he returned instantly, wagging his
+tail, and looking up dubiously in his master's face; uncertain whether
+he would censure or applaud.
+
+"Aye, aye, old boy!" cried Scott, "you have done wonders. You have
+shaken the Eildon hills with your roaring; you may now lay by your
+artillery for the rest of the day. Maida is like the great gun at
+Constantinople," continued he; "it takes so long to get it ready, that
+the small guns can fire off a dozen times first, but when it does go
+off it plays the very d----l."
+
+These simple anecdotes may serve to show the delightful play of Scott's
+humors and feelings in private life. His domestic animals were his
+friends; everything about him seemed to rejoice in the light of his
+countenance; the face of the humblest dependent brightened at his
+approach, as if he anticipated a cordial and cheering word. I had
+occasion to observe this particularly in a visit which we paid to a
+quarry, whence several men were cutting stone for the new edifice; who
+all paused from their labor to have a pleasant "crack wi' the laird."
+One of them was a burgess of Selkirk, with whom Scott had some joke
+about-the old song:
+
+  "Up with the Souters o' Selkirk,
+  And down with the Earl of Horne."
+
+Another was precentor at the Kirk, and, besides leading the psalmody on
+Sunday, taught the lads and lasses of the neighborhood dancing on week
+days, in the winter time, when out-of-door labor was scarce.
+
+Among the rest was a tall, straight old fellow, with a healthful
+complexion and silver hair, and a small round-crowned white hat. He had
+been about to shoulder a nod, but paused, and stood looking at Scott,
+with a slight sparkling of his blue eye, as if waiting his turn; for
+the old fellow knew himself to be a favorite.
+
+Scott accosted him in an affable tone, and asked for a pinch of snuff.
+The old man drew forth a horn snuff-box. "Hoot, man," said Scott, "not
+that old mull: where's the bonnie French one that I brought you from
+Paris?" "Troth, your honor," replied the old fellow, "sic a mull as
+that is nae for week-days."
+
+On leaving the quarry, Scott informed me that when absent at Paris, he
+had purchased several trifling articles as presents for his dependents,
+and among others the gay snuff-box in question, which was so carefully
+reserved for Sundays, by the veteran. "It was not so much the value of
+the gifts," said he, "that pleased them, as the idea that the laird
+should think of them when so far away."
+
+The old man in question, I found, was a great favorite with Scott. If I
+recollect right, he had been a soldier in early life, and his straight,
+erect person, his ruddy yet rugged countenance, his gray hair, and an
+arch gleam in his blue eye, reminded me of the description of Edie
+Ochiltree. I find that the old fellow has since been introduced by
+Wilkie, in his picture of the Scott family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We rambled on among scenes which had been familiar in Scottish song,
+and rendered classic by pastoral muse, long before Scott had thrown the
+rich mantle of his poetry over them. What a thrill of pleasure did I
+feel when first I saw the broom-covered tops of the Cowden Knowes,
+peeping above the gray hills of the Tweed: and what touching
+associations were called up by the sight of Ettrick Vale, Galla Water,
+and the Braes of Yarrow! Every turn brought to mind some household air
+--some almost forgotten song of the nursery, by which I had been lulled
+to sleep in my childhood; and with them the looks and voices of those
+who had sung them, and who were now no more. It is these melodies,
+chanted in our ears in the days of infancy, and connected with the
+memory of those we have loved, and who have passed away, that clothe
+Scottish landscape with such tender associations. The Scottish songs,
+in general, have something intrinsically melancholy in them; owing, in
+all probability, to the pastoral and lonely life of those who composed
+them: who were often mere shepherds, tending their flocks in the
+solitary glens, or folding them among the naked hills. Many of these
+rustic bards have passed away, without leaving a name behind them;
+nothing remains of them but their sweet and touching songs, which live,
+like echoes, about the places they once inhabited. Most of these simple
+effusions of pastoral poets are linked with some favorite haunt of the
+poet; and in this way, not a mountain or valley, a town or tower, green
+shaw or running stream, in Scotland, but has some popular air connected
+with it, that makes its very name a key-note to a whole train of
+delicious fancies and feelings.
+
+Let me step forward in time, and mention how sensible I was to the
+power of these simple airs, in a visit which I made to Ayr, the
+birthplace of Robert Burns. I passed a whole morning about "the banks
+and braes of bonnie Doon," with his tender little love verses running
+in my head. I found a poor Scotch carpenter at work among the ruins of
+Kirk Alloway, which was to be converted into a school-house. Finding
+the purpose of my visit, he left his work, sat down with me on a grassy
+grave, close by where Burns' father was buried, and talked of the poet,
+whom he had known personally. He said his songs were familiar to the
+poorest and most illiterate of the country folk, "_and it seemed to
+him as if the country had grown more beautiful, since Burns had written
+his bonnie little songs about it._"
+
+I found Scott was quite an enthusiast on the subject of the popular
+songs of his country, and he seemed gratified to find me so alive to
+them. Their effect in calling up in my mind the recollections of early
+times and scenes in which I had first heard them, reminded him, he
+said, of the lines of his poor Mend, Leyden, to the Scottish muse:
+
+  "In youth's first morn, alert and gay,
+  Ere rolling years had passed away,
+    Remembered like a morning dream,
+  I heard the dulcet measures float,
+  In many a liquid winding note,
+    Along the bank of Teviot's stream.
+
+  "Sweet sounds! that oft have soothed to rest
+  The sorrows of my guileless breast,
+    And charmed away mine infant tears;
+  Fond memory shall your strains repeat,
+  Like distant echoes, doubly sweet,
+    That on the wild the traveller hears."
+
+Scott went on to expatiate on the popular songs of Scotland. "They are
+a part of our national inheritance," said he, "and something that we
+may truly call our own. They have no foreign taint; they have the pure
+breath of the heather and the mountain breeze. All genuine legitimate
+races that have descended from the ancient Britons; such as the Scotch,
+the Welsh, and the Irish, have national airs. The English have none,
+because they are not natives of the soil, or, at least, are mongrels.
+Their music is all made up of foreign scraps, like a harlequin jacket,
+or a piece of mosaic. Even in Scotland, we have comparatively few
+national songs in the eastern part, where we have had most influx of
+strangers. A real old Scottish song is a cairngorm--a gem of our own
+mountains; or rather, it is a precious relic of old times, that bears
+the national character stamped upon it--like a cameo, that shows what
+the national visage was in former days, before the breed was crossed."
+
+While Scott was thus discoursing, we were passing up a narrow glen,
+with the dogs beating about, to right and left, when suddenly a
+blackcock burst upon the wing.
+
+"Aha!" cried Scott, "there will be a good shot for Master Walter; we
+must send him this way with his gun, when we go home. Walter's the
+family sportsman now, and keeps us in game. I have pretty nigh resigned
+my gun to him; for I find I cannot trudge about as briskly as
+formerly."
+
+Our ramble took us on the hills commanding an extensive prospect.
+"Now," said Scott, "I have brought you, like the pilgrim in the
+Pilgrim's Progress, to the top of the Delectable Mountains, that I may
+show you all the goodly regions hereabouts. Yonder is Lammermuir, and
+Smalholme; and there you have Gallashiels, and Torwoodlie, and
+Gallawater; and in that direction you see Teviotdale, and the Braes of
+Yarrow; and Ettrick stream, winding along, like a silver thread, to
+throw itself into the Tweed."
+
+He went on thus to call over names celebrated in Scottish song, and
+most of which had recently received a romantic interest from his own
+pen. In fact, I saw a great part of the border country spread out
+before me, and could trace the scenes of those poems and romances which
+had, in a manner, bewitched the world. I gazed about me for a time with
+mute surprise, I may almost say with disappointment. I beheld a mere
+succession of gray waving hills, line beyond line, as far as my eye
+could reach; monotonous in their aspect, and so destitute of trees,
+that one could almost see a stout fly walking along their profile; and
+the far-famed Tweed appeared a naked stream, flowing between bare
+hills, without a tree or thicket on its banks; and yet, such had been
+the magic web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole, that it had
+a greater charm for me than the richest scenery I beheld in England.
+
+I could not help giving utterance to my thoughts. Scott hummed for a
+moment to himself, and looked grave; he had no idea of having his muse
+complimented at the expense of his native hills. "It may be
+partiality," said he, at length; "but to my eye, these gray bills and
+all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I
+like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern,
+and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich
+scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin
+to wish myself back again among my own honest gray hills; and if I did
+not see the heather at least once a year, _I think I should die!_"
+
+The last words were said with an honest warmth, accompanied with a
+thump on the ground with his staff, by way of emphasis, that showed his
+heart was in his speech. He vindicated the Tweed, too, as a beautiful
+stream in itself, and observed that he did not dislike it for being
+bare of trees, probably from having been much of an angler in his time,
+and an angler does not like to have a stream overhung by trees, which
+embarrass him in the exercise of his rod and line.
+
+I took occasion to plead, in like manner, the associations of early
+life, for my disappointment in respect to the surrounding scenery. I
+had been so accustomed to hills crowned with forests, and streams
+breaking their way through a wilderness of trees, that all my ideas of
+romantic landscape were apt to be well wooded.
+
+"Aye, and that's the great charm of your country," cried Scott. "You
+love the forest as I do the heather--but I would not have you think I
+do not feel the glory of a great woodland prospect. There is nothing I
+should like more than to be in the midst of one of your grand, wild,
+original forests with the idea of hundreds of miles of untrodden forest
+around me. I once saw, at Leith, an immense stick of timber, just
+landed from America. It must have been an enormous tree when it stood
+on its native soil, at its full height, and with all its branches. I
+gazed at it with admiration; it seemed like one of the gigantic
+obelisks which are now and then brought from Egypt, to shame the pigmy
+monuments of Europe; and, in fact, these vast aboriginal trees, that
+have sheltered the Indians before the intrusion of the white men, are
+the monuments and antiquities of your country."
+
+The conversation here turned upon Campbell's poem of "Gertrude of
+Wyoming," as illustrative of the poetic materials furnished by American
+scenery. Scott spoke of it in that liberal style in which I always
+found him to speak of the writings of his contemporaries. He cited
+several passages of it with great delight. "What a pity it is," said
+he, "that Campbell does not write more and oftener, and give full sweep
+to his genius. He has wings that would bear him to the skies; and he
+does now and then spread them grandly, but folds them up again and
+resumes his perch, as if he was afraid to launch away. He don't know or
+won't trust his own strength. Even when he has done a thing well, he
+has often misgivings about it. He left out several fine passages of his
+Lochiel, but I got him to restore some of them." Here Scott repeated
+several passages in a magnificent style. "What a grand idea is that,"
+said he, "about prophetic boding, or, in common parlance, second sight--
+
+  'Coming events cast their shadows before.'
+
+"It is a noble thought, and nobly expressed, And there's that glorious
+little poem, too, of 'Hohenlinden;' after he had written it, he did not
+seem to think much of it, but considered some of it'd--d drum and
+trumpet lines.' I got him to recite it to me, and I believe that the
+delight I felt and expressed had an effect in inducing him to print it.
+The fact is," added he, "Campbell is, in a manner, a bugbear to
+himself. The brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his
+further efforts. _He is afraid of the shadow that his own fame casts
+before him_."
+
+While we were thus chatting, we heard the report of a gun among the
+hills. "That's Walter, I think," said Scott; "he has finished his
+morning's studies, and is out with his gun. I should not be surprised
+if he had met with the blackcock; if so, we shall have an addition to
+our larder, for Walter is a pretty sure shot." I inquired into the
+nature of Walter's studies. "Faith," said Scott, "I can't say much on
+that head. I am not over bent upon making prodigies of any of my
+children. As to Walter, I taught him, while a boy, to ride, and shoot,
+and speak the truth; as to the other parts of his education, I leave
+them to a very worthy young man, the son of one of our clergymen, who
+instructs all my children."
+
+I afterward became acquainted with the young man in question, George
+Thomson, son of the minister of Melrose, and found him possessed of
+much learning, intelligence, and modest worth. He used to come every
+day from his father's residence at Melrose to superintend the studies
+of the young folks, and occasionally took his meals at Abbotsford,
+where he was highly esteemed. Nature had cut him out, Scott used to
+say, for a stalwart soldier, for he was tall, vigorous, active, and
+fond of athletic exercises, but accident had marred her work, the loss
+of a limb in boyhood having reduced him to a wooden leg. He was brought
+up, therefore, for the Church, whence he was occasionally called the
+Dominie, and is supposed, by his mixture of learning, simplicity, and
+amiable eccentricity, to have furnished many traits for the character
+of Dominie Sampson. I believe he often acted as Scott's amanuensis,
+when composing his novels. With him the young people were occupied in
+general during the early part of the day, after which they took all
+kinds of healthful recreations in the open air; for Scott was as
+solicitous to strengthen their bodies as their minds.
+
+We had not walked much further before we saw the two Miss Scotts
+advancing along the hillside to meet us. The morning studies being
+over, they had set off to take a ramble on the hills, and gather
+heather blossoms, with which to decorate their hair for dinner. As they
+came bounding lightly like young fawns, and their dresses fluttering in
+the pure summer breeze, I was reminded of Scott's own description of
+his children in his introduction to one of the cantos of Marmion--
+
+  "My imps, though hardy, bold, and wild,
+  As best befits the mountain child,
+  Their summer gambols tell and mourn,
+  And anxious ask will spring return,
+  And birds and lambs again be gay,
+  And blossoms clothe the hawthorn spray?
+
+  "Yes, prattlers, yes, the daisy's flower
+  Again shall paint your summer bower;
+  Again the hawthorn shall supply
+  The garlands you delight to tie;
+  The lambs upon the lea shall bound.
+  The wild birds carol to the round,
+  And while you frolic light as they,
+  Too short shall seem the summer day."
+
+As they approached, the dogs all sprang forward and gambolled around
+them. They played with them for a time, and then joined us with
+countenances full of health and glee. Sophia, the eldest, was the most
+lively and joyous, having much of her father's varied spirit in
+conversation, and seeming to catch excitement from his words and looks.
+Ann was of quieter mood, rather silent, owing, in some measure, no
+doubt, to her being some years younger.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At dinner Scott had laid by his half-rustic dress, and appeared clad in
+black. The girls, too, in completing their toilet, had twisted in their
+hair the sprigs of purple heather which they had gathered on the
+hillside, and looked all fresh and blooming from their breezy walk.
+
+There was no guest at dinner but myself. Around the table were two or
+three dogs in attendance. Maida, the old stag-hound, took his seat at
+Scott's elbow, looking up wistfully in his master's eye, while Finette,
+the pet spaniel, placed herself near Mrs. Scott, by whom, I soon
+perceived, she was completely spoiled.
+
+The conversation happening to turn on the merits of his dogs, Scott
+spoke with great feeling and affection of his favorite, Camp, who is
+depicted by his side in the earlier engravings of him. He talked of him
+as of a real friend whom he had lost, and Sophia Scott, looking up
+archly in his face, observed that Papa shed a few tears when poor Camp
+died. I may here mention another testimonial of Scott's fondness for
+his dogs, and his humorous mode of showing it, which I subsequently met
+with. Rambling with him one morning about the grounds adjacent to the
+house, I observed a small antique monument, on which was inscribed, in
+Gothic characters--
+
+  "Cy git le preux Percy." (Here lies the brave Percy.)
+
+I paused, supposing it to be the tomb of some stark warrior of the
+olden time, but Scott drew me on. "Pooh!" cried he, "it's nothing but
+one of the monuments of my nonsense, of which you'll find enough
+hereabouts." I learnt afterward that it was the grave of a favorite
+greyhound. Among the other important and privileged members of the
+household who figured in attendance at the dinner, was a large gray
+cat, who, I observed, was regaled from time to time with tit-bits from
+the table. This sage grimalkin was a favorite of both master and
+mistress, and slept at night in their room; and Scott laughingly
+observed, that one of the least wise parts of their establishment was,
+that the window was left open at night for puss to go in and out. The
+cat assumed a kind of ascendancy among the quadrupeds--sitting in state
+in Scott's arm-chair, and occasionally stationing himself on a chair
+beside the door, as if to review his subjects as they passed, giving
+each dog a cuff beside the ears as he went by. This clapper-clawing was
+always taken in good part; it appeared to be, in fact, a mere act of
+sovereignty on the part of grimalkin, to remind the others of their
+vassalage; which they acknowledged by the most perfect acquiescence. A
+general harmony prevailed between sovereign and subjects, and they
+would all sleep together in the sunshine.
+
+Scott was full of anecdote and conversation during dinner. He made some
+admirable remarks upon the Scottish character, and spoke strongly in
+praise of the quiet, orderly, honest conduct of his neighbors, which
+one would hardly expect, said he, from the descendants of moss
+troopers, and borderers, in a neighborhood famed in old times for brawl
+and feud, and violence of all kinds. He said he had, in his official
+capacity of sheriff, administered the laws for a number of years,
+during which there had been very few trials. The old feuds and local
+interests, and rivalries, and animosities of the Scotch, however, still
+slept, he said, in their ashes, and might easily be roused. Their
+hereditary feeling for names was still great. It was not always safe to
+have even the game of foot-ball between villages, the old clannish
+spirit was too apt to break out. The Scotch, he said, were more
+revengeful than the English; they carried their resentments longer, and
+would sometimes lay them by for years, but would be sure to gratify
+them in the end.
+
+The ancient jealousy between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders still
+continued to a certain degree, the former looking upon the latter as an
+inferior race, less brave and hardy, but at the same time, suspecting
+them of a disposition to take airs upon themselves under the idea of
+superior refinement. This made them techy and ticklish company for a
+stranger on his first coming among them; ruffling up and putting
+themselves upon their mettle on the slightest occasion, so that he had
+in a manner to quarrel and fight his way into their good graces.
+
+He instanced a case in point in a brother of Mungo Park, who went to
+take up his residence in a wild neighborhood of the Highlands. He soon
+found himself considered as an intruder, and that there was a
+disposition among these cocks of the hills, to fix a quarrel on him,
+trusting that, being a Lowlander, he would show the white feather.
+
+For a time he bore their flings and taunts with great coolness, until
+one, presuming on his forbearance, drew forth a dirk, and holding it
+before him, asked him if he had ever seen a weapon like that in his
+part of the country. Park, who was a Hercules in frame, seized the
+dirk, and, with one blow, drove it through an oaken table:--"Yes,"
+replied he, "and tell your friends that a man from the Lowlands drove
+it where the devil himself cannot draw it out again." All persons were
+delighted with the feat, and the words that accompanied it. They drank
+with Park to a better acquaintance, and were staunch friends ever
+afterwards.
+
+After dinner we adjourned to the drawing-room, which served also for
+study and library. Against the wall on one side was a long writing-
+table, with drawers; surmounted by a small cabinet of polished wood,
+with folding doors richly studded with brass ornaments, within which
+Scott kept his most valuable papers. Above the cabinet, in a kind of
+niche, was a complete corslet of glittering steel, with a closed
+helmet, and flanked by gauntlets and battle-axes. Around were hung
+trophies and relics of various kinds: a cimeter of Tippoo Saib; a
+Highland broadsword from Flodden Field; a pair of Rippon spurs from
+Bannockburn; and above all, a gun which had belonged to Rob Roy, and
+bore his initials, R.M.G., an object of peculiar interest to me at the
+time, as it was understood Scott was actually engaged in printing a
+novel founded on the story of that famous outlaw.
+
+On each side of the cabinet were book-cases, well stored with works of
+romantic fiction in various languages, many of them rare and
+antiquated. This, however, was merely his cottage library, the
+principal part of his books being at Edinburgh.
+
+From this little cabinet of curiosities Scott drew forth a manuscript
+picked up on the field of Waterloo, containing copies of several songs
+popular at the time in France. The paper was dabbled with blood--"the
+very life-blood, very possibly," said Scott, "of some gay young
+officer, who had cherished these songs as a keepsake from some lady-
+love in Paris."
+
+He adverted, in a mellow and delightful manner, to the little half-gay,
+half-melancholy, campaigning song, said to have been composed by
+General Wolfe, and sung by him at the mess table, on the eve of the
+storming of Quebec, in which he fell so gloriously:
+
+  "Why, soldiers, why,
+  Should we be melancholy, boys?
+  Why, soldiers, why,
+  Whose business 'tis to die!
+  For should next campaign
+  Send us to him who made us, boys
+  We're free from pain:
+  But should we remain,
+  A bottle and kind landlady
+  Makes all well again."
+
+"So," added he, "the poor lad who fell at Waterloo, in all probability,
+had been singing these songs in his tent the night before the battle,
+and thinking of the fair dame who had taught him them, and promising
+himself, should he outlive the campaign, to return to her all glorious
+from the wars."
+
+I find since that Scott published translations of these songs among
+some of his smaller poems.
+
+The evening passed away delightfully in this quaint-looking apartment,
+half study, half drawing-room. Scott read several passages from the old
+romance of "Arthur," with a fine, deep sonorous voice, and a gravity of
+tone that seemed to suit the antiquated, black-letter volume. It was a
+rich treat to hear such a work, read by such a person, and in such a
+place; and his appearance as he sat reading, in a large armed chair,
+with his favorite hound Maida at his feet, and surrounded by books and
+relics, and border trophies, would have formed an admirable and most
+characteristic picture.
+
+While Scott was reading, the sage grimalkin, already mentioned, had
+taken his seat in a chair beside the fire, and remained with fixed eye
+and grave demeanor, as if listening to the reader. I observed to Scott
+that his cat seemed to have a black-letter taste in literature.
+
+"Ah," said he, "these cats are a very mysterious kind of folk. There is
+always more passing in their minds than we are aware of. It comes no
+doubt from their being so familiar with witches and warlocks." He went
+on to tell a little story about a gude man who was returning to his
+cottage one night, when, in a lonely out-of-the-way place, he met with
+a funeral procession of cats all in mourning, bearing one of their race
+to the grave in a coffin covered with a black velvet pall. The worthy
+man, astonished and half-frightened at so strange a pageant, hastened
+home and told what he had seen to his wife and children. Scarce had he
+finished, when a great black cat that sat beside the fire raised
+himself up, exclaimed "Then I am king of the cats!" and vanished up the
+chimney. The funeral seen by the gude man, was one of the cat dynasty.
+
+"Our grimalkin here," added Scott, "sometimes reminds me of the story,
+by the airs of sovereignty which he assumes; and I am apt to treat him
+with respect from the idea that he may be a great prince incog., and
+may some time or other come to the throne."
+
+In this way Scott would make the habits and peculiarities of even the
+dumb animals about him subjects for humorous remark or whimsical story.
+
+Our evening was enlivened also by an occasional song from Sophia Scott,
+at the request of her father. She never wanted to be asked twice, but
+complied frankly and cheerfully. Her songs were all Scotch, sung
+without any accompaniment, in a simple manner, but with great spirit
+and expression, and in their native dialects, which gave them an
+additional charm. It was delightful to hear her carol off in sprightly
+style, and with an animated air, some of those generous-spirited old
+Jacobite songs, once current among the adherents of the Pretender in
+Scotland, in which he is designated by the appellation of "The Young
+Chevalier."
+
+These songs were much relished by Scott, notwithstanding his loyalty;
+for the unfortunate "Chevalier" has always been a hero of romance with
+him, as he has with many other staunch adherents to the House of
+Hanover, now that the Stuart line has lost all its terrors. In speaking
+on the subject, Scott mentioned as a curious fact, that, among the
+papers of the "Chevalier," which had been submitted by government to
+his inspection, he had found a memorial to Charles from some adherents
+in America, dated 1778, proposing to set up his standard in the back
+settlements. I regret that, at the time, I did not make more particular
+inquiries of Scott on the subject; the document in question, however,
+in all probability, still exists among the Pretender's papers, which
+are in the possession of the British Government. In the course of the
+evening, Scott related the story of a whimsical picture hanging in the
+room, which had been drawn for him by a lady of his acquaintance. It
+represented the doleful perplexity of a wealthy and handsome young
+English knight of the olden time, who, in the course of a border foray,
+had been captured and carried off to the castle of a hard-headed and
+high-handed old baron. The unfortunate youth was thrown into a dungeon,
+and a tall gallows erected before the castle gate for his execution.
+When all was ready, he was brought into the castle hall where the grim
+baron was seated in state, with his warriors armed to the teeth around
+him, and was given his choice, either to swing on the gibbet or to
+marry the baron's daughter. The last may be thought an easy
+alternative, but unfortunately, the baron's young lady was hideously
+ugly, with a mouth from ear to ear, so that not a suitor was to be had
+for her, either for love or money, and she was known throughout the
+border country by the name of Muckle-mouthed Mag!
+
+The picture in question represented the unhappy dilemma of the handsome
+youth. Before him sat the grim baron, with a face worthy of the father
+of such a daughter, and looking daggers and ratsbane. On one side of
+him was Muckle-mouthed Mag, with an amorous smile across the whole
+breadth of her countenance, and a leer enough to turn a man to stone;
+on the other side was the father confessor, a sleek friar, jogging the
+youth's elbow, and pointing to the gallows, seen in perspective through
+the open portal.
+
+The story goes, that after long laboring in mind, between the altar and
+the halter, the love of life prevailed, and the youth resigned himself
+to the charms of Muckle-mouthed Mag. Contrary to all the probabilities
+of romance, the match proved a happy one. The baron's daughter, if not
+beautiful, was a most exemplary wife; her husband was never troubled
+with any of those doubts and jealousies which sometimes mar the
+happiness of connubial life, and was made the father of a fair and
+undoubtedly legitimate hue, which still flourishes on the border.
+
+I give but a faint outline of the story from vague recollection; it
+may, perchance, be more richly related elsewhere, by some one who may
+retain something of the delightful humor with which Scott recounted it.
+
+When I retired for the night, I found it almost impossible to sleep;
+the idea of being under the roof of Scott; of being on the borders of
+the Tweed, in the very centre of that region which had for some time
+past been the favorite scene of romantic fiction; and above all, the
+recollections of the ramble I had taken, the company in which I had
+taken it, and the conversation which had passed, all fermented in my
+mind, and nearly drove sleep from my pillow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the following morning, the sun darted his beams from over the hills
+through the low lattice window. I rose at an early hour, and looked out
+between the branches of eglantine which overhung the casement. To my
+surprise Scott was already up and forth, seated on a fragment of stone,
+and chatting with the workmen employed on the new building. I had
+supposed, after the time he had wasted upon me yesterday, he would be
+closely occupied this morning, but he appeared like a man of leisure,
+who had nothing to do but bask in the sunshine and amuse himself.
+
+I soon dressed myself and joined him. He talked about his proposed
+plans of Abbotsford; happy would it have been for him could he have
+contented himself with his delightful little vine-covered cottage, and
+the simple, yet hearty and hospitable style, in which he lived at the
+time of my visit. The great pile of Abbotsford, with the huge expense
+it entailed upon him, of servants, retainers, guests, and baronial
+style, was a drain upon his purse, a tax upon his exertions, and a
+weight upon his mind, that finally crushed him.
+
+As yet, however, all was in embryo and perspective, and Scott pleased
+himself with picturing out his future residence, as he would one of the
+fanciful creations of his own romances. "It was one of his air
+castles," he said, "which he was reducing to solid stone and mortar."
+About the place were strewed various morsels from the ruins of Melrose
+Abbey, which were to be incorporated in his mansion. He had already
+constructed out of similar materials a kind of Gothic shrine over a
+spring, and had surmounted it by a small stone cross.
+
+Among the relics from the Abbey which lay scattered before us, was a
+most quaint and antique little lion, either of red stone, or painted
+red, which hit my fancy. I forgot whose cognizance it was; but I shall
+never forget the delightful observations concerning old Melrose to
+which it accidentally gave rise. The Abbey was evidently a pile that
+called up all Scott's poetic and romantic feelings; and one to which he
+was enthusiastically attached by the most fanciful and delightful of
+his early associations. He spoke of it, I may say, with affection.
+"There is no telling," said he, "what treasures are hid in that
+glorious old pile. It is a famous place for antiquarian plunder; there
+are such rich bits of old time sculpture for the architect, and old
+time story for the poet. There is as rare picking in it as a Stilton
+cheese, and in the same taste--the mouldier the better."
+
+He went on to mention circumstances of "mighty import" connected with
+the Abbey, which had never been touched, and which had even escaped the
+researches of Johnny Bower. The heart of Robert Bruce, the hero of
+Scotland, had been buried in it. He dwelt on the beautiful story of
+Bruce's pious and chivalrous request in his dying hour, that his heart
+might be carried to the Holy Land and placed in the Holy Sepulchre, in
+fulfilment of a vow of pilgrimage; and of the loyal expedition of Sir
+James Douglas to convey the glorious relic. Much might be made, he
+said, out of the adventures of Sir James in that adventurous age; of
+his fortunes in Spain, and his death in a crusade against the Moors;
+with the subsequent fortunes of the heart of Robert Bruce, until it was
+brought back to its native land, and enshrined within the holy walls of
+old Melrose.
+
+As Scott sat on a stone talking in this way, and knocking with his
+staff against the little red lion which lay prostrate before him, his
+gray eyes twinkled beneath his shagged eyebrows; scenes, images,
+incidents, kept breaking upon his mind as he proceeded, mingled with
+touches of the mysterious and supernatural as connected with the heart
+of Bruce. It seemed as if a poem or romance were breaking vaguely on
+his imagination. That he subsequently contemplated something of the
+kind, as connected with this subject, and with his favorite ruin of
+Melrose, is evident from his introduction to "The Monastery;" and it is
+a pity that he never succeeded in following out these shadowy, but
+enthusiastic conceptions.
+
+A summons to breakfast broke off our conversation, when I begged to
+recommend to Scott's attention my friend the little red lion, who had
+led to such an interesting topic, and hoped he might receive some niche
+or station in the future castle, worthy of his evident antiquity and
+apparent dignity. Scott assured me, with comic gravity, that the
+valiant little lion should be most honorably entertained; I hope,
+therefore, that he still flourishes at Abbotsford.
+
+Before dismissing the theme of the relics from the Abbey, I will
+mention another, illustrative of Scott's varied humors. This was a
+human skull, which had probably belonged of yore to one of those jovial
+friars, so honorably mentioned in the old border ballad:
+
+  "O the monks of Melrose made gude kale
+  On Fridays, when they fasted;
+  They wanted neither beef nor ale,
+  As long as their neighbors lasted."
+
+This skull he had caused to be cleaned and varnished, and placed it on
+a chest of drawers in his chamber, immediately opposite his bed; where
+I have seen it, grinning most dismally. It was an object of great awe
+and horror to the superstitious housemaids; and Scott used to amuse
+himself with their apprehensions. Sometimes, in changing his dress, he
+would leave his neck-cloth coiled round it like a turban, and none of
+the "lasses" dared to remove it. It was a matter of great wonder and
+speculation among them that the laird should have such an "awsome fancy
+for an auld girning skull."
+
+At breakfast that morning Scott gave an amusing account of a little
+Highlander called Campbell of the North, who had a lawsuit of many
+years' standing with a nobleman in his neighborhood about the
+boundaries of their estates. It was the leading object of the little
+man's life; the running theme of all his conversations; he used to
+detail all the circumstances at full length to everybody he met, and,
+to aid him in his description of the premises, and make his story "mair
+preceese," he had a great map made of his estate, a huge roll several
+feet long, which he used to carry about on his shoulder. Campbell was a
+long-bodied, but short and bandy-legged little man, always clad in the
+Highland garb; and as he went about with this great roll on his
+shoulder, and his little legs curving like a pair of parentheses below
+his kilt, he was an odd figure to behold. He was like little David
+shouldering the spear of Goliath, which was "like unto a weaver's
+beam."
+
+Whenever sheep-shearing was over, Campbell used to set out for
+Edinburgh to attend to his lawsuit. At the inns he paid double for all
+his meals and his night's lodgings, telling the landlords to keep it in
+mind until his return, so that he might come back that way at free
+cost; for he knew, he said, that he would spend all his money among the
+lawyers at Edinburgh, so he thought it best to secure a retreat home
+again.
+
+On one of his visits he called upon his lawyer, but was told he was not
+at home, but his lady was. "It's just the same thing," said little
+Campbell. On being shown into the parlor, he unrolled his map, stated
+his case at full length, and, having gone through with his story, gave
+her the customary fee. She would have declined it, but he insisted on
+her taking it. "I ha' had just as much pleasure," said he, "in telling
+the whole tale to you, as I should have had in telling it to your
+husband, and I believe full as much profit."
+
+The last time he saw Scott, he told him he believed he and the laird
+were near a settlement, as they agreed to within a few miles of the
+boundary. If I recollect right, Scott added that he advised the little
+man to consign his cause and his map to the care of "Slow Willie
+Mowbray," of tedious memory, an Edinburgh worthy, much employed by the
+country people, for he tired out everybody in office by repeated visits
+and drawling, endless prolixity, and gained every suit by dint of
+boring.
+
+These little stories and anecdotes, which abounded in Scott's
+conversation, rose naturally out of the subject, arid were perfectly
+unforced; though, in thus relating them in a detached way, without the
+observations or circumstances which led to them, and which have passed
+from my recollection, they want their setting to give them proper
+relief. They will serve, however, to show the natural play of his mind,
+in its familiar moods, and its fecundity in graphic and characteristic
+detail.
+
+His daughter Sophia and his son Charles were those of his family who
+seemed most to feel and understand his humors, and to take delight in
+his conversation. Mrs. Scott did not always pay the same attention, and
+would now and then make a casual remark which would operate a little
+like a damper. Thus, one morning at breakfast, when Dominie Thomson,
+the tutor, was present, Scott was going on with great glee to relate an
+anecdote of the laird of Macnab, "who, poor fellow," premised he, "is
+dead and gone--" "Why, Mr. Scott," exclaimed the good lady, "Macnab's
+not dead, is he?" "Faith, my dear," replied Scott, with humorous
+gravity, "if he's not dead they've done him great injustice--for
+they've buried him."
+
+The joke passed harmless and unnoticed by Mrs. Scott, but hit the poor
+Dominie just as he had raised a cup of tea to his lips, causing a burst
+of laughter which sent half of the contents about the table. After
+breakfast, Scott was occupied for some time correcting proof-sheets
+which he had received by the mail. The novel of Rob Roy, as I have
+already observed, was at that time in the press, and I supposed them to
+be the proof-sheets of that work. The authorship of the Waverley novels
+was still a matter of conjecture and uncertainty; though few doubted
+their being principally written by Scott. One proof to me of his being
+the author, was that he never adverted to them. A man so fond of
+anything Scottish, and anything relating to national history or local
+legend, could not have been mute respecting such productions, had they
+been written by another. He was fond of quoting the works of his
+contemporaries; he was continually reciting scraps of border songs, or
+relating anecdotes of border story. With respect to his own poems, and
+their merits, however, he was mute, and while with him I observed a
+scrupulous silence on the subject.
+
+I may here mention a singular fact, of which I was not aware at the
+time, that Scott was very reserved with his children respecting his own
+writings, and was even disinclined to their reading his romantic poems.
+I learnt this, some time after, from a passage in one of his letters to
+me, adverting to a set of the American miniature edition of his poems,
+which, on my return to England, I forwarded to one of the young ladies.
+"In my hurry," writes he, "I have not thanked you, in Sophia's name,
+for the kind attention which furnished her with the American volumes. I
+am not quite sure I can add my own, since you have made her acquainted
+with much more of papa's folly than she would otherwise have learned;
+for I have taken special care they should never see any of these things
+during their earlier years."
+
+To return to the thread of my narrative. When Scott had got through his
+brief literary occupation, we set out on a ramble. The young ladies
+started to accompany us, but they had not gone far, when they met a
+poor old laborer and his distressed family, and turned back to take
+them to the house, and relieve them.
+
+On passing the bounds of Abbotsford, we came upon a bleak-looking farm,
+with a forlorn, crazy old manse, or farmhouse, standing in naked
+desolation. This, however, Scott told me, was an ancient hereditary
+property called Lauckend, about as valuable as the patrimonial estate
+of Don Quixote, and which, in like manner, conferred an hereditary
+dignity upon its proprietor, who was a laird, and, though poor as a
+rat, prided himself upon his ancient blood, and the standing of his
+house. He was accordingly called Lauckend, according to the Scottish
+custom of naming a man after his family estate, but he was more
+generally known through the country round by the name of Lauckie Long
+Legs, from the length of his limbs. While Scott was giving this account
+of him, we saw him at a distance striding along one of his fields, with
+his plaid fluttering about him, and he seemed well to deserve his
+appellation, for he looked all legs and tartan.
+
+Lauckie knew nothing of the world beyond his neighborhood. Scott told
+me that on returning to Abbotsford from his visit to France,
+immediately after the war, he was called on by his neighbors generally
+to inquire after foreign parts. Among the number came Lauckie Long Legs
+and an old brother as ignorant as himself. They had many inquiries to
+make about the French, whom they seemed to consider some remote and
+semi-barbarous horde--"And what like are thae barbarians in their own
+country?" said Lauckie, "can they write?--can they cipher?" He was
+quite astonished to learn that they were nearly as much advanced in
+civilization as the gude folks of Abbotsford.
+
+After living for a long time in single blessedness, Lauckie all at
+once, and not long before my visit to the neighborhood, took it into
+his head to get married. The neighbors were all surprised; but the
+family connection, who were as proud as they were poor, were grievously
+scandalized, for they thought the young woman on whom he had set his
+mind quite beneath him. It was in vain, however, that they remonstrated
+on the misalliance he was about to make; he was not to be swayed from
+his determination. Arraying himself in his best, and saddling a gaunt
+steed that might have rivalled Rosinante, and placing a pillion behind
+his saddle, he departed to wed and bring home the humble lassie who was
+to be made mistress of the venerable hovel of Lauckend, and who lived
+in a village on the opposite side of the Tweed.
+
+A small event of the kind makes a great stir in a little quiet country
+neighborhood. The word soon circulated through the village of Melrose,
+and the cottages in its vicinity, that Lauckie Long Legs had gone over
+the Tweed to fetch home his bride. All the good folks assembled at the
+bridge to await his return. Lauckie, however, disappointed them; for he
+crossed the river at a distant ford, and conveyed his bride safe to his
+mansion without being perceived. Let me step forward in the course of
+events, and relate the fate of poor Lauckie, as it was communicated to
+me a year or two afterward in letter by Scott. From the time of his
+marriage he had no longer any peace, owing to the constant
+intermeddling of his relations, who would not permit him to be happy in
+his own way, but endeavored to set him at variance with his wife.
+Lauckie refused to credit any of their stories to her disadvantage; but
+the incessant warfare he had to wage in defence of her good name, wore
+out both flesh and spirit. His last conflict was with his own brothers,
+in front of his paternal mansion. A furious scolding match took place
+between them; Lauckie made a vehement profession of faith in favor of
+her immaculate honesty, and then fell dead at the threshold of his own
+door. His person, his character, his name, his story, and his fate,
+entitled him to be immortalized in one of Scott's novels, and I looked
+to recognize him in some of the succeeding works from his pen; but I
+looked in vain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After passing by the domains of honest Lauckie, Scott pointed out, at a
+distance, the Eildon stone. There in ancient days stood the Eildon
+tree, beneath which Thomas the Rhymer, according to popular tradition,
+dealt forth his prophecies, some of which still exist in antiquated
+ballads.
+
+
+
+Here we turned up a little glen with a small burn or brook whimpering
+and dashing along it, making an occasional waterfall, and overhung in
+some places with mountain ash and weeping birch. We are now, said
+Scott, treading classic, or rather fairy ground. This is the haunted
+glen of Thomas the Rhymer, where he met with the queen of fairy land,
+and this the bogle burn, or goblin brook, along which she rode on her
+dapple-gray palfrey, with silver bells ringing at the bridle.
+
+"Here," said he, pausing, "is Huntley Bank, on which Thomas the Rhymer
+lay musing and sleeping when he saw, or dreamt he saw, the queen of
+Elfland:
+
+  "'True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
+  A ferlie he spied wi' his e'e;
+  And there he saw a ladye bright,
+  Come riding down by the Eildon tree.
+
+  "'Her skirt was o' the grass-green silk,
+  Her mantle o' the velvet fyne;
+  At ilka tett of her horse's mane
+  Hung fifty siller bells and nine.'"
+
+Here Scott repeated several of the stanzas and recounted the
+circumstance of Thomas the Rhymer's interview with the fairy, and his
+being transported by her to fairy land--
+
+  "And til seven years were gone and past,
+  True Thomas on earth was never seen."
+
+"It's a fine old story," said he, "and might be wrought up into a
+capital tale."
+
+Scott continued on, leading the way as usual, and limping up the wizard
+glen, talking as he went, but, as his back was toward me, I could only
+hear the deep growling tones of his voice, like the low breathing of an
+organ, without distinguishing the words, until pausing, and turning his
+face toward me, I found he was reciting some scrap of border minstrelsy
+about Thomas the Rhymer. This was continually the case in my ramblings
+with him about this storied neighborhood. His mind was fraught with the
+traditionary fictions connected with every object around him, and he
+would breathe it forth as he went, apparently as much for his own
+gratification as for that of his companion.
+
+  "Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along,
+
+  But had its legend or its song."
+
+His voice was deep and sonorous, he spoke with a Scottish accent, and
+with somewhat of the Northumbrian "burr," which, to my mind, gave a
+Doric strength and simplicity to his elocution. His recitation of
+poetry was, at times, magnificent.
+
+I think it was in the course of this ramble that my friend Hamlet, the
+black greyhound, got into a bad scrape. The dogs were beating about the
+glens and fields as usual, and had been for some time out of sight,
+when we heard a barking at some distance to the left. Shortly after we
+saw some sheep scampering on the hills, with the dogs after them. Scott
+applied to his lips the ivory whistle, always hanging at his button-
+hole, and soon called in the culprits, excepting Hamlet. Hastening up a
+bank which commanded a view along a fold or hollow of the hills, we
+beheld the sable prince of Denmark standing by the bleeding body of a
+sheep. The carcass was still warm, the throat bore marks of the fatal
+grip, and Hamlet's muzzle was stained with blood. Never was culprit
+more completely caught in _flagrante delicto_. I supposed the doom
+of poor Hamlet to be sealed; for no higher offence can be committed by
+a dog in a country abounding with sheep-walks. Scott, however, had a
+greater value for his dogs than for his sheep. They were his companions
+and friends. Hamlet, too, though an irregular, impertinent kind of
+youngster, was evidently a favorite. He would not for some time believe
+it could be he who had killed the sheep. It must have been some cur of
+the neighborhood, that had made off on our approach and left poor
+Hamlet in the lurch. Proofs, however, were too strong, and Hamlet was
+generally condemned. "Well, well," said Scott, "it's partly my own
+fault. I have given up coursing for some time past, and the poor dog
+has had no chance after game to take the fire edge off of him If he was
+put after a hare occasionally he never would meddle with sheep."
+
+I understood, afterward, that Scott actually got a pony, and went out
+now and then coursing with Hamlet, who, in consequence, showed no
+further inclination for mutton.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A further stroll among the hills brought us to what Scott pronounced
+the remains of a Roman camp, and as we sat upon a hillock which had
+once formed a part of the ramparts, he pointed out the traces of the
+lines and bulwarks, and the pratorium, and showed a knowledge of
+castramatation that would not have disgraced the antiquarian Oldbuck
+himself. Indeed, various circumstances that I observed about Scott
+during my visit, concurred to persuade me that many of the antiquarian
+humors of Monkbarns were taken from his own richly compounded
+character, and that some of the scenes and personages of that admirable
+novel were furnished by his immediate neighborhood.
+
+He gave me several anecdotes of a noted pauper named Andrew Gemmells,
+or Gammel, as it was pronounced, who had once flourished on the banks
+of Galla Water, immediately opposite Abbotsford, and whom he had seen
+and talked and joked with when a boy; and I instantly recognized the
+likeness of that mirror of philosophic vagabonds and Nestor of beggars,
+Edie Ochiltree. I was on the point of pronouncing the name and
+recognizing the portrait, when I recollected the incognito observed by
+Scott with respect to his novels, and checked myself; but it was one
+among many things that tended to convince me of his authorship.
+
+His picture of Andrew Gemmells exactly accorded with that of Edie as to
+his height, carriage, and soldier-like air, as well as his arch and
+sarcastic humor. His home, if home he had, was at Galashiels; but he
+went "daundering" about the country, along the green shaws and beside
+the burns, and was a kind of walking chronicle throughout the valleys
+of the Tweed, the Ettrick, and the Yarrow; carrying the gossip from
+house to house, commenting on the inhabitants and their concerns, and
+never hesitating to give them a dry rub as to any of their faults or
+follies.
+
+A shrewd beggar like Andrew Gemmells, Scott added, who could sing the
+old Scotch airs, tell stories and traditions, and gossip away the long
+winter evenings, was by no means an unwelcome visitor at a lonely manse
+or cottage. The children would run to welcome him, and place his stool
+in a warm corner of the ingle nook, and the old folks would receive him
+as a privileged guest.
+
+As to Andrew, he looked upon them all as a parson does upon his
+parishioners, and considered the alms he received as much his due as
+the other does his tithes. "I rather think," added Scott, "Andrew
+considered himself more of a gentleman than those who toiled for a
+living, and that he secretly looked down upon the painstaking peasants
+that fed and sheltered him."
+
+He had derived his aristocratical notions in some degree from being
+admitted occasionally to a precarious sociability with some of the
+small country gentry, who were sometimes in want of company to help
+while away the time. With these Andrew would now and then play at cards
+and dice, and he never lacked "siller in pouch" to stake on a game,
+which he did with a perfect air of a man to whom money was a matter of
+little moment, and no one could lose his money with more gentlemanlike
+coolness.
+
+Among those who occasionally admitted him to this familiarity, was old
+John Scott of Galla, a man of family, who inhabited his paternal
+mansion of Torwoodlee. Some distinction of rank, however, was still
+kept up. The laird sat on the inside of the window and the beggar on
+the outside, and they played cards on the sill.
+
+Andrew now and then told the laird a piece of his mind very freely;
+especially on one occasion, when he had sold some of his paternal lands
+to build himself a larger house with the proceeds. The speech of honest
+Andrew smacks of the shrewdness of Edie Ochiltree.
+
+"It's a' varra weel--it's a' varra weel, Torwoodlee," said he; "but who
+would ha' thought that your father's son would ha' sold two gude
+estates to build a shaw's (cuckoo's) nest on the side of a hill?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That day there was an arrival at Abbotsford of two English tourists;
+one a gentleman of fortune and landed estate, the other a young
+clergyman whom he appeared to have under his patronage, and to have
+brought with him as a travelling companion.
+
+The patron was one of those well-bred, commonplace gentlemen with which
+England is overrun. He had great deference for Scott, and endeavored to
+acquit himself learnedly in his company, aiming continually at abstract
+disquisitions, for which Scott had little relish. The conversation of
+the latter, as usual, was studded with anecdotes and stories, some of
+them of great pith and humor; the well-bred gentleman was either too
+dull to feel their point, or too decorous to indulge in hearty
+merriment; the honest parson, on the contrary, who was not too refined
+to be happy, laughed loud and long at every joke, and enjoyed them with
+the zest of a man who has more merriment in his heart than coin in his
+pocket.
+
+After they were gone, some comments were made upon their different
+deportments. Scott spoke very respectfully of the good breeding and
+measured manners of the man of wealth, but with a kindlier feeling of
+the honest parson, and the homely but hearty enjoyment with which he
+relished every pleasantry. "I doubt," said he, "whether the parson's
+lot in life is not the best; if he cannot command as many of the good
+things of this world by his own purse as his patron can, he beats him
+all hollow in his enjoyment of them when set before him by others. Upon
+the whole," added he, "I rather think I prefer the honest parson's good
+humor to his patron's good breeding; I have a great regard for a hearty
+laugher."
+
+He went on to speak of the great influx of English travellers which of
+late years had inundated Scotland; and doubted whether they had not
+injured the old-fashioned Scottish character. "Formerly they came here
+occasionally as sportsmen," said he, "to shoot moor game, without any
+idea of looking at scenery; and they moved about the country in hardy
+simple style, coping with the country people in their own way; but now
+they come rolling about in their equipages, to see ruins, and spend
+money, and their lavish extravagance has played the vengeance with the
+common people. It has made them rapacious in their dealings with
+strangers, greedy after money, and extortionate in their demands for
+the most trivial services. Formerly," continued he, "the poorer classes
+of our people were, comparatively, disinterested; they offered their
+services gratuitously, in promoting the amusement, or aiding the
+curiosity of strangers, and were gratified by the smallest
+compensation; but now they make a trade of showing rocks and ruins, and
+are as greedy as Italian cicerones. They look upon the English as so
+many walking money-bags; the more they are shaken and poked, the more
+they will leave behind them."
+
+I told him that he had a great deal to answer for on that head, since
+it was the romantic associations he had thrown by his writings over so
+many out-of-the-way places in Scotland, that had brought in the influx
+of curious travellers.
+
+Scott laughed, and said he believed I might be in some measure in the
+right, as he recollected a circumstance in point. Being one time at
+Glenross, an old woman who kept a small inn, which had but little
+custom, was uncommonly officious in her attendance upon him, and
+absolutely incommoded him with her civilities. The secret at length
+came out. As he was about to depart, she addressed him with many
+curtsies, and said she understood he was the gentleman that had written
+a bonnie book about Loch Katrine. She begged him to write a little
+about their lake also, for she understood his book had done the inn at
+Loch Katrine a muckle deal of good.
+
+On the following day I made an excursion with Scott and the young
+ladies to Dryburgh Abbey. We went in an open carriage, drawn by two
+sleek old black horses, for which Scott seemed to have an affection, as
+he had for every dumb animal that belonged to him. Our road lay through
+a variety of scenes, rich in poetical and historical associations,
+about most of which Scott had something to relate. In one part of the
+drive, he pointed to an old border keep, or fortress, on the summit of
+a naked hill, several miles off, which he called Smallholm Tower, and a
+rocky knoll on which it stood, the "Sandy Knowe crags." It was a place,
+he said, peculiarly dear to him, from the recollections of childhood.
+His father had lived there in the old Smallholm Grange, or farm-house;
+and he had been sent there, when but two years old, on account of his
+lameness, that he might have the benefit of the pure air of the hills,
+and be under the care of his grandmother and aunts. In the introduction
+of one of the cantos of Marmion, he has depicted his grandfather, and
+the fireside of the farm-house; and has given an amusing picture of
+himself in his boyish years:
+
+  "Still with vain fondness could I trace
+  Anew each kind familiar face,
+  That brightened at our evening fire;
+  From the thatched mansion's gray-haired sire,
+  Wise without learning plain and good,
+  And sprung of Scotland's gentler blood;
+  Whose eye in age, quick, clear and keen.
+  Showed what in youth its glance had been;
+  Whose doom discording neighbors sought,
+  Content with equity unbought;
+  To him the venerable priest,
+  Our frequent and familiar guest,
+  Whose life and manners well could paint
+  Alike the student and the saint;
+  Alas! whose speech too oft I broke
+  With gambol rude and timeless joke;
+  For I was wayward, bold, and wild,
+  A self-willed imp, a grandame's child;
+  But half a plague, and half a jest,
+  Was still endured, beloved, carest."
+
+It was, he said, during his residence at Smallholm crags that he first
+imbibed his passion for legendary tales, border traditions, and old
+national songs and ballads. His grandmother and aunts were well versed
+in that kind of lore, so current in Scottish country life. They used to
+recount them in long, gloomy winter days, and about the ingle nook at
+night, in conclave with their gossip visitors; and little Walter would
+sit and listen with greedy ear; thus taking into his infant mind the
+seeds of many a splendid fiction.
+
+There was an old shepherd, he said, in the service of the family, who
+used to sit under the sunny wall, and tell marvellous stories, and
+recite old time ballads, as he knitted stockings. Scott used to be
+wheeled out in his chair, in fine weather, and would sit beside the old
+man, and listen to him for hours.
+
+The situation of Sandy Knowe was favorable both for storyteller and
+listener. It commanded a wide view over all the border country, with
+its feudal towers, its haunted glens, and wizard streams. As the old
+shepherd told his tales, he could point out the very scene of action.
+Thus, before Scott could walk, he was made familiar with the scenes of
+his future stories; they were all seen as through a magic medium, and
+took that tinge of romance, which they ever after retained in his
+imagination. From the height of Sandy Knowe, he may be said to have had
+the first look-out upon the promised land of his future glory.
+
+On referring to Scott's works, I find many of the circumstances related
+in this conversation, about the old tower, and the boyish scenes
+connected with it, recorded in the introduction to Marmion, already
+cited. This was frequently the case with Scott; incidents and feelings
+that had appeared in his writings, were apt to be mingled up in his
+conversation, for they had been taken from what he had witnessed and
+felt in real life, and were connected with those scenes among which he
+lived, and moved, and had his being. I make no scruple at quoting the
+passage relative to the tower, though it repeats much of the foregone
+imagery, and with vastly superior effect:
+
+  Thus, while I ape the measure wild
+  Of tales that charmed me yet a child,
+  Rude though they be, still with the chime
+  Return the thoughts of early time;
+  And feelings roused in life's first day,
+  Glow in the line, and prompt the lay.
+  Then rise those crags, that mountain tower.
+  Which charmed my fancy's wakening hour,
+  Though no broad river swept along
+  To claim perchance heroic song;
+  Though sighed no groves in summer gale
+  To prompt of love a softer tale;
+  Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed
+  Claimed homage from a shepherd's reed;
+  Yet was poetic impulse given,
+  By the green hill and clear blue heaven.
+  It was a barren scene, and wild,
+  Where naked cliffs were rudely piled;
+  But ever and anon between
+  Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green;
+  And well the lonely infant knew
+  Recesses where the wall-flower grew,
+  And honey-suckle loved to crawl
+  Up the low crag and ruined wall.
+  I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade
+  The sun in all his round surveyed;
+  And still I thought that shattered tower
+  The mightiest work of human power;
+  And marvell'd as the aged hind
+  With some strange tale bewitched my mind,
+  Of forayers, who, with headlong force,
+  Down from that strength had spurred their horse,
+  Their southern rapine to renew,
+  Far in the distant Cheviot's blue,
+  And, home returning, filled the hall
+  With revel, wassail-rout, and brawl--
+  Methought that still, with tramp and clang
+  The gate-way's broken arches rang;
+  Methought grim features, seamed with scars,
+  Glared through the window's rusty bars.
+  And ever by the winter hearth,
+  Old tales I heard of woe or mirth,
+  Of lovers' slights, of ladies' charms,
+  Of witches' spells, of warriors' arms;
+  Of patriot battles, won of old,
+  By Wallace wight and Bruce the bold;
+  Of later fields of feud and fight,
+  When pouring from the Highland height,
+  The Scottish clans, in headlong sway,
+  Had swept the scarlet ranks away.
+  While stretched at length upon the floor,
+  Again I fought each combat o'er.
+  Pebbles and shells, in order laid,
+  The mimic ranks of war displayed;
+  And onward still the Scottish Lion bore,
+  And still the scattered Southron fled before."
+
+Scott eyed the distant height of Sandy Knowe with an earnest gaze as we
+rode along, and said he had often thought of buying the place,
+repairing the old tower, and making it his residence. He has in some
+measure, however, paid off his early debt of gratitude, in clothing it
+with poetic and romantic associations, by his tale of "The Eve of St.
+John." It is to be hoped that those who actually possess so interesting
+a monument of Scott's early days, will preserve it from further
+dilapidation.
+
+Not far from Sandy Knowe, Scott pointed out another old border hold,
+standing on the summit of a hill, which had been a kind of enchanted
+castle to him in his boyhood. It was the tower of Bemerside, the
+baronial residence of the Haigs, or De Hagas, one of the oldest
+families of the border. "There had seemed to him," he said, "almost a
+wizard spell hanging over it, in consequence of a prophecy of Thomas
+the Rhymer, in which, in his young days, he most potently believed:"
+
+  "Betide, betide, whate'er betide,
+  Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside."
+
+Scott added some particulars which showed that, in the present
+instance, the venerable Thomas had not proved a false prophet, for it
+was a noted fact that, amid all the changes and chances of the border;
+through all the feuds, and forays, and sackings, and burnings, which
+had reduced most of the castles to ruins, and the proud families that
+once possessed them to poverty, the tower of Bemerside still remained
+unscathed, and was still the stronghold of the ancient family of Haig.
+
+Prophecies, however, often insure their own fulfilment. It is very
+probable that the prediction of Thomas the Rhymer has linked the Haigs
+to their tower, as their rock of safety, and has induced them to cling
+to it almost superstitiously, through hardships and inconveniences that
+would, otherwise, have caused its abandonment.
+
+I afterwards saw, at Dryburgh Abbey, the burying place of this
+predestinated and tenacious family, the inscription of which showed the
+value they set upon their antiquity:
+
+  Locus Sepultura, Antiquessima Familia De Haga De Bemerside.
+
+In reverting to the days of his childhood, Scott observed that the
+lameness which had disabled him in infancy gradually decreased; he soon
+acquired strength in his limbs, and though he always limped, he became,
+even in boyhood, a great walker. He used frequently to stroll from home
+and wander about the country for days together, picking up all kinds of
+local gossip, and observing popular scenes and characters. His father
+used to be vexed with him for this wandering propensity, and, shaking
+his head, would say he fancied the boy would make nothing but a
+peddler. As he grew older he became a keen sportsman, and passed much
+of his time hunting and shooting. His field sports led him into the
+most wild and unfrequented parts of the country, and in this way he
+picked up much of that local knowledge which he has since evinced in
+his writings.
+
+His first visit to Loch Katrine, he says, was in his boyish days, on a
+shooting excursion. The island, which he has made the romantic
+residence of the "Lady of the Lake," was then garrisoned by an old man
+and his wife. Their house was vacant; they had put the key under the
+door, and were absent fishing. It was at that time a peaceful
+residence, but became afterward a resort of smugglers, until they were
+ferreted out.
+
+In after years, when Scott began to turn this local knowledge to
+literary account, he revisited many of those scenes of his early
+ramblings, and endeavored to secure the fugitive remains of the
+traditions and songs that had charmed his boyhood. When collecting
+materials for his "Border Minstrelsy," he used, he said, to go from
+cottage to cottage, and make the old wives repeat all they knew, if but
+two lines; and by putting these scraps together, he retrieved many a
+fine characteristic old ballad or tradition from oblivion.
+
+I regret to say that I can scarce recollect anything of our visit to
+Dryburgh Abbey. It is on the estate of the Earl of Buchan. The
+religious edifice is a mere ruin, rich in Gothic antiquities, but
+especially interesting to Scott, from containing the family vault, and
+the tombs and monuments of his ancestors. He appeared to feel much
+chagrin at their being in the possession, and subject to the
+intermeddlings of the Earl, who was represented as a nobleman of an
+eccentric character. The latter, however, set great value on these
+sepulchral relics, and had expressed a lively anticipation of one day
+or other having the honor of burying Scott, and adding his monument to
+the collection, which he intended should be worthy of the "mighty
+minstrel of the north"--a prospective compliment which was by no means
+relished by the object of it. One of my pleasant rambles with Scott,
+about the neighborhood of Abbotsford, was taken in company with Mr.
+William Laidlaw, the steward of his estate. This was a gentleman for
+whom Scott entertained a particular value. He had been born to a
+competency, had been well educated, his mind was richly stored with
+varied information, and he was a man of sterling moral worth. Having
+been reduced by misfortune, Scott had got him to take charge of his
+estate. He lived at a small farm on the hillside above Abbotsford, and
+was treated by Scott as a cherished and confidential friend, rather
+than a dependent.
+
+As the day was showery, Scott was attended by one of his retainers,
+named Tommie Purdie, who carried his plaid, and who deserves especial
+mention. Sophia Scott used to call him her father's grand vizier, and
+she gave a playful account one evening, as she was hanging on her
+father's arm, of the consultations which he and Tommie used to have
+about matters relative to farming. Purdie was tenacious of his
+opinions, and he and Scott would have long disputes in front of the
+house, as to something that was to be done on the estate, until the
+latter, fairly tired out, would abandon the ground and the argument,
+exclaiming, "Well, well, Tom, have it your own way."
+
+After a time, however, Purdie would present himself at the door of the
+parlor, and observe, "I ha' been thinking over the matter, and upon the
+whole, I think I'll take your honor's advice."
+
+Scott laughed heartily when this anecdote was told of him. "It was with
+him and Tom," he said, "as it was with an old laird and a pet servant,
+whom he had indulged until he was positive beyond all endurance." "This
+won't do!" cried the old laird, in a passion, "we can't live together
+any longer--we must part." "An' where the deil does your honor mean to
+go?" replied the other.
+
+I would, moreover, observe of Tom Purdie, that he was a firm believer
+in ghosts, and warlocks, and all kinds of old wives' fable. He was a
+religious man, too, mingling a little degree of Scottish pride in his
+devotion; for though his salary was but twenty pounds a year, he had
+managed to afford seven pounds for a family Bible. It is true, he had
+one hundred pounds clear of the world, and was looked up to by his
+comrades as a man of property.
+
+In the course of our morning's walk, we stopped at a small house
+belonging to one of the laborers on the estate. The object of Scott's
+visit was to inspect a relic which had been digged up in a Roman camp,
+and which, if I recollect right, he pronounced to have been a tongs. It
+was produced by the cottager's wife, a ruddy, healthy-looking dame,
+whom Scott addressed by the name of Ailie. As he stood regarding the
+relic, turning it round and round, and making comments upon it, half
+grave, half comic, with the cottage group around him, all joining
+occasionally in the colloquy, the inimitable character of Monkbarns was
+again brought to mind, and I seemed to see before me that prince of
+antiquarians and humorists holding forth to his unlearned and
+unbelieving neighbors.
+
+Whenever Scott touched, in this way, upon local antiquities, and in all
+his familiar conversations about local traditions and superstitions,
+there was always a sly and quiet humor running at the bottom of his
+discourse, and playing about his countenance, as if he sported with the
+subject. It seemed to me as if he distrusted his own enthusiasm, and
+was disposed to droll upon his own humors and peculiarities, yet, at
+the same time, a poetic gleam in his eye would show that he really took
+a strong relish and interest in them. "It was a pity," he said, "that
+antiquarians were generally so dry, for the subjects they handled were
+rich in historical and poetical recollections, in picturesque details,
+in quaint and heroic characteristics, and in all kinds of curious and
+obsolete ceremonials. They are always groping among the rarest
+materials for poetry, but they have no idea of turning them to poetic
+use. Now every fragment from old times has, in some degree, its story
+with it, or gives an inkling of something characteristic of the
+circumstances and manners of its day, and so sets the imagination at
+work."
+
+For my own part I never met with antiquarian so delightful, either in
+his writings or his conversation; and the quiet sub-acid humor that was
+prone to mingle in his disquisitions, gave them, to me, a peculiar and
+an exquisite flavor. But he seemed, in fact, to undervalue everything
+that concerned himself. The play of his genius was so easy that he was
+unconscious of its mighty power, and made light of those sports of
+intellect that shamed the efforts and labors of other minds.
+
+Our ramble this morning took us again up the Rhymer's Glen, and by
+Huntley Bank, and Huntley Wood, and the silver waterfall overhung with
+weeping birches and mountain ashes, those delicate and beautiful trees
+which grace the green shaws and burnsides of Scotland. The heather,
+too, that closely woven robe of Scottish landscape which covers the
+nakedness of its hills and mountains, tinted the neighborhood with soft
+and rich colors. As we ascended the glen, the prospects opened upon us;
+Melrose, with its towers and pinnacles, lay below; beyond were the
+Eildon hills, the Cowden Knowes, the Tweed, the Galla Water, and all
+the storied vicinity; the whole landscape varied by gleams of sunshine
+and driving showers.
+
+Scott, as usual, took the lead, limping along with great activity, and
+in joyous mood, giving scraps of border rhymes and border stories; two
+or three times in the course of our walk there were drizzling showers,
+which I supposed would put an end to our ramble, but my companions
+trudged on as unconcernedly as if it had been fine weather.
+
+At length, I asked whether we had not better seek some shelter. "True,"
+said Scott, "I did not recollect that you were not accustomed to our
+Scottish mists. This is a lachrymose climate, evermore showering. We,
+however, are children of the mist, and must not mind a little
+whimpering of the clouds any more than a man must mind the weeping of
+an hysterical wife. As you are not accustomed to be wet through, as a
+matter of course, in a morning's walk, we will bide a bit under the lee
+of this bank until the shower is over." Taking his seat under shelter
+of a thicket, he called to his man George for his tartan, then turning
+to me, "Come," said he, "come under my plaidy, as the old song goes;"
+so, making me nestle down beside him, he wrapped a part of the plaid
+round me, and took me, as he said, under his wing. While we were thus
+nestled together, he pointed to a hole in the opposite bank of the
+glen. That, he said, was the hole of an old gray badger, who was
+doubtless snugly housed in this bad weather. Sometimes he saw him at
+the entrance of his hole, like a hermit at the door of his cell,
+telling his beads, or reading a homily. He had a great respect for the
+venerable anchorite, and would not suffer him to be disturbed. He was a
+kind of successor to Thomas the Rhymer, and perhaps might be Thomas
+himself returned from fairy land, but still under fairy spell.
+
+Some accident turned the conversation upon Hogg, the poet, in which
+Laidlaw, who was seated beside us, took a part. Hogg had once been a
+shepherd in the service of his father, and Laidlaw gave many
+interesting anecdotes of him, of which I now retain no recollection.
+They used to tend the sheep together when Laidlaw was a boy, and Hogg
+would recite the first struggling conceptions of his muse. At night
+when Laidlaw was quartered comfortably in bed, in the farmhouse, poor
+Hogg would take to the shepherd's hut in the field on the hillside, and
+there lie awake for hours together, and look at the stars and make
+poetry, which he would repeat the next day to his companion.
+
+Scott spoke in warm terms of Hogg, and repeated passages from his
+beautiful poem of "Kelmeny," to which he gave great and well-merited
+praise. He gave, also, some amusing anecdotes of Hogg and his
+publisher, Blackwood, who was at that time just rising into the
+bibliographical importance which he has since enjoyed.
+
+Hogg, in one of his poems, I believe the "Pilgrims of the Sun," had
+dabbled a little in metaphysics, and like his heroes, had got into the
+clouds. Blackwood, who began to affect criticism, argued stoutly with
+him as to the necessity of omitting or elucidating some obscure
+passage. Hogg was immovable.
+
+"But, man," said Blackwood, "I dinna ken what ye mean in this passage."
+"Hout tout, man," replied Hogg, impatiently, "I dinna ken always what I
+mean mysel." There is many a metaphysical poet in the same predicament
+with honest Hogg.
+
+Scott promised to invite the Shepherd to Abbotsford during my visit,
+and I anticipated much gratification in meeting with him, from the
+account I had received of his character and manners, and the great
+pleasure I had derived from his works. Circumstances, however,
+prevented Scott from performing his promise; and to my great regret I
+left Scotland without seeing one of its most original and national
+characters.
+
+When the weather held up, we continued our walk until we came to a
+beautiful sheet of water, in the bosom of the mountain, called, if I
+recollect right, the lake of Cauldshiel. Scott prided himself much upon
+this little Mediterranean sea in his dominions, and hoped I was not too
+much spoiled by our great lakes in America to relish it. He proposed to
+take me out to the centre of it, to a fine point of view, for which
+purpose we embarked in a small boat, which had been put on the lake by
+his neighbor, Lord Somerville. As I was about to step on board, I
+observed in large letters on one of the benches, "Search No. 2." I
+paused for a moment and repeated the inscription aloud, trying to
+recollect something I had heard or read to which it alluded. "Pshaw,"
+cried Scott, "it is only some of Lord Somerville's nonsense--get in!"
+In an instant scenes in the Antiquary connected with "Search No. 1,"
+flashed upon my mind. "Ah! I remember now," said I, and with a laugh
+took my seat, but adverted no more to the circumstance.
+
+We had a pleasant row about the lake, which commanded some pretty
+scenery. The most interesting circumstance connected with it, however,
+according to Scott, was, that it was haunted by a bogle in the shape of
+a water bull, which lived in the deep parts, and now and then came
+forth upon dry land and made a tremendous roaring, that shook the very
+hills. This story had been current in the vicinity from time
+immemorial;--there was a man living who declared he had seen the bull,
+--and he was believed by many of his simple neighbors. "I don't choose
+to contradict the tale," said Scott, "for I am willing to have my lake
+stocked with any fish, flesh, or fowl that my neighbors think proper to
+put into it; and these old wives' fables are a kind of property in
+Scotland that belongs to the estates and goes with the soil. Our
+streams and lochs are like the rivers and pools in Germany, that have
+all their Wasser Nixe, or water witches, and I have a fancy for these
+kind of amphibious bogles and hobgoblins."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Scott went on after we had landed to make many remarks, mingled with
+picturesque anecdotes, concerning the fabulous beings with which the
+Scotch were apt to people the wild streams and lochs that occur in the
+solemn and lonely scenes of their mountains; and to compare them with
+similar superstitions among the northern nations of Europe; but
+Scotland, he said, was above all other countries for this wild and
+vivid progeny of the fancy, from the nature of the scenery, the misty
+magnificence and vagueness of the climate, the wild and gloomy events
+of its history; the clannish divisions of its people; their local
+feelings, notions, and prejudices; the individuality of their dialect,
+in which all kinds of odd and peculiar notions were incorporated; by
+the secluded life of their mountaineers; the lonely habits of their
+pastoral people, much of whose time was passed on the solitary
+hillsides; their traditional songs, which clothed every rock and stream
+with old world stories, handed down from age to age, and generation to
+generation. The Scottish mind, he said, was made up of poetry and
+strong common sense; and the very strength of the latter gave
+perpetuity and luxuriance to the former. It was a strong tenacious
+soil, into which, when once a seed of poetry fell, it struck deep root
+and brought forth abundantly. "You will never weed these popular
+stories and songs and superstitions out of Scotland," said he. "It is
+not so much that the people believe in them, as that they delight in
+them. They belong to the native hills and streams of which they are
+fond, and to the history of their forefathers, of which they are
+proud."
+
+"It would do your heart good," continued he, "to see a number of our
+poor country people seated round the ingle nook, which is generally
+capacious enough, and passing the long dark dreary winter nights
+listening to some old wife, or strolling gaberlunzie, dealing out auld
+world stories about bogles and warlocks, or about raids and forays, and
+border skirmishes; or reciting some ballad stuck full of those fighting
+names that stir up a true Scotchman's blood like the sound of a
+trumpet. These traditional tales and ballads have lived for ages in
+mere oral circulation, being passed from father to son, or rather from
+grandam to grandchild, and are a kind of hereditary property of the
+poor peasantry, of which it would be hard to deprive them, as they have
+not circulating libraries to supply them with works of fiction in their
+place."
+
+I do not pretend to give the precise words, but, as nearly as I can
+from scanty memorandums and vague recollections, the leading ideas of
+Scott. I am constantly sensible, however, how far I fall short of his
+copiousness and richness.
+
+He went on to speak of the elves and sprites, so frequent in Scottish
+legend. "Our fairies, however," said he, "though they dress in green,
+and gambol by moonlight about the banks, and shaws, and burnsides, are
+not such pleasant little folks as the English fairies, but are apt to
+bear more of the warlock in their natures, and to play spiteful tricks.
+When I was a boy, I used to look wistfully at the green hillocks that
+were said to be haunted by fairies, and felt sometimes as if I should
+like to lie down by them and sleep, and be carried off to Fairy Land,
+only that I did not like some of the cantrips which used now and then
+to be played off upon visitors."
+
+Here Scott recounted, in graphic style, and with much humor, a little
+story which used to be current in the neighborhood, of an honest
+burgess of Selkirk, who, being at work upon the hill of Peatlaw, fell
+asleep upon one of these "fairy knowes," or hillocks. When he awoke, he
+rubbed his eyes and gazed about him with astonishment, for he was in
+the market-place of a great city, with a crowd of people bustling about
+him, not one of whom he knew. At length he accosted a bystander, and
+asked him the name of the place. "Hout man," replied the other, "are ye
+in the heart o' Glasgow, and speer the name of it?" The poor man was
+astonished, and would not believe either ears or eyes; he insisted that
+he had lain down to sleep but half an hour before on the Peatlaw, near
+Selkirk. He came well-nigh being taken up for a madman, when,
+fortunately, a Selkirk man came by, who knew him, and took charge of
+him, and conducted him back to his native place. Here, however, he was
+likely to fare no better, when he spoke of having been whisked in his
+sleep from the Peatlaw to Glasgow. The truth of the matter at length
+came out; his coat, which he had taken off when at work on the Peatlaw,
+was found lying near a "fairy knowe," and his bonnet, which was
+missing, was discovered on the weathercock of Lanark steeple. So it was
+as clear as day that he had been carried through the air by the fairies
+while he was sleeping, and his bonnet had been blown off by the way.
+
+I give this little story but meagrely from a scanty memorandum; Scott
+has related it in somewhat different style in a note to one of his
+poems; but in narration these anecdotes derived their chief zest, from
+the quiet but delightful humor, the bonhomie with which he seasoned
+them, and the sly glance of the eye from under his bushy eyebrows, with
+which they were accompanied. That day at dinner, we had Mr. Laidlaw and
+his wife, and a female friend who accompanied them. The latter was a
+very intelligent, respectable person, about the middle age, and was
+treated with particular attention and courtesy by Scott. Our dinner was
+a most agreeable one; for the guests were evidently cherished visitors
+to the house, and felt that they were appreciated.
+
+When they were gone, Scott spoke of them in the most cordial manner. "I
+wished to show you," said he, "some of our really excellent, plain
+Scotch people; not fine gentlemen and ladies, for such you can meet
+everywhere, and they are everywhere the same. The character of a nation
+is not to be learnt from its fine folks."
+
+He then went on with a particular eulogium on the lady who had
+accompanied the Laidlaws. She was the daughter, he said, of a poor
+country clergyman, who had died in debt, and left her an orphan and
+destitute. Having had a good plain education, she immediately set up a
+child's school, and had soon a numerous flock under her care, by which
+she earned a decent maintenance. That, however, was not her main
+object. Her first care was to pay off her father's debts, that no ill
+word or ill will might rest upon his memory.
+
+This, by dint of Scottish economy, backed by filial reverence and
+pride, she accomplished, though in the effort, she subjected herself to
+every privation. Not content with this, she in certain instances
+refused to take pay for the tuition of the children of some of her
+neighbors, who had befriended her father in his need, and had since
+fallen into poverty. "In a word," added Scott, "she is a fine old
+Scotch girl; and I delight in her, more than in many a fine lady I have
+known, and I have known many of the finest."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is time, however, to draw this rambling narrative to a close.
+Several days were passed by me, in the way I have attempted to
+describe, in almost constant, familiar, and joyous conversation with
+Scott; it was as if I were admitted to a social communion with
+Shakespeare, for it was with one of a kindred, if not equal genius.
+Every night I retired with my mind filled with delightful recollections
+of the day, and every morning I rose with the certainty of new
+enjoyment. The days thus spent, I shall ever look back to, as among the
+very happiest of my life; for I was conscious at the time of being
+happy. The only sad moment that I experienced at Abbotsford was that of
+my departure; but it was cheered with the prospect of soon returning;
+for I had promised, after making a tour in the Highlands, to come and
+pass a few more days on the banks of the Tweed, when Scott intended to
+invite Hogg the poet to meet me. I took a kind farewell of the family,
+with each of whom I had been highly pleased. If I have refrained from
+dwelling particularly on their several characters, and giving anecdotes
+of them individually, it is because I consider them shielded by the
+sanctity of domestic life; Scott, on the contrary, belongs to history.
+As he accompanied me on foot, however, to a small gate on the confines
+of his premises, I could not refrain from expressing the enjoyment I
+had experienced in his domestic circle, and passing some warm eulogiums
+on the young folks from whom I had just parted. I shall never forget
+his reply. "They have kind hearts," said he, "and that is the main
+point as to human happiness. They love one another, poor things, which
+is every thing in domestic life. The best wish I can make you, my
+friend," added he, laying his hand upon my shoulder, "is, that when you
+return to your own country, you may get married, and have a family of
+young bairns about you. If you are happy, there they are to share your
+happiness--and if you are otherwise--there they are to comfort you."
+
+By this time we had reached the gate, when he halted, and took my hand.
+"I will not say farewell," said he, "for it is always a painful word,
+but I will say, come again. When you have made your tour to the
+Highlands, come here and give me a few more days--but come when you
+please, you will always find Abbotsford open to you, and a hearty
+welcome."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have thus given, in a rude style, my main recollections of what
+occurred during my sojourn at Abbotsford, and I feel mortified that I
+can give but such meagre, scattered, and colorless details of what was
+so copious, rich, and varied. During several days that I passed there
+Scott was in admirable vein. From early morn until dinner time he was
+rambling about, showing me the neighborhood, and during dinner and
+until late at night, engaged in social conversation. No time was
+reserved for himself; he seemed as if his only occupation was to
+entertain me; and yet I was almost an entire stranger to him, one of
+whom he knew nothing, but an idle book I had written, and which, some
+years before, had amused him. But such was Scott--he appeared to have
+nothing to do but lavish his time, attention, and conversation on those
+around. It was difficult to imagine what time he found to write those
+volumes that were incessantly issuing from the press; all of which,
+too, were of a nature to require reading and research. I could not find
+that his life was ever otherwise than a life of leisure and haphazard
+recreation, such as it was during my visit. He scarce ever balked a
+party of pleasure, or a sporting excursion, and rarely pleaded his own
+concerns as an excuse for rejecting those of others. During my visit I
+heard of other visitors who had preceded me, and who must have kept him
+occupied for many days, and I have had an opportunity of knowing the
+course of his daily life for some time subsequently. Not long after my
+departure from Abbotsford, my friend Wilkie arrived there, to paint a
+picture of the Scott family. He found the house full of guests. Scott's
+whole time was taken up in riding and driving about the country, or in
+social conversation at home. "All this time," said Wilkie to me, "I did
+not presume to ask Mr. Scott to sit for his portrait, for I saw he had
+not a moment to spare; I waited for the guests to go away, but as fast
+as one went another arrived, and so it continued for several days, and
+with each set he was completely occupied. At length all went off, and
+we were quiet. I thought, however, Mr. Scott will now shut himself up
+among his books and papers, for he has to make up for lost time; it
+won't do for me to ask him now to sit for his picture. Laidlaw, who
+managed his estate, came in, and Scott turned to him, as I supposed, to
+consult about business. 'Laidlaw,' said he, 'to-morrow morning we'll go
+across the water and take the dogs with us--there's a place where I
+think we shall be able to find a hare.'
+
+"In short," added Wilkie, "I found that instead of business, he was
+thinking only of amusement, as if he had nothing in the world to occupy
+him; so I no longer feared to intrude upon him."
+
+The conversation of Scott was frank, hearty, picturesque, and dramatic.
+During the time of my visit he inclined to the comic rather than the
+grave, in his anecdotes and stories, and such, I was told, was his
+general inclination. He relished a joke, or a trait of humor in social
+intercourse, and laughed with right good will. He talked not for effect
+nor display, but from the flow of his spirits, the stores of his
+memory, and the vigor of his imagination. He had a natural turn for
+narration, and his narratives and descriptions were without effort, yet
+wonderfully graphic. He placed the scene before you like a picture; he
+gave the dialogue with the appropriate dialect or peculiarities, and
+described the appearance and characters of his personages with that
+spirit and felicity evinced in his writings. Indeed, his conversation
+reminded me continually of his novels; and it seemed to me, that during
+the whole time I was with him., he talked enough to fill volumes, and
+that they could not have been filled more delightfully.
+
+He was as good a listener as talker, appreciating everything that
+others said, however humble might be their rank or pretensions, and was
+quick to testify his perception of any point in their discourse. He
+arrogated nothing to himself, but was perfectly unassuming and
+unpretending, entering with heart and soul into the business, or
+pleasure, or, I had almost said, folly, of the hour and the company. No
+one's concerns, no one's thoughts, no one's opinions, no one's tastes
+and pleasures seemed beneath him. He made himself so thoroughly the
+companion of those with whom he happened to be, that they forgot for a
+time his vast superiority, and only recollected and wondered, when all
+was over, that it was Scott with whom they had been on such familiar
+terms, and in whose society they had felt so perfectly at their ease.
+
+It was delightful to observe the generous spirit in which he spoke of
+all his literary contemporaries, quoting the beauties of their works,
+and this, too, with respect to persons with whom he might have been
+supposed to be at variance in literature or politics. Jeffrey, it was
+thought, had ruffled his plumes in one of his reviews, yet Scott spoke
+of him in terms of high and warm eulogy, both as an author and as a
+man.
+
+His humor in conversation, as in his works, was genial and free from
+all causticity. He had a quick perception of faults and foibles, but he
+looked upon poor human nature with an indulgent eye, relishing what was
+good and pleasant, tolerating what was frail, and pitying what was
+evil. It is this beneficent spirit which gives such an air of bonhomie
+to Scott's humor throughout all his works. He played with the foibles
+and errors of his fellow beings, and presented them in a thousand
+whimsical and characteristic lights, but the kindness and generosity of
+his nature would not allow him to be a satirist. I do not recollect a
+sneer throughout his conversation any more than there is throughout his
+works.
+
+Such is a rough sketch of Scott, as I saw him in private life, not
+merely at the time of the visit here narrated, but in the casual
+intercourse of subsequent years. Of his public character and merits,
+all the world can judge. His works have incorporated themselves with
+the thoughts and concerns of the whole civilized world, for a quarter
+of a century, and have had a controlling influence over the age in
+which he lived. But when did a human being ever exercise an influence
+more salutary and benignant? Who is there that, on looking back over a
+great portion of his life, does not find the genius of Scott
+administering to his pleasures, beguiling his cares, and soothing his
+lonely sorrows? Who does not still regard his works as a treasury of
+pure enjoyment, an armory to which to resort in time of need, to find
+weapons with which to fight off the evils and the griefs of life? For
+my own part, in periods of dejection, I have hailed the announcement of
+a new work from his pen as an earnest of certain pleasure in store for
+me, and have looked forward to it as a traveller in a waste looks to a
+green spot at a distance, where he feels assured of solace and
+refreshment. When I consider how much he has thus contributed to the
+better hours of my past existence, and how independent his works still
+make me, at times, of all the world for my enjoyment, I bless my stars
+that cast my lot in his days, to be thus cheered and gladdened by the
+outpourings of his genius. I consider it one of the greatest advantages
+that I have derived from my literary career, that it has elevated me
+into genial communion with such a spirit; and as a tribute of gratitude
+for his friendship, and veneration for his memory, I cast this humble
+stone upon his cairn, which will soon, I trust, be piled aloft with the
+contributions of abler hands.
+
+
+
+NEWSTEAD ABBEY
+
+HISTORICAL NOTICE.
+
+
+Being about to give a few sketches taken during a three weeks' sojourn
+in the ancestral mansion of the late Lord Byron, I think it proper to
+premise some brief particulars concerning its history.
+
+Newstead Abbey is one of the finest specimens in existence of those
+quaint and romantic piles, half castle, half convent, which remain as
+monuments of the olden times of England. It stands, too, in the midst
+of a legendary neighborhood; being in the heart of Sherwood Forest, and
+surrounded by the haunts of Robin Hood and his band of outlaws, so
+famous in ancient ballad and nursery tale. It is true, the forest
+scarcely exists but in name, and the tract of country over which it
+once extended its broad solitudes and shades, is now an open and
+smiling region, cultivated with parks and farms, and enlivened with
+villages.
+
+Newstead, which probably once exerted a monastic sway over this region,
+and controlled the consciences of the rude foresters, was originally a
+priory, founded in the latter part of the twelfth century, by Henry
+II., at the time when he sought, by building of shrines and convents,
+and by other acts of external piety, to expiate the murder of Thomas a
+Becket. The priory was dedicated to God and the Virgin, and was
+inhabited by a fraternity of canons regular of St. Augustine. This
+order was originally simple and abstemious in its mode of living, and
+exemplary in its conduct; but it would seem that it gradually lapsed
+into those abuses which disgraced too many of the wealthy monastic
+establishments; for there are documents among its archives which
+intimate the prevalence of gross misrule and dissolute sensuality among
+its members. At the time of the dissolution of the convents during the
+reign of Henry VIII., Newstead underwent a sudden reverse, being given,
+with the neighboring manor and rectory of Papelwick, to Sir John Byron,
+Steward of Manchester and Rochdale, and Lieutenant of Sherwood Forest.
+This ancient family worthy figures in the traditions of the Abbey, and
+in the ghost stories with which it abounds, under the quaint and
+graphic appellation of "Sir John Byron the Little, with the great
+Beard." He converted the saintly edifice into a castellated dwelling,
+making it his favorite residence and the seat of his forest
+jurisdiction.
+
+The Byron family being subsequently ennobled by a baronial title, and
+enriched by various possessions, maintained great style and retinue at
+Newstead. The proud edifice partook, however, of the vicissitudes of
+the times, and Lord Byron, in one of his poems, represents it as
+alternately the scene of lordly wassailing and of civil war:
+
+  "Hark, how the hall resounding to the strain,
+    Shakes with the martial music's novel din!
+  The heralds of a warrior's haughty reign,
+    High crested banners wave thy walls within.
+
+  "Of changing sentinels the distant hum,
+    The mirth of feasts, the clang of burnish'd arms,
+  The braying trumpet, and the hoarser drum,
+    Unite in concert with increased alarms."
+
+About the middle of the last century, the Abbey came into the
+possession of another noted character, who makes no less figure in its
+shadowy traditions than Sir John the Little with the great Beard. This
+was the grand-uncle of the poet, familiarly known among the gossiping
+chroniclers of the Abbey as "the Wicked Lord Byron." He is represented
+as a man of irritable passions and vindictive temper, in the indulgence
+of which an incident occurred which gave a turn to his whole character
+and life, and in some measure affected the fortunes of the Abbey. In
+his neighborhood lived his kinsman and friend, Mr. Chaworth, proprietor
+of Annesley Hall. Being together in London in 1765, in a chamber of the
+Star and Garter tavern in Pall Mall, a quarrel rose between them. Byron
+insisted upon settling it upon the spot by single combat. They fought
+without seconds, by the dim light of a candle, and Mr. Chaworth,
+although the most expert swordsman, received a mortal wound. With his
+dying breath he related such particulars the contest as induced the
+coroner's jury to return a verdict of wilful murder. Lord Byron was
+sent to the Tower, and subsequently tried before the House of Peers,
+where an ultimate verdict was given of manslaughter.
+
+He retired after this to the Abbey, where he shut himself up to brood
+over his disgraces; grew gloomy, morose, and fantastical, and indulged
+in fits of passion and caprice, that made him the theme of rural wonder
+and scandal. No tale was too wild or too monstrous for vulgar belief.
+Like his successor the poet, he was accused of all kinds of vagaries
+and wickedness. It was said that he always went armed, as if prepared
+to commit murder on the least provocation. At one time, when a
+gentleman of his neighborhood was to dine _tete a tete_ with him,
+it is said a brace of pistols were gravely laid with the knives and
+forks upon the table, as part of the regular table furniture, and
+implements that might be needed in the course of the repast. Another
+rumor states that being exasperated at his coachman for disobedience to
+orders, he shot him on the spot, threw his body into the coach where
+Lady Byron was seated, and, mounting the box, officiated in his stead.
+At another time, according to the same vulgar rumors, he threw her
+ladyship into the lake in front of the Abbey, where she would have been
+drowned, but for the timely aid of the gardener. These stories are
+doubtless exaggerations of trivial incidents which may have occurred;
+but it is certain that the wayward passions of this unhappy man caused
+a separation from his wife, and finally spread a solitude around him.
+Being displeased at the marriage of his son and heir, he displayed an
+inveterate malignity toward him. Not being able to cut off his
+succession to the Abbey estate, which descended to him by entail, he
+endeavored to injure it as much as possible, so that it might come a
+mere wreck into his hands. For this purpose he suffered the Abbey to
+fall out of repair, and everything to go to waste about it, and cut
+down all the timber on the estate, laying low many a tract of old
+Sherwood Forest, so that the Abbey lands lay stripped and bare of all
+their ancient honors. He was baffled in his unnatural revenge by the
+premature death of his son, and passed the remainder of his days in his
+deserted and dilapidated halls, a gloomy misanthrope, brooding amidst
+the scenes he had laid desolate.
+
+His wayward humors drove from him all neighborly society, and for a
+part of the time he was almost without domestics. In his misanthropic
+mood, when at variance with all human kind, he took to feeding
+crickets, so that in process of time the Abbey was overrun with them,
+and its lonely halls made more lonely at night by their monotonous
+music. Tradition adds that, at his death, the crickets seemed aware
+that they had lost their patron and protector, for they one and all
+packed up bag and baggage, and left the Abbey, trooping across its
+courts and corridors in all directions.
+
+The death of the "Old Lord," or "The Wicked Lord Byron," for he is
+known by both appellations, occurred in 1798; and the Abbey then passed
+into the possession of the poet. The latter was but eleven years of
+age, and living in humble style with his mother in Scotland. They came
+soon after to England, to take possession. Moore gives a simple but
+striking anecdote of the first arrival of the poet at the domains of
+his ancestors.
+
+They had arrived at the Newstead toll-bar, and saw the woods of the
+Abbey stretching out to receive them, when Mrs. Byron, affecting to be
+ignorant of the place, asked the woman of the toll-house to whom that
+seat belonged? She was told that the owner of it, Lord Byron, had been
+some months dead. "And who is the next heir?" asked the proud and happy
+mother. "They say," answered the old woman, "it is a little boy who
+lives at Aberdeen." "And this is he, bless him!" exclaimed the nurse,
+no longer able to contain herself, and turning to kiss with delight the
+young lord who was seated on her lap. [Footnote: Moore's Life of Lord
+Byron.]
+
+During Lord Byron's minority, the Abbey was let to Lord Grey de Ruthen,
+but the poet visited it occasionally during the Harrow vacations, when
+he resided with his mother at lodgings in Nottingham. It was treated
+little better by its present tenant, than by the old lord who preceded
+him; so that when, in the autumn of 1808, Lord Byron took up his abode
+there, it was in a ruinous condition. The following lines from his own
+pen may give some idea of its condition:
+
+  "Through thy battlements, Newstead. the hollow winds whistle,
+    Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay;
+   In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle
+    Have choked up the rose which once bloomed in the way.
+
+  "Of the mail-covered barons who, proudly, to battle
+    Led thy vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain,
+   The escutcheon and shield, which with every wind rattle,
+    Are the only sad vestiges now that remain."
+
+[Footnote: Lines on leaving Newstead Abbey.]
+
+In another poem he expresses the melancholy feeling with which he took
+possession of his ancestral mansion:
+
+  "Newstead! what saddening scene of change is thine,
+    Thy yawning arch betokens sure decay:
+  The last and youngest of a noble line,
+    Now holds thy mouldering turrets in his sway.
+
+  "Deserted now, he scans thy gray-worn towers,
+    Thy vaults, where dead of feudal ages sleep,
+  Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers,
+    These--these he views, and views them but to weep.
+
+  "Yet he prefers thee to the gilded domes,
+    Or gewgaw grottoes of the vainly great;
+  Yet lingers mid thy damp and mossy tombs,
+    Nor breathes a murmur 'gainst the will of fate."
+
+[Footnote: Elegy on Newstead Abbey.]
+
+Lord Byron had not fortune sufficient to put the pile in extensive
+repair, nor to maintain anything like the state of his ancestors. He
+restored some of the apartments, so as to furnish his mother with a
+comfortable habitation, and fitted up a quaint study for himself, in
+which, among books and busts, and other library furniture, were two
+skulls of the ancient friars, grinning on each side of an antique
+cross. One of his gay companions gives a picture of Newstead when thus
+repaired, and the picture is sufficiently desolate.
+
+"There are two tiers of cloisters, with a variety of cells and rooms
+about them, which, though not inhabited, nor in an inhabitable state,
+might easily be made so; and many of the original rooms, among which is
+a fine stone hall, are still in use. Of the Abbey church, one end only
+remains; and the old kitchen, with a long range of apartments, is
+reduced to a heap of rubbish. Leading from the Abbey to the modern part
+of the habitation is a noble room, seventy feet in length, and twenty-
+three in breadth; but every part of the house displays neglect and
+decay, save those which the present lord has lately fitted up."
+[Footnote: Letter of the late Charles Skinner Mathews, Esq.]
+
+Even the repairs thus made were but of transient benefit, for the roof
+being left in its dilapidated state, the rain soon penetrated into the
+apartments which Lord Byron had restored and decorated, and in a few
+years rendered them almost as desolate as the rest of the Abbey.
+
+Still he felt a pride in the ruinous old edifice; its very dreary and
+dismantled state, addressed itself to his poetical imagination, and to
+that love of the melancholy and the grand which is evinced in all his
+writings. "Come what may," said he in one of his letters, "Newstead and
+I stand or fall together. I have now lived on the spot. I have fixed my
+heart upon it, and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to
+barter the last vestige of our inheritance. I have that pride within me
+which will enable me to support difficulties: could I obtain in
+exchange for Newstead Abbey, the first fortune in the country, I would
+reject the proposition."
+
+His residence at the Abbey, however, was fitful and uncertain. He
+passed occasional portions of time there, sometimes studiously and
+alone, oftener idly and recklessly, and occasionally with young and gay
+companions, in riot and revelry, and the indulgence of all kinds of mad
+caprice. The Abbey was by no means benefited by these roystering
+inmates, who sometimes played off monkish mummeries about the
+cloisters, at other times turned the state chambers into schools for
+boxing and single-stick, and shot pistols in the great hall. The
+country people of the neighborhood were as much puzzled by these madcap
+vagaries of the new incumbent, as by the gloomier habits of the "old
+lord," and began to think that madness was inherent in the Byron race,
+or that some wayward star ruled over the Abbey.
+
+It is needless to enter into a detail of the circumstances which led
+his Lordship to sell his ancestral estate, notwithstanding the partial
+predilections and hereditary feeling which he had so eloquently
+expressed. Fortunately, it fell into the hands of a man who possessed
+something of a poetical temperament, and who cherished an enthusiastic
+admiration for Lord Byron. Colonel (at that time Major) Wildman had
+been a schoolmate of the poet, and sat with him on the same form at
+Harrow. He had subsequently distinguished himself in the war of the
+Peninsula, and at the battle of Waterloo, and it was a great
+consolation to Lord Byron, in parting with his family estate, to know
+that it would be held by one capable of restoring its faded glories,
+and who would respect and preserve all the monuments and memorials of
+his line. [Footnote: The following letter, written in the course of the
+transfer of the estate, has never been published:--
+
+Venice, November 18, 1818.
+
+My Dear Wildman,
+
+Mr. Hanson is on the eve of his return, so that I have only time to
+return a few inadequate thanks for your very kind letter. I should
+regret to trouble you with any requests of mine, in regard to the
+preservation of any signs of my family, which may still exist at
+Newstead, and leave everything of that kind to your own feelings,
+present or future, upon the subject. The portrait which you flatter me
+by desiring, would not be worth to you your trouble and expense of such
+an expedition, but you may rely upon having the very first that may be
+painted, and which may seem worth your acceptance.
+
+I trust that Newstead will, being yours, remain so, and that it may see
+you as happy, as I am very sure that you will make your dependents.
+With regard to myself, you may be sure that whether in the fourth, or
+fifth, or sixth form at Harrow, or in the fluctuations of after life, I
+shall always remember with regard my old schoolfellow--fellow monitor,
+and friend, and recognize with respect the gallant soldier, who, with
+all the advantages of fortune and allurements of youth to a life of
+pleasure, devoted himself to duties of a nobler order, and will receive
+his reward in the esteem and admiration of his country.
+
+Ever yours most truly and affectionately,
+  BYRON.]
+
+The confidence of Lord Byron in the good feeling and good taste of
+Colonel Wildman has been justified by the event. Under his judicious
+eye and munificent hand the venerable and romantic pile has risen from
+its ruins in all its old monastic and baronial splendor, and additions
+have been made to it in perfect conformity of style. The groves and
+forests have been replanted; the lakes and fish-ponds cleaned out, and
+the gardens rescued from the "hemlock and thistle," and restored to
+their pristine and dignified formality.
+
+The farms on the estate have been put in complete order, new farm-
+houses built of stone, in the picturesque and comfortable style of the
+old English granges; the hereditary tenants secured in their paternal
+homes, and treated with the most considerate indulgence; everything, in
+a word, gives happy indications of a liberal and beneficent landlord.
+
+What most, however, will interest the visitors to the Abbey in favor of
+its present occupant, is the reverential care with which he has
+preserved and renovated every monument and relic of the Byron family,
+and every object in anywise connected with the memory of the poet.
+Eighty thousand pounds have already been expended upon the venerable
+pile, yet the work is still going on, and Newstead promises to realize
+the hope faintly breathed by the poet when bidding it a melancholy
+farewell--
+
+  "Haply thy sun emerging, yet may shine,
+    Thee to irradiate with meridian ray;
+  Hours splendid as the past may still be thine,
+    And bless thy future, as thy former day."
+
+
+
+
+ARRIVAL AT THE ABBEY.
+
+
+I had been passing a merry Christmas in the good old style at Barlhoro'
+Hall, a venerable family mansion in Derbyshire, and set off to finish
+the holidays with the hospitable proprietor of Newstead Abbey. A drive
+of seventeen miles through a pleasant country, part of it the storied
+region of Sherwood Forest, brought me to the gate of Newstead Park. The
+aspect of the park was by no means imposing, the fine old trees that
+once adorned it having been laid low by Lord Byron's wayward
+predecessor.
+
+Entering the gate, the postchaise rolled heavily along a sandy road,
+between naked declivities, gradually descending into one of those
+gentle and sheltered valleys, in which the sleek monks of old loved to
+nestle themselves. Here a sweep of the road round an angle of a garden
+wall brought us full in front of the venerable edifice, embosomed in
+the valley, with a beautiful sheet of water spreading out before it.
+
+The irregular gray pile, of motley architecture, answered to the
+description given by Lord Byron:
+
+  "An old, old monastery once, and now
+   Still older mansion, of a rich and rare
+   Mixed Gothic"----
+
+One end was fortified by a castellated tower, bespeaking the baronial
+and warlike days of the edifice; the other end maintained its primitive
+monastic character. A ruined chapel, flanked by a solemn grove, still
+reared its front entire. It is true, the threshold of the once
+frequented portal was grass-grown, and the great lancet window, once
+glorious with painted glass, was now entwined and overhung with ivy;
+but the old convent cross still braved both time and tempest on the
+pinnacle of the chapel, and below, the blessed effigies of the Virgin
+and child, sculptured in gray stone, remained uninjured in their niche,
+giving a sanctified aspect to the pile. [Footnote:
+
+  "--in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,
+    The Virgin Mother of the God-born child
+  With her son in her blessed arms, looked round,
+    Spared by some chance, when all beside was spoil'd:
+  She made the earth below seem holy ground."--DON JUAN, Canto III.]
+
+A flight of rooks, tenants of the adjacent grove, were hovering about
+the ruin, and balancing themselves upon ever airy projection, and
+looked down with curious eye and cawed as the postchaise rattled along
+below.
+
+The chamberlain of the Abbey, a most decorous personage, dressed in
+black, received us at the portal. Here, too, we encountered a memento
+of Lord Byron, a great black and white Newfoundland dog, that had
+accompanied his remains from Greece. He was descended from the famous
+Boatswain, and inherited his generous qualities. He was a cherished
+inmate of the Abbey, and honored and caressed by every visitor.
+Conducted by the chamberlain, and followed by the dog, who assisted in
+doing the honors of the house, we passed through a long low vaulted
+hall, supported by massive Gothic arches, and not a little resembling
+the crypt of a cathedral, being the basement story of the Abbey.
+
+From this we ascended a stone staircase, at the head of which a pair of
+folding doors admitted us into a broad corridor that ran round the
+interior of the Abbey. The windows of the corridor looked into a
+quadrangular grass-grown court, forming the hollow centre of the pile.
+In the midst of it rose a lofty and fantastic fountain, wrought of the
+same gray stone as the main edifice, and which has been well described
+by Lord Byron.
+
+  "Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd,
+    Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint,
+  Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,
+    And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:
+  The spring rush'd through grim mouths of granite made,
+    And sparkled into basins, where it spent
+  Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
+  Like man's vain glory, and his vainer troubles."
+
+[Footnote: DON JUAN, Canto III]
+
+Around this quadrangle were low vaulted cloisters, with Gothic arches,
+once the secluded walks of the monks: the corridor along which we were
+passing was built above these cloisters, and their hollow arches seemed
+to reverberate every footfall. Everything thus far had a solemn
+monastic air; but, on arriving at an angle of the corridor, the eye,
+glancing along a shadowy gallery, caught a sight of two dark figures in
+plate armor, with closed visors, bucklers braced, and swords drawn,
+standing motionless against the wall. They seemed two phantoms of the
+chivalrous era of the Abbey.
+
+Here the chamberlain, throwing open a folding door, ushered us at once
+into a spacious and lofty saloon, which offered a brilliant contrast to
+the quaint and sombre apartments we had traversed. It was elegantly
+furnished, and the walls hung with paintings, yet something of its
+original architecture had been preserved and blended with modern
+embellishments. There were the stone-shafted casements and the deep
+bow-window of former times. The carved and panelled wood-work of the
+lofty ceiling had likewise been carefully restored, and its Gothic and
+grotesque devices painted and gilded in their ancient style.
+
+Here, too, were emblems of the former and latter days of the Abbey, in
+the effigies of the first and last of the Byron line that held sway
+over its destinies. At the upper end of the saloon, above the door, the
+dark Gothic portrait of "Sir John Byron the Little with the great
+Beard," looked grimly down from his canvas, while, at the opposite end,
+a white marble bust of the _genius loci_, the noble poet, shone
+conspicuously from its pedestal.
+
+The whole air and style of the apartment partook more of the palace
+than the monastery, and its windows looked forth on a suitable
+prospect, composed of beautiful groves, smooth verdant lawns, and
+silver sheets of water. Below the windows was a small flower-garden,
+inclosed by stone balustrades, on which were stately peacocks, sunning
+themselves and displaying their plumage. About the grass-plots in
+front, were gay cock pheasants, and plump partridges, and nimble-footed
+water hens, feeding almost in perfect security.
+
+Such was the medley of objects presented to the eye on first visiting
+the Abbey, and I found the interior fully to answer the description of
+the poet--
+
+  "The mansion's self was vast and venerable,
+    With more of the monastic than has been
+  Elsewhere preserved; the cloisters still were stable,
+    The cells, too, and refectory, I ween;
+  An exquisite small chapel had been able,
+    Still unimpair'd, to decorate the scene;
+  The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,
+   And spoke more of the friar than the monk.
+
+  "Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined
+    By no quite lawful marriage of the arts,
+  Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined
+    Formed a whole, which, irregular in parts,
+  Yet left a grand impression on the mind,
+    At least of those whose eyes were in their hearts."
+
+It is not my intention to lay open the scenes of domestic life at the
+Abbey, nor to describe the festivities of which I was a partaker during
+my sojourn within its hospitable walls. I wish merely to present a
+picture of the edifice itself, and of those personages and
+circumstances about it, connected with the memory of Byron.
+
+I forbear, therefore, to dwell on my reception by my excellent and
+amiable host and hostess, or to make my reader acquainted with the
+elegant inmates of the mansion that I met in the saloon; and I shall
+pass on at once with him to the chamber allotted me, and to which I was
+most respectfully conducted by the chamberlain.
+
+It was one of a magnificent suite of rooms, extending between the court
+of the cloisters and the Abbey garden, the windows looking into the
+latter. The whole suite formed the ancient state apartment, and had
+fallen into decay during the neglected days of the Abbey, so as to be
+in a ruinous condition in the time of Lord Byron. It had since been
+restored to its ancient splendor, of which my chamber may be cited as a
+specimen. It was lofty and well proportioned; the lower part of the
+walls was panelled with ancient oak, the upper part hung with gobelin
+tapestry, representing oriental hunting scenes, wherein the figures
+were of the size of life, and of great vivacity of attitude and color.
+
+The furniture was antique, dignified, and cumbrous. High-backed chairs
+curiously carved, and wrought in needlework; a massive clothes-press of
+dark oak, well polished, and inlaid with landscapes of various tinted
+woods; a bed of state, ample and lofty, so as only to be ascended by a
+movable flight of steps, the huge posts supporting a high tester with a
+tuft of crimson plumes at each corner, and rich curtains of crimson
+damask hanging in broad and heavy folds.
+
+A venerable mirror of plate glass stood on the toilet, in which belles
+of former centuries may have contemplated and decorated their charms.
+The floor of the chamber was of tesselated oak, shining with wax, and
+partly covered by a Turkey carpet. In the centre stood a massy oaken
+table, waxed and polished as smooth as glass, and furnished with a
+writing-desk of perfumed rosewood.
+
+A sober light was admitted into the room through Gothic stone-shafted
+casements, partly shaded by crimson curtains, and partly overshadowed
+by the trees of the garden. This solemnly tempered light added to the
+effect of the stately and antiquated interior.
+
+Two portraits, suspended over the doors, were in keeping with the
+scene. They were in ancient Vandyke dresses; one was a cavalier, who
+may have occupied this apartment in days of yore, the other was a lady
+with a black velvet mask in her hand, who may once have arrayed herself
+for conquest at the very mirror I have described.
+
+The most curious relic of old times, however, in this quaint but richly
+dight apartment, was a great chimney-piece of panel-work, carved in
+high relief, with niches or compartments, each containing a human bust,
+that protruded almost entirely from the wall. Some of the figures were
+in ancient Gothic garb; the most striking among them was a female, who
+was earnestly regarded by a fierce Saracen from an adjoining niche.
+
+This panel-work is among the mysteries of the Abbey, and causes as much
+wide speculation as the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Some suppose it to
+illustrate an adventure in the Holy Land, and that the lady in effigy
+had been rescued by some Crusader of the family from the turbaned Turk
+who watches her so earnestly. What tends to give weight to these
+suppositions is, that similar pieces of panel-work exist in other parts
+of the Abbey, in all of which are to be seen the Christian lady and her
+Saracen guardian or lover. At the bottom of these sculptures are
+emblazoned the armorial bearings of the Byrons.
+
+I shall not detain the reader, however, with any further description of
+my apartment, or of the mysteries connected with it. As he is to pass
+some days with me at the Abbey, we shall have time to examine the old
+edifice at our leisure, and to make ourselves acquainted, not merely
+with its interior, but likewise with its environs.
+
+
+
+
+THE ABBEY GARDEN.
+
+
+The morning after my arrival, I rose at an early hour. The daylight was
+peering brightly between the window curtains, and drawing them apart, I
+gazed through the Gothic casement upon a scene that accorded in
+character with the interior of the ancient mansion. It was the old
+Abbey garden, but altered to suit the tastes of different times and
+occupants. In one direction were shady walls and alleys, broad terraces
+and lofty groves; in another, beneath a gray monastic-looking angle of
+the edifice, overrun with ivy and surmounted by a cross, lay a small
+French garden, with formal flower-pots, gravel walks, and stately stone
+balustrades.
+
+The beauty of the morning, and the quiet of the hour, tempted me to an
+early stroll; for it is pleasant to enjoy such old-time places alone,
+when one may indulge poetical reveries, and spin cobweb fancies,
+without interruption. Dressing myself, therefore, with all speed, I
+descended a small flight of steps from the state apartment into the
+long corridor over the cloisters, along which I passed to a door at the
+farther end. Here I emerged into the open air, and, descending another
+flight of stone steps, found myself in the centre of what had once been
+the Abbey chapel.
+
+Nothing of the sacred edifice remained, however, but the Gothic front,
+with its deep portal and grand lancet window, already described. The
+nave, the side walls, the choir, the sacristy, all had disappeared. The
+open sky was over my head, a smooth shaven grass-plot beneath my feet.
+Gravel walks and shrubberies had succeeded to the shadowy isles, and
+stately trees to the clustering columns.
+
+  "Where now the grass exhales a murky dew,
+    The humid pall of life-extinguished clay,
+   In sainted fame the sacred fathers grew,
+    Nor raised their pious voices but to pray.
+   Where now the bats their wavering wings extend,
+    Soon as the gloaming spreads her warning shade,
+   The choir did oft their mingling vespers blend,
+    Or matin orisons to Mary paid."
+
+Instead of the matin orisons of the monks, however, the ruined walls of
+the chapel now resounded to the cawing of innumerable rooks that were
+fluttering and hovering about the dark grove which they inhabited, and
+preparing for their morning flight.
+
+My ramble led me along quiet alleys, bordered by shrubbery, where the
+solitary water-hen would now and then scud across my path, and take
+refuge among the bushes. From hence I entered upon a broad terraced
+walk, once a favorite resort of the friars, which extended the whole
+length of the old Abbey garden, passing along the ancient stone wall
+which bounded it. In the centre of the garden lay one of the monkish
+fish-pools, an oblong sheet of water, deep set like a mirror, in green
+sloping banks of turf. In its glassy bosom was reflected the dark mass
+of a neighboring grove, one of the most important features of the
+garden. This grove goes by the sinister name of "the Devil's Wood," and
+enjoys but an equivocal character in the neighborhood. It was planted
+by "The Wicked Lord Byron," during the early part of his residence at
+the Abbey, before his fatal duel with Mr. Chaworth. Having something of
+a foreign and classical taste, he set up leaden statues of satyrs or
+fauns at each end of the grove. The statues, like everything else about
+the old Lord, fell under the suspicion and obloquy that overshadowed
+him in the latter part of his life. The country people, who knew
+nothing of heathen mythology and its sylvan deities, looked with horror
+at idols invested with the diabolical attributes of horns and cloven
+feet. They probably supposed them some object of secret worship of the
+gloomy and secluded misanthrope and reputed murderer, and gave them the
+name of "The old Lord's Devils."
+
+I penetrated the recesses of the mystic grove. There stood the ancient
+and much slandered statues, overshadowed by tall larches, and stained
+by dank green mold. It is not a matter of surprise that strange
+figures, thus behoofed and be-horned, and set up in a gloomy grove,
+should perplex the minds of the simple and superstitious yeomanry.
+There are many of the tastes and caprices of the rich, that in the eyes
+of the uneducated must savor of insanity.
+
+I was attracted to this grove, however, by memorials of a more touching
+character. It had been one of the favorite haunts of the late Lord
+Byron. In his farewell visit to the Abbey, after he had parted with the
+possession of it, he passed some time in this grove, in company with
+his sister; and as a last memento, engraved their names on the bark of
+a tree.
+
+The feelings that agitated his bosom during this farewell visit, when
+he beheld round him objects dear to his pride, and dear to his juvenile
+recollections, but of which the narrowness of his fortune would not
+permit him to retain possession, may be gathered from a passage in a
+poetical epistle, written to his sister in after years:
+
+  I did remind you of our own dear lake
+    By the old hall, _which may be mine no more;_
+  Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake
+    The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
+  Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
+    Ere _that_ or _thou_ can fade these eyes before;
+  Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
+  Resign'd for ever, or divided far.
+  I feel almost at times as I have felt
+    In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks.
+  Which do remember me of where I dwelt
+    Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
+  Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
+    My heart with recognition, of their looks;
+  And even at moments I would think I see
+  Some living things I love--but none like thee."
+
+I searched the grove for some time, before I found the tree on which
+Lord Byron had left his frail memorial. It was an elm of peculiar form,
+having two trunks, which sprang from the same root, and, after growing
+side by side, mingled their branches together. He had selected it,
+doubtless, as emblematical of his sister and himself. The names of
+BYRON and AUGUSTA were still visible. They had been deeply cut in the
+bark, but the natural growth of the tree was gradually rendering them
+illegible, and a few years hence, strangers will seek in vain for this
+record of fraternal affection.
+
+Leaving the grove, I continued my ramble along a spacious terrace,
+overlooking what had once been the kitchen garden of the Abbey. Below
+me lay the monks' stew, or fish pond, a dark pool, overhung by gloomy
+cypresses, with a solitary water-hen swimming about in it.
+
+A little farther on, and the terrace looked down upon the stately scene
+on the south side of the Abbey; the flower garden, with its stone
+balustrades and stately peacocks, the lawn, with its pheasants and
+partridges, and the soft valley of Newstead beyond.
+
+At a distance, on the border of the lawn, stood another memento of Lord
+Byron; an oak planted by him in his boyhood, on his first visit to the
+Abbey. With a superstitious feeling inherent in him, he linked his own
+destiny with that of the tree. "As it fares," said he, "so will fare my
+fortunes." Several years elapsed, many of them passed in idleness and
+dissipation. He returned to the Abbey a youth scarce grown to manhood,
+but, as he thought, with vices and follies beyond his years. He found
+his emblem oak almost choked by weeds and brambles, and took the lesson
+to himself.
+
+  "Young oak, when I planted thee deep in the ground,
+    I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine,
+  That thy dark waving branches would flourish around,
+    And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.
+
+  "Such, such was my hope--when in infancy's years
+    On the laud of my fathers I reared thee with pride;
+  They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears--
+  Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide."
+
+I leaned over the stone balustrade of the terrace, and gazed upon the
+valley of Newstead, with its silver sheets of water gleaming in the
+morning sun. It was a sabbath morning, which always seems to have a
+hallowed influence over the landscape, probably from the quiet of the
+day, and the cessation of all kinds of week-day labor. As I mused upon
+the mild and beautiful scene, and the wayward destinies of the man,
+whose stormy temperament forced him from this tranquil paradise to
+battle with the passions and perils of the world, the sweet chime of
+bells from a village a few miles distant came stealing up the valley.
+Every sight and sound this morning seemed calculated to summon up
+touching recollections of poor Byron. The chime was from the village
+spire of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains lie buried!
+
+----I have since visited his tomb. It is in an old gray country church,
+venerable with the lapse of centuries. He lies buried beneath the
+pavement, at one end of the principal aisle. A light falls on the spot
+through the stained glass of a Gothic window, and a tablet on the
+adjacent wall announces the family vault of the Byrons. It had been the
+wayward intention of the poet to be entombed, with his faithful dog, in
+the monument erected by him in the garden of Newstead Abbey. His
+executors showed better judgment and feeling, in consigning his ashes
+to the family sepulchre, to mingle with those of his mother and his
+kindred. Here,
+
+  "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well.
+  Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
+  Can touch him further!"
+
+How nearly did his dying hour realize the wish made by him, but a few
+years previously, in one of his fitful moods of melancholy and
+misanthropy:
+
+  "When time, or soon or late, shall bring
+    The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
+  Oblivion! may thy languid wing
+    Wave gently o'er my dying bed!
+
+  "No band of friends or heirs be there,
+    To weep or wish the coining blow:
+  No maiden with dishevelled hair,
+    To feel, or fein decorous woe.
+
+  "But silent let me sink to earth.
+    With no officious mourners near:
+  I would not mar one hour of mirth,
+    Nor startle friendship with a tear."
+
+He died among strangers, in a foreign land, without a kindred hand to
+close his eyes; yet he did not die unwept. With all his faults and
+errors, and passions and caprices, he had the gift of attaching his
+humble dependents warmly to him. One of them, a poor Greek, accompanied
+his remains to England, and followed them to the grave. I am told that,
+during the ceremony, he stood holding on by a pew in an agony of grief,
+and when all was over, seemed as if he would have gone down into the
+tomb with the body of his master.--A nature that could inspire such
+attachments, must have been generous and beneficent.
+
+
+
+
+PLOUGH MONDAY.
+
+
+Sherwood Forest is a region that still retains much of the quaint
+customs and holiday games of the olden time. A day or two after my
+arrival at the Abbey, as I was walking in the cloisters, I heard the
+sound of rustic music, and now and then a burst of merriment,
+proceeding from the interior of the mansion. Presently the chamberlain
+came and informed me that a party of country lads were in the servants'
+hall, performing Plough Monday antics, and invited me to witness their
+mummery. I gladly assented, for I am somewhat curious about these
+relics of popular usages. The servants' hall was a fit place for the
+exhibition of an old Gothic game. It was a chamber of great extent,
+which in monkish times had been the refectory of the Abbey. A row of
+massive columns extended lengthwise through the centre, whence sprung
+Gothic arches, supporting the low vaulted ceiling. Here was a set of
+rustics dressed up in something of the style represented in the books
+concerning popular antiquities. One was in a rough garb of frieze, with
+his head muffled in bear-skin, and a bell dangling behind him, that
+jingled at every movement. He was the clown, or fool of the party,
+probably a traditional representative of the ancient satyr. The rest
+were decorated with ribbons and armed with wooden swords. The leader of
+the troop recited the old ballad of St. George and the Dragon, which
+had been current among the country people for ages; his companions
+accompanied the recitation with some rude attempt at acting, while the
+clown cut all kinds of antics.
+
+To these succeeded a set of morris-dancers, gayly dressed up with
+ribbons and hawks'-bells. In this troop we had Robin Hood and Maid
+Marian, the latter represented by a smooth-faced boy; also Beelzebub,
+equipped with a broom, and accompanied by his wife Bessy, a termagant
+old beldame. These rude pageants are the lingering remains of the old
+customs of Plough Monday, when bands of rustics, fantastically dressed,
+and furnished with pipe and tabor, dragged what was called the "fool
+plough" from house to house, singing ballads and performing antics, for
+which they were rewarded with money and good cheer.
+
+But it is not in "merry Sherwood Forest" alone that these remnants of
+old times prevail. They are to be met with in most of the counties
+north of the Trent, which classic stream seems to be the boundary line
+of primitive customs. During my recent Christmas sojourn at Barlboro'
+Hall, on the skirts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, I had witnessed many
+of the rustic festivities peculiar to that joyous season, which have
+rashly been pronounced obsolete, by those who draw their experience
+merely from city life. I had seen the great Yule log put on the fire on
+Christmas Eve, and the wassail bowl sent round, brimming with its spicy
+beverage. I had heard carols beneath my window by the choristers of the
+neighboring village, who went their rounds about the ancient Hall at
+midnight, according to immemorial custom. We had mummers and mimers
+too, with the story of St. George and the Dragon, and other ballads and
+traditional dialogues, together with the famous old interlude of the
+Hobby Horse, all represented in the antechamber and servants' hall by
+rustics, who inherited the custom and the poetry from preceding
+generations. The boar's head, crowned with rosemary, had taken its
+honored station among the Christmas cheer; the festal board had been
+attended by glee singers and minstrels from the village to entertain
+the company with hereditary songs and catches during their repast; and
+the old Pyrrhic game of the sword dance, handed down since the time of
+the Romans, was admirably performed in the court-yard of the mansion by
+a band of young men, lithe and supple in their forms and graceful in
+their movements, who, I was told, went the rounds of the villages and
+country-seats during the Christmas holidays.
+
+I specify these rural pageants and ceremonials, which I saw during my
+sojourn in this neighborhood, because it has been deemed that some of
+the anecdotes of holiday customs given in my preceding writings,
+related to usages which have entirely passed away. Critics who reside
+in cities have little idea of the primitive manners and observances,
+which still prevail in remote and rural neighborhoods.
+
+In fact, in crossing the Trent one seems to step back into old times;
+and in the villages of Sherwood Forest we are in a black-letter region.
+The moss-green cottages, the lowly mansions of gray stone, the Gothic
+crosses at each end of the villages, and the tall Maypole in the
+centre, transport us in imagination to foregone centuries; everything
+has a quaint and antiquated air.
+
+The tenantry on the Abbey estate partake of this primitive character.
+Some of the families have rented farms there for nearly three hundred
+years; and, notwithstanding that their mansions fell to decay, and
+every thing about them partook of the general waste and misrule of the
+Byron dynasty, yet nothing could uproot them from their native soil. I
+am happy to say, that Colonel Wildman has taken these stanch loyal
+families under his peculiar care. He has favored them in their rents,
+repaired, or rather rebuilt their farm-houses, and has enabled families
+that had almost sunk into the class of mere rustic laborers, once more
+to hold up their heads among the yeomanry of the land.
+
+I visited one of these renovated establishments that had but lately
+been a mere ruin, and now was a substantial grange. It was inhabited by
+a young couple. The good woman showed every part of the establishment
+with decent pride, exulting in its comfort and respectability. Her
+husband, I understood, had risen in consequence with the improvement of
+his mansion, and now began to be known among his rustic neighbors by
+the appellation of "the young Squire."
+
+
+
+
+OLD SERVANTS.
+
+
+In an old, time-worn, and mysterious looking mansion like Newstead
+Abbey, and one so haunted by monkish, and feudal, and poetical
+associations, it is a prize to meet with some ancient crone, who has
+passed a long life about the place, so as to have become a living
+chronicle of its fortunes and vicissitudes. Such a one is Nanny Smith,
+a worthy dame, near seventy years of age, who for a long time served as
+housekeeper to the Byrons, The Abbey and its domains comprise her
+world, beyond which she knows nothing, but within which she has ever
+conducted herself with native shrewdness and old-fashioned honesty.
+When Lord Byron sold the Abbey her vocation was at an end, still she
+lingered about the place, having for it the local attachment of a cat.
+Abandoning her comfortable housekeeper's apartment, she took shelter in
+one of the "rockhouses," which are nothing more than a little
+neighborhood of cabins, excavated in the perpendicular walls of a stone
+quarry, at no great distance from the Abbey. Three cells cut in the
+living rock, formed her dwelling; these she fitted up humbly but
+comfortably; her son William labored in the neighborhood, and aided to
+support her, and Nanny Smith maintained a cheerful aspect and an
+independent spirit. One of her gossips suggested to her that William
+should marry, and bring home a young wife to help her and take care of
+her. "Nay, nay," replied Nanny, tartly, "I want no young mistress in
+_my house_." So much for the love of rule--poor Nanny's house was
+a hole in a rock!
+
+Colonel Wildman, on taking possession of the Abbey, found Nanny Smith
+thus humbly nestled. With that active benevolence which characterizes
+him, he immediately set William up in a small farm on the estate, where
+Nanny Smith has a comfortable mansion in her old days. Her pride is
+roused by her son's advancement. She remarks with exultation that
+people treat William with much more respect now that he is a farmer,
+than they did when he was a laborer. A farmer of the neighborhood has
+even endeavored to make a match between him and his sister, but Nanny
+Smith has grown fastidious, and interfered. The girl, she said, was too
+old for her son, besides, she did not see that he was in any need of a
+wife.
+
+"No," said William, "I ha' no great mind to marry the wench: but if the
+Colonel and his lady wish it, I am willing. They have been so kind to
+me that I should think it my duty to please them." The Colonel and his
+lady, however, have not thought proper to put honest William's
+gratitude to so severe a test.
+
+Another worthy whom Colonel Wildman found vegetating upon the place,
+and who had lived there for at least sixty years, was old Joe Murray.
+He had come there when a mere boy in the train of the "old lord," about
+the middle of the last century, and had continued with him until his
+death. Having been a cabin boy when very young, Joe always fancied
+himself a bit of a sailor; and had charge of all the pleasure-boats on
+the lake though he afterward rose to the dignity of butler. In the
+latter days of the old Lord Byron, when he shut himself up from all the
+world, Joe Murray was the only servant retained by him, excepting his
+housekeeper, Betty Hardstaff, who was reputed to have an undue sway
+over him, and was derisively called Lady Betty among the country folk.
+
+When the Abbey came into the possession of the late Lord Byron, Joe
+Murray accompanied it as a fixture. He was reinstated as butler in the
+Abbey, and high admiral on the lake, and his sturdy honest mastiff
+qualities won so upon Lord Byron as even to rival his Newfoundland dog
+in his affections. Often when dining, he would pour out a bumper of
+choice Madeira, and hand it to Joe as he stood behind his chair. In
+fact, when he built the monumental tomb which stands in the Abbey
+garden, he intended it for himself, Joe Murray, and the dog. The two
+latter were to lie on each side of him. Boatswain died not long
+afterward, and was regularly interred, and the well-known epitaph
+inscribed on one side of the monument. Lord Byron departed for Greece;
+during his absence, a gentleman to whom Joe Murray was showing the
+tomb, observed, "Well, old boy, you will take your place here some
+twenty years hence."
+
+"I don't know that, sir," growled Joe, in reply, "if I was sure his
+Lordship would come here, I should like it well enough, but I should
+not like to lie alone with the dog."
+
+Joe Murray was always extremely neat in his dress, and attentive to his
+person, and made a most respectable appearance. A portrait of him still
+hangs in the Abbey, representing him a hale fresh-looking fellow, in a
+flaxen wig, a blue coat and buff waistcoat, with a pipe in his hand. He
+discharged all the duties of his station with great fidelity,
+unquestionable honesty, and much outward decorum, but, if we may
+believe his contemporary, Nanny Smith, who, as housekeeper, shared the
+sway of the household with him, he was very lax in his minor morals,
+and used to sing loose and profane songs as he presided at the table in
+the servants' hall, or sat taking his ale and smoking his pipe by the
+evening fire. Joe had evidently derived his convivial notions from the
+race of English country squires who flourished in the days of his
+juvenility. Nanny Smith was scandalized at his ribald songs, but being
+above harm herself, endured them in silence. At length, on his singing
+them before a young girl of sixteen, she could contain herself no
+longer, but read him a lecture that made his ears ring, and then
+flounced off to bed. The lecture seems, by her account, to have
+staggered Joe, for he told her the next morning that he had had a
+terrible dream in the night. An Evangelist stood at the foot of his bed
+with a great Dutch Bible, which he held with the printed part toward
+him, and after a while pushed it in his face. Nanny Smith undertook to
+interpret the vision, and read from it such a homily, and deduced such
+awful warnings, that Joe became quite serious, left off singing, and
+took to reading good books for a month; but after that, continued
+Nanny, he relapsed and became as bad as ever, and continued to sing
+loose and profane songs to his dying day.
+
+When Colonel Wildman became proprietor of the Abbey he found Joe Murray
+flourishing in a green old age, though upward of fourscore, and
+continued him in his station as butler. The old man was rejoiced at the
+extensive repairs that were immediately commenced, and anticipated with
+pride the day when the Abbey should rise out of its ruins with
+renovated splendor, its gates be thronged with trains and equipages,
+and its halls once more echo to the sound of joyous hospitality.
+
+What chiefly, however, concerned Joe's pride and ambition, was a plan
+of the Colonel's to have the ancient refectory of the convent, a great
+vaulted room, supported by Gothic columns, converted into a servants'
+hall. Here Joe looked forward to rule the roast at the head of the
+servants' table, and to make the Gothic arches ring with those hunting
+and hard-drinking ditties which were the horror of the discreet Nanny
+Smith. Time, however, was fast wearing away with him, and his great
+fear was that the hall would not be completed in his day. In his
+eagerness to hasten the repairs, he used to get up early in the
+morning, and ring up the workmen. Notwithstanding his great age, also,
+he would turn out half-dressed in cold weather to cut sticks for the
+fire. Colonel Wildman kindly remonstrated with him for thus risking his
+health, as others would do the work for him.
+
+"Lord, sir," exclaimed the hale old fellow, "it's my air-bath, I'm all
+the better for it."
+
+Unluckily, as he was thus employed one morning a splinter flew up and
+wounded one of his eyes. An inflammation took place; he lost the sight
+of that eye, and subsequently of the other. Poor Joe gradually pined
+away, and grew melancholy. Colonel Wildman kindly tried to cheer him
+up--"Come, come, old boy," cried he, "be of good heart, you will yet
+take your place in the servants' hall."
+
+"Nay, nay, sir," replied he, "I did hope once that I should live to see
+it--I looked forward to it with pride, I confess, but it is all over
+with me now--I shall soon go home!" He died shortly afterward, at the
+advanced age of eighty-six, seventy of which had been passed as an
+honest and faithful servant at the Abbey. Colonel Wildman had him
+decently interred in the church of Hucknall Torkard, near the vault of
+Lord Byron.
+
+
+
+
+SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ABBEY.
+
+
+The anecdotes I had heard of the quondam housekeeper of Lord Byron,
+rendered me desirous of paying her a visit. I rode in company with
+Colonel Wildman, therefore, to the cottage of her son William, where
+she resides, and found her seated by her fireside, with a favorite cat
+perched upon her shoulder and purring in her ear. Nanny Smith is a
+large, good-looking woman, a specimen of the old-fashioned country
+housewife, combining antiquated notions and prejudices, and very
+limited information, with natural good sense. She loves to gossip about
+the Abbey and Lord Byron, and was soon drawn into a course of
+anecdotes, though mostly of an humble kind, such as suited the meridian
+of the housekeeper's room and servants' hall. She seemed to entertain a
+kind recollection of Lord Byron, though she had evidently been much
+perplexed by some of his vagaries; and especially by the means he
+adopted to counteract his tendency to corpulency. He used various modes
+to sweat himself down; sometimes he would lie for a long time in a warm
+bath, sometimes he would walk up the hills in the park, wrapped up and
+loaded with great coats; "a sad toil for the poor youth," added Nanny,
+"he being so lame."
+
+His meals were scanty and irregular, consisting of dishes which Nanny
+seemed to hold in great contempt, such as pillau, macaroni, and light
+puddings.
+
+She contradicted the report of the licentious life which he was
+reported to lead at the Abbey, and of the paramours said to have been
+brought with him from London. "A great part of his time used to be
+passed lying on a sofa reading. Sometimes he had young gentlemen of his
+acquaintance with him, and they played some mad pranks; but nothing but
+what young gentlemen may do, and no harm done."
+
+"Once, it is true," she added, "he had with him a beautiful boy as a
+page, which the housemaids said was a girl. For my part, I know nothing
+about it. Poor soul, he was so lame he could not go out much with the
+men; all the comfort he had was to be a little with the lasses. The
+housemaids, however, were very jealous; one of them, in particular,
+took the matter in great dudgeon. Her name was Lucy; she was a great
+favorite with Lord Byron, and had been much noticed by him, and began
+to have high notions. She had her fortune told by a man who squinted,
+to whom she gave two-and-sixpence. He told her to hold up her head and
+look high, for she would come to great things. Upon this," added Nanny,
+"the poor thing dreamt of nothing less than becoming a lady, and
+mistress of the Abbey; and promised me, if such luck should happen to
+her, she would be a good friend to me. Ah well-a-day! Lucy never had
+the fine fortune she dreamt of; but she had better than I thought for;
+she is now married, and keeps a public house at Warwick."
+
+Finding that we listened to her with great attention, Nanny Smith went
+on with her gossiping. "One time," said she, "Lord Byron took a notion
+that there was a deal of money buried about the Abbey by the monks in
+old times, and nothing would serve him but he must have the flagging
+taken up in the cloisters; and they digged and digged, but found
+nothing but stone coffins full of bones. Then he must needs have one of
+the coffins put in one end of the great hall, so that the servants were
+afraid to go there of nights. Several of the skulls were cleaned and
+put in frames in his room. I used to have to go into the room at night
+to shut the windows, and if I glanced an eye at them, they all seemed
+to grin; which I believe skulls always do. I can't say but I was glad
+to get out of the room.
+
+"There was at one time (and for that matter there is still) a good deal
+said about ghosts haunting about the Abbey. The keeper's wife said she
+saw two standing in a dark part of the cloisters just opposite the
+chapel, and one in the garden by the lord's well. Then there was a
+young lady, a cousin of Lord Byron, who was staying in the Abbey and
+slept in the room next the clock; and she told me that one night when
+she was lying in bed, she saw a lady in white come out of the wall on
+one side of the room, and go into the wall on the opposite side.
+
+"Lord Byron one day said to me, 'Nanny, what nonsense they tell about
+ghosts, as if there ever were any such things. I have never seen any
+thing of the kind about the Abbey, and I warrant you have not.' This
+was all done, do you see, to draw me out; but I said nothing, but shook
+my head. However, they say his lordship did once see something. It was
+in the great hall--something all black and hairy, he said it was the
+devil.
+
+"For my part," continued Nanny Smith, "I never saw anything of the
+kind--but I heard something once. I was one evening scrubbing the floor
+of the little dining-room at the end of the long gallery; it was after
+dark; I expected every moment to be called to tea, but wished to finish
+what I was about. All at once I heard heavy footsteps in the great
+hall. They sounded like the tramp of a horse. I took the light and went
+to see what it was. I heard the steps come from the lower end of the
+hall to the fireplace in the centre, where they stopped; but I could
+see nothing. I returned to my work, and in a little time heard the same
+noise again. I went again with the light; the footsteps stopped by the
+fireplace as before; still I could see nothing. I returned to my work,
+when I heard the steps for a third time. I then went into the hall
+without a light, but they stopped just the same, by the fireplace, half
+way up the hall. I thought this rather odd, but returned to my work.
+When it was finished, I took the light and went through the hall, as
+that was my way to the kitchen. I heard no more footsteps, and thought
+no more of the matter, when, on coming to the lower end of the hall, I
+found the door locked, and then, on one side of the door, I saw the
+stone coffin with the skull and bones that had been digged up in the
+cloisters."
+
+Here Nanny paused. I asked her if she believed that the mysterious
+footsteps had any connection with the skeleton in the coffin; but she
+shook her head, and would not commit herself. We took our leave of the
+good old dame shortly after, and the story she had related gave subject
+for conversation on our ride homeward. It was evident she had spoken
+the truth as to what she had heard, but had been deceived by some
+peculiar effect of sound. Noises are propagated about a huge irregular
+edifice of the kind in a very deceptive manner; footsteps are prolonged
+and reverberated by the vaulted cloisters and echoing halls; the
+creaking and slamming of distant gates, the rushing of the blast
+through the groves and among the ruined arches of the chapel, have all
+a strangely delusive effect at night. Colonel Wildman gave an instance
+of the kind from his own experience. Not long after he had taken up his
+residence at the Abbey, he heard one moonlight night a noise as if a
+carriage was passing at a distance. He opened the window and leaned
+out. It then seemed as if the great iron roller was dragged along the
+gravel walks and terrace, but there was nothing to be seen. When he saw
+the gardener on the following morning, he questioned him about working
+so late at night. The gardener declared that no one had been at work,
+and the roller was chained up. He was sent to examine it, and came back
+with a countenance full of surprise. The roller had been moved in the
+night, but he declared no mortal hand could have moved it. "Well,"
+replied the Colonel, good-humoredly, "I am glad to find I have a
+brownie to work for me."
+
+Lord Byron did much to foster and give currency to the superstitious
+tales connected with the Abbey, by believing, or pretending to believe
+in them. Many have supposed that his mind was really tinged with
+superstition, and that this innate infirmity was increased by passing
+much of his time in a lonely way, about the empty halls and cloisters
+of the Abbey, then in a ruinous melancholy state, and brooding over the
+skulls and effigies of its former inmates. I should rather think that
+he found poetical enjoyment in these supernatural themes, and that his
+imagination delighted to people this gloomy and romantic pile with all
+kinds of shadowy inhabitants. Certain it is, the aspect of the mansion
+under the varying influence of twilight and moonlight, and cloud and
+sunshine operating upon its halls, and galleries, and monkish
+cloisters, is enough to breed all kinds of fancies in the minds of its
+inmates, especially if poetically or superstitiously inclined.
+
+I have already mentioned some of the fabled visitants of the Abbey. The
+goblin friar, however, is the one to whom Lord Byron has given the
+greatest importance. It walked the cloisters by night, and sometimes
+glimpses of it were seen in other parts of the Abbey. Its appearance
+was said to portend some impending evil to the master of the mansion.
+Lord Byron pretended to have seen it about a month before he contracted
+his ill-starred marriage with Miss Milbanke.
+
+He has embodied this tradition in the following ballad, in which he
+represents the friar as one of the ancient inmates of the Abbey,
+maintaining by night a kind of spectral possession of it, in right of
+the fraternity. Other traditions, however, represent him as one of the
+friars doomed to wander about the place in atonement for his crimes.
+But to the ballad--
+
+  "Beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
+    Who sitteth by Norman stone,
+  For he mutters his prayers in the midnight air,
+    And his mass of the days that are gone.
+  When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,
+    Made Norman Church his prey,
+  And expell'd the friars, one friar still
+    Would not be driven away.
+
+  "Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right,
+    To turn church lands to lay,
+  With sword in hand, and torch to light
+    Their walls, if they said nay,
+  A monk remain'd, unchased, unchain'd,
+    And he did not seem form'd of clay,
+  For he's seen in the porch, and he's seen in the church,
+    Though he is not seen by day.
+
+  "And whether for good, or whether for ill,
+    It is not mine to say;
+  But still to the house of Amundeville
+    He abideth night and day.
+  By the marriage bed of their lords, 'tis said,
+    He flits on the bridal eve;
+  And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death,
+    He comes--but not to grieve.
+
+  "When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn,
+    And when aught is to befall
+  That ancient line, in the pale moonshine
+    He walks from hall to hall.
+  His form you may trace, but not his face,
+    'Tis shadow'd by his cowl;
+  But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
+    And they seem of a parted soul.
+
+  "But beware! beware of the Black Friar,
+    He still retains his sway,
+  For he is yet the church's heir,
+    Whoever may be the lay.
+  Amundeville is lord by day,
+    But the monk is lord by night,
+  Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal
+    To question that friar's right.
+
+  "Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
+    And he'll say nought to you;
+  He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
+    As o'er the grass the dew.
+  Then gramercy! for the Black Friar;
+    Heaven sain him! fair or foul,
+  And whatsoe'er may be his prayer
+    Let ours be for his soul."
+
+Such is the story of the goblin friar, which, partly through old
+tradition, and partly through the influence of Lord Byron's rhymes, has
+become completely established in the Abbey, and threatens to hold
+possession so long as the old edifice shall endure. Various visitors
+have either fancied, or pretended to have seen him, and a cousin of
+Lord Byron, Miss Sally Parkins, is even said to have made a sketch of
+him from memory. As to the servants at the Abbey, they have become
+possessed with all kinds of superstitious fancies. The long corridors
+and Gothic halls, with their ancient portraits and dark figures in
+armor, are all haunted regions to them; they even fear to sleep alone,
+and will scarce venture at night on any distant errand about the Abbey
+unless they go in couples.
+
+Even the magnificent chamber in which I was lodged was subject to the
+supernatural influences which reigned over the Abbey, and was said to
+be haunted by "Sir John Byron the Little with the great Beard." The
+ancient black-looking portrait of this family worthy, which hangs over
+the door of the great saloon, was said to descend occasionally at
+midnight from the frame, and walk the rounds of the state apartments.
+Nay, his visitations were not confined to the night, for a young lady,
+on a visit to the Abbey some years since, declared that, on passing in
+broad day by the door of the identical chamber I have described, which
+stood partly open, she saw Sir John Byron the Little seated by the
+fireplace, reading out of a great black-letter book. From this
+circumstance some have been led to suppose that the story of Sir John
+Byron may be in some measure connected with the mysterious sculptures
+of the chimney-piece already mentioned; but this has no countenance
+from the most authentic antiquarians of the Abbey.
+
+For my own part, the moment I learned the wonderful stories and strange
+suppositions connected with my apartment, it became an imaginary realm
+to me. As I lay in bed at night and gazed at the mysterious panel-work,
+where Gothic knight, and Christian dame, and Paynim lover gazed upon me
+in effigy, I used to weave a thousand fancies concerning them. The
+great figures in the tapestry, also, were almost animated by the
+workings of my imagination, and the Vandyke portraits of the cavalier
+and lady that looked down with pale aspects from the wall, had almost a
+spectral effect, from their immovable gaze and silent companionship--
+
+  "For by dim lights the portraits of the dead
+    Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.
+  ----Their buried looks still wave
+    Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams
+  On ours, as spars within some dusky cave,
+    But death is mingled in their shadowy beams."
+
+In this way I used to conjure up fictions of the brain, and clothe the
+objects around me with ideal interest and import, until, as the Abbey
+clock tolled midnight, I almost looked to see Sir John Byron the Little
+with the long beard stalk into the room with his book under his arm,
+and take his seat beside the mysterious chimney-piece.
+
+
+
+
+ANNESLEY HALL.
+
+
+At about three miles' distance from Newstead Abbey, and contiguous to
+its lands, is situated Annesley Hall, the old family mansion of the
+Chaworths. The families, like the estates, of the Byrons and Chaworths,
+were connected in former times, until the fatal duel between their two
+representatives. The feud, however, which prevailed for a time,
+promised to be cancelled by the attachment of two youthful hearts.
+While Lord Byron was yet a boy, he beheld Mary Ann Chaworth, a
+beautiful girl, and the sole heiress of Annesley. With that
+susceptibility to female charms, which he evinced almost from
+childhood, he became almost immediately enamored of her. According to
+one of his biographers, it would appear that at first their attachment
+was mutual, yet clandestine. The father of Miss Chaworth was then
+living, and may have retained somewhat of the family hostility, for we
+are told that the interviews of Lord Byron and the young lady were
+private, at a gate which opened from her father's grounds to those of
+Newstead. However, they were so young at the time that these meetings
+could not have been regarded as of any importance: they were little
+more than children in years; but, as Lord Byron says of himself, his
+feelings were beyond his age.
+
+The passion thus early conceived was blown into a flame, during a six
+weeks' vacation which he passed with his mother at Nottingham. The
+father of Miss Chaworth was dead, and she resided with her mother at
+the old Hall of Annesley. During Byron's minority, the estate of
+Newstead was let to Lord Grey de Ruthen, but its youthful Lord was
+always a welcome guest at the Abbey. He would pass days at a time
+there, and make frequent visits thence to Annesley Hall. His visits
+were encouraged by Miss Chaworth's mother; she partook of none of the
+family feud, and probably looked with complacency upon an attachment
+that might heal old differences and unite two neighboring estates.
+
+The six weeks' vacation passed as a dream amongst the beautiful flowers
+of Annesley. Byron was scarce fifteen years of age, Mary Chaworth was
+two years older; but his heart, as I have said, was beyond his age, and
+his tenderness for her was deep and passionate. These early loves, like
+the first run of the uncrushed grape, are the sweetest and strongest
+gushings of the heart, and however they may be superseded by other
+attachments in after years, the memory will continually recur to them,
+and fondly dwell upon their recollections.
+
+His love for Miss Chaworth, to use Lord Byron's own expression, was
+"the romance of the most romantic period of his life," and I think we
+can trace the effect of it throughout the whole course of his writings,
+coming up every now and then, like some lurking theme which runs
+through a complicated piece of music, and links it all in a pervading
+chain of melody.
+
+How tenderly and mournfully does he recall, in after years, the
+feelings awakened in his youthful and inexperienced bosom by this
+impassioned, yet innocent attachment; feelings, he says, lost or
+hardened in the intercourse of life:
+
+  "The love of better things and better days;
+    The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
+  Of what is called the world, and the world's ways;
+    The moments when we gather from a glance
+  More joy than from all future pride or praise,
+    Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance
+  The heart in an existence of its own,
+  Of which another's bosom is the zone."
+
+Whether this love was really responded to by the object, is uncertain.
+Byron sometimes speaks as if he had met with kindness in return, at
+other times lie acknowledges that she never gave 'him reason to believe
+she loved him. It is probable, however, that at first she experienced
+some flutterings of the heart. She was of a susceptible age; had as yet
+formed no other attachments; her lover, though boyish in years, was a
+man in intellect, a poet in imagination, and had a countenance of
+remarkable beauty.
+
+With the six weeks' vacation ended this brief romance. Byron returned
+to school deeply enamored, but if he had really made any impression on
+Miss Chaworth's heart, it was too slight to stand the test of absence.
+She was at that age when a female soon changes from the girl to a
+woman, and leaves her boyish lovers far behind her. While Byron was
+pursuing his school-boy studies, she was mingling with society, and met
+with a gentleman of the name of Musters, remarkable, it is said, for
+manly beauty. A story is told of her having first seen him from the top
+of Annesley Hall, as he dashed through the park, with hound and horn,
+taking the lead of the whole field in a fox chase, and that she was
+struck by the spirit of his appearance, and his admirable horsemanship.
+Under such favorable auspices, he wooed and won her, and when Lord
+Byron next met her, he learned to his dismay that she was the affianced
+bride of another.
+
+With that pride of spirit--which always distinguished him, he
+controlled his feelings and maintained a serene countenance. He even
+affected to speak calmly on the subject of her approaching nuptials.
+"The next time I see you," said he, "I suppose you will be Mrs.
+Chaworth" (for she was to retain her family name). Her reply was, "I
+hope so."
+
+I have given these brief details preparatory to a sketch of a visit
+which I made to the scene of this youthful romance. Annesley Hall I
+understood was shut up, neglected, and almost in a state of desolation;
+for Mr. Musters rarely visited it, residing with his family in the
+neighborhood of Nottingham. I set out for the Hall on horseback, in
+company with Colonel Wildman, and followed by the great Newfoundland
+dog Boatswain. In the course of our ride we visited a spot memorable in
+the love story I have cited. It was the scene of this parting interview
+between Byron and Miss Chaworth, prior to her marriage. A long ridge of
+upland advances into the valley of Newstead, like a promontory into a
+lake, and was formerly crowned by a beautiful grove, a landmark to the
+neighboring country. The grove and promontory are graphically described
+by Lord Byron in his "Dream," and an exquisite picture given of
+himself, and the lovely object of his boyish idolatry--
+
+  "I saw two beings to the hues of youth
+  Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
+  Green, and of mild declivity, the last
+  As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
+  Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
+  But a most living landscape, and the ware
+  Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men.
+  Scattered at intervals and wreathing smoke
+  Arising from such rustic roofs;--the hill
+  Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
+  Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
+  Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
+  These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
+  Gazing--the one on all that was beneath
+  Fair as herself--but the boy gazed on her;
+  And both were fair, and one was beautiful:
+  And both were young--yet not alike in youth:
+  As the sweet moon in the horizon's verge,
+  The maid was on the verge of womanhood;
+  The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
+  Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
+  There was but one beloved face on earth,
+  And that was shining on him."
+
+I stood upon the spot consecrated by this memorable interview. Below me
+extended the "living landscape," once contemplated by the loving pair;
+the gentle valley of Newstead, diversified by woods and corn-fields,
+and village spires, and gleams of water, and the distant towers and
+pinnacles of the venerable Abbey. The diadem of trees, however, was
+gone. The attention drawn to it by the poet, and the romantic manner in
+which he had associated it with his early passion for Mary Chaworth,
+had nettled the irritable feelings of her husband, who but ill brooked
+the poetic celebrity conferred on his wife by the enamored verses of
+another. The celebrated grove stood on his estate, and in a fit of
+spleen he ordered it to be levelled with the dust. At the time of my
+visit the mere roots of the trees were visible; but the hand that laid
+them low is execrated by every poetical pilgrim.
+
+Descending the bill, we soon entered a part of what once was Annesley
+Park, and rode among time-worn and tempest-riven oaks and elms, with
+ivy clambering about their trunks, and rooks' nests among their
+branches. The park had been cut up by a post-road, crossing which, we
+came to the gate-house of Annesley Hall. It was an old brick building
+that might have served as an outpost or barbacan to the Hall during the
+civil wars, when every gentleman's house was liable to become a
+fortress. Loopholes were still visible in its walls, but the peaceful
+ivy had mantled the sides, overrun the roof, and almost buried the
+ancient clock in front, that still marked the waning hours of its
+decay.
+
+An arched way led through the centre of the gate-house, secured by
+grated doors of open iron work, wrought into flowers and flourishes.
+These being thrown open, we entered a paved court-yard, decorated with
+shrubs and antique flowerpots, with a ruined stone fountain in the
+centre. The whole approach resembled that of an old French chateau.
+
+On one side of the court-yard was a range of stables, now tenantless,
+but which bore traces of the fox-hunting squire; for there were stalls
+boxed up, into which the hunters might be turned loose when they came
+home from the chase.
+
+At the lower end of the court, and immediately opposite the gate-house,
+extended the Hall itself; a rambling, irregular pile, patched and
+pieced at various times, and in various tastes, with gable ends, stone
+balustrades, and enormous chimneys, that strutted out like buttresses
+from the walls. The whole front of the edifice was overrun with
+evergreens.
+
+We applied for admission at the front door, which was under a heavy
+porch. The portal was strongly barricaded, and our knocking was echoed
+by waste and empty halls. Every thing bore an appearance of
+abandonment. After a time, however, our knocking summoned a solitary
+tenant from some remote corner of the pile. It was a decent-looking
+little dame, who emerged from a side door at a distance, and seemed a
+worthy inmate of the antiquated mansion. She had, in fact, grown old
+with it. Her name, she said, was Nanny Marsden; if she lived until next
+August, she would be seventy-one; a great part of her life had been
+passed in the Hall, and when the family had removed to Nottingham, she
+had been left in charge of it. The front of the house had been thus
+warily barricaded in consequence of the late riots at Nottingham, in
+the course of which the dwelling of her master had been sacked by the
+mob. To guard against any attempt of the kind upon the Hall, she had
+put it in this state of defence; though I rather think she and a
+superannuated gardener comprised the whole garrison. "You must be
+attached to the old building," said I, "after having lived so long in
+it." "Ah, sir!" replied she, "I am _getting in years_, and have a
+furnished cottage of my own in Annesley Wood, and begin to feel as if I
+should like to go and live in my own home."
+
+Guided by the worthy little custodian of the fortress, we entered
+through the sally port by which she had issued forth, and soon found
+ourselves in a spacious, but somewhat gloomy hall, where the light was
+partially admitted through square stone-shafted windows, overhung with
+ivy. Everything around us had the air of an old-fashioned country
+squire's establishment. In the centre of the hall was a billiard-table,
+find about the walls were hung portraits of race-horses, hunters, and
+favorite dogs, mingled indiscriminately with family pictures.
+
+Staircases led up from the hall to various apartments. In one of the
+rooms we were shown a couple of buff jerkins, and a pair of ancient
+jackboots, of the time of the cavaliers; relics which are often to be
+met with in the old English family mansions. These, however, had
+peculiar value, for the good little dame assured us that they had
+belonged to Robin Hood. As we were in the midst of the region over
+which that famous outlaw once bore ruffian sway, it was not for us to
+gainsay his claim to any of these venerable relics, though we might
+have demurred that the articles of dress here shown were of a date much
+later than his time. Every antiquity, however, about Sherwood Forest is
+apt to be linked with the memory of Robin Hood and his gang.
+
+As we were strolling about the mansion, our four-footed attendant,
+Boatswain, followed leisurely, as if taking a survey of the premises. I
+turned to rebuke him for his intrusion, but the moment the old
+housekeeper understood he had belonged to Lord Byron, her heart seemed
+to yearn toward him. "Nay, nay," exclaimed she, "let him alone, let him
+go where he pleases. He's welcome. Ah, dear me! If he lived here I
+should take great care of him--he should want for nothing.--Well!"
+continued she, fondling him, "who would have thought that I should see
+a dog of Lord Byron in Annesley Hall!"
+
+"I suppose, then," said I, "you recollect something of Lord Byron, when
+he used to visit here?" "Ah, bless him!" cried she, "that I do! He used
+to ride over here and stay three days at a time, and sleep in the blue
+room. Ah! poor fellow! He was very much taken with my young mistress;
+he used to walk about the garden and the terraces with her, and seemed
+to love the very ground she trod on. He used to call her _his bright
+morning star of Annesley_."
+
+I felt the beautiful poetic phrase thrill through me.
+
+"You appear to like the memory of Lord Byron," said I.
+
+"Ah, sir! why should not I! He was always main good to me when he came
+here. Well, well, they say it is a pity he and my young lady did not
+make a match. Her mother would have liked it. He was always a welcome
+guest, and some think it would have been well for him to have had her;
+but it was not to be! He went away to school, and then Mr. Musters saw
+her, and so things took their course."
+
+The simple soul now showed us into the favorite sitting-room of Miss
+Chaworth, with a small flower-garden under the windows, in which she
+had delighted. In this room Byron used to sit and listen to her as she
+played and sang, gazing upon her with the passionate, and almost
+painful devotion of a love-sick stripling. He himself gives us a
+glowing picture of his mute idolatry:
+
+  "He bad no breath, no being, but in hers;
+   She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
+   But trembled on her words; she was his sight.
+   For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
+   Which colored all his objects; he had ceased
+   To live within himself; she was his life,
+   The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
+   Which terminated all; upon a tone,
+   A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
+   And his cheek change tempestuously--his heart
+   Unknowing of its cause of agony."
+
+There was a little Welsh air, call "Mary Ann," which, from bearing her
+own name, he associated with herself, and often persuaded her to sing
+it over and over for him.
+
+The chamber, like all the other parts of the house, had a look of
+sadness and neglect; the flower-pots beneath the window, which once
+bloomed beneath the hand of Mary Chaworth, were overrun with weeds; and
+the piano, which had once vibrated to her touch, and thrilled the heart
+of her stripling lover, was now unstrung and out of tune.
+
+We continued our stroll about the waste apartments, of all shapes and
+sizes, and without much elegance of decoration. Some of them were hung
+with family portraits, among which was pointed out that of the Mr.
+Chaworth who was killed by the "wicked Lord Byron."
+
+These dismal looking portraits had a powerful effect upon the
+imagination of the stripling poet, on his first visit to the hall. As
+they gazed down from the wall, he thought they scowled upon him, as if
+they had taken a grudge against him on account of the duel of his
+ancestor. He even gave this as a reason, though probably in jest, for
+not sleeping at the Hall, declaring that he feared they would come down
+from their frames at night to haunt him.
+
+A feeling of the kind he has embodied in one of his stanzas of "Don
+Juan:"
+
+  "The forms of the grim knights and pictured saints
+    Look living in the moon; and as you turn
+  Backward and forward to the echoes faint
+    Of your own footsteps--voices from the urn
+  Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
+    Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
+  As if to ask you how you dare to keep
+  A vigil there, where all but death should sleep."
+
+Nor was the youthful poet singular in these fancies; the Hall, like
+most old English mansions that have ancient family portraits hanging
+about their dusky galleries and waste apartments, had its ghost story
+connected with these pale memorials of the dead. Our simple-hearted
+conductor stopped before the portrait of a lady, who had been a beauty
+in her time, and inhabited the hall in the heyday of her charms.
+Something mysterious or melancholy was connected with her story; she
+died young, but continued for a long time to haunt the ancient mansion,
+to the great dismay of the servants, and the occasional disquiet of the
+visitors, and it was with much difficulty her troubled spirit was
+conjured down and put to rest.
+
+From the rear of the hall we walked out into the garden, about which
+Byron used to stroll and loiter in company with Miss Chaworth. It was
+laid out in the old French style. There was a long terraced walk, with
+heavy stone balustrades and sculptured urns, overrun with ivy and
+evergreens. A neglected shrubbery bordered one side of the terrace,
+with a lofty grove inhabited by a venerable community of rooks. Great
+flights of steps led down from the terrace to a flower garden laid out
+in formal plots. The rear of the Hall, which overlooked the garden, had
+the weather stains of centuries, and its stone-shafted casements and an
+ancient sun-dial against its walls carried back the mind to days of
+yore.
+
+The retired and quiet garden, once a little sequestered world of love
+and romance, was now all matted and wild, yet was beautiful, even in
+its decay. Its air of neglect and desolation was in unison with the
+fortune of the two beings who had once walked here in the freshness of
+youth, and life, and beauty. The garden, like their young hearts, had
+gone to waste and ruin.
+
+Returning to the Hall we now visited a chamber built over the porch, or
+grand entrance. It was in a ruinous condition, the ceiling having
+fallen in and the floor given way. This, however, is a chamber rendered
+interesting by poetical associations. It is supposed to be the oratory
+alluded to by Lord Byron in his "Dream," wherein he pictures his
+departure from Annesley, after learning that Mary Chaworth was engaged
+to be married--
+
+  'There was an ancient mansion, and before
+  Its walls there was a steed caparisoned;
+  Within an antique oratory stood
+  The boy of whom I spake;--he was alone,
+  And pale and pacing to and fro: anon
+  He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
+  Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
+  His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 'twere
+  With a convulsion--then arose again,
+  And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
+  What he had written, but he shed no tears.
+  And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
+  Into a kind of quiet; as he paused,
+  The lady of his love re-entered there;
+  She was serene and smiling then, and yet
+  She knew she was by him beloved,--she knew,
+  For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart
+  Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
+  That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
+  He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
+  He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
+  A tablet of unutterable thoughts
+  Was traced, and then it faded as it came;
+  He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow steps
+  Return'd, but not as bidding her adieu,
+  For they did part with mutual smiles:--he pass'd
+  From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
+  And mounting on his steed he went his way,
+  And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more."
+
+In one of his journals, Lord Byron describes his feelings after thus
+leaving the oratory. Arriving on the summit of a hill, which commanded
+the last view of Annesley, he checked his horse, and gazed back with
+mingled pain and fondness upon the groves which embowered the Hall, and
+thought upon the lovely being that dwelt there, until his feelings were
+quite dissolved in tenderness. The conviction at length recurred that
+she never could be his, when, rousing himself from his reverie, he
+struck his spurs into his steed and dashed forward, as if by rapid
+motion to leave reflection behind him.
+
+Yet, notwithstanding what he asserts in the verses last quoted, he did
+pass the "hoary threshold" of Annesley again. It was, however, after
+the lapse of several years, during which he had grown up to manhood,
+and had passed through the ordeal of pleasures and tumultuous passions,
+and had felt the influence of other charms. Miss Chaworth, too, had
+become a wife and a mother, and he dined at Annesley Hall at the
+invitation of her husband. He thus met the object of his early idolatry
+in the very scene of his tender devotions, which, as he says, her
+smiles had once made a heaven to him. The scene was but little changed.
+He was in the very chamber where he had so often listened entranced to
+the witchery of her voice; there were the same instruments and music;
+there lay her flower garden beneath the window, and the walks through
+which he had wandered with her in the intoxication of youthful love.
+Can we wonder that amidst the tender recollections which every object
+around him was calculated to awaken, the fond passion of his boyhood
+should rush back in full current to his heart? He was himself surprised
+at this sudden revulsion of his feelings, but he had acquired self-
+possession and could command them. His firmness, however, was doomed to
+undergo a further trial. While seated by the object of his secret
+devotions, with all these recollections throbbing in his bosom, her
+infant daughter was brought into the room. At sight of the child he
+started; it dispelled the last lingerings of his dream, and he
+afterward confessed, that to repress his emotion at the moment, was the
+severest part of his task.
+
+The conflict of feelings that raged within his bosom, throughout this
+fond and tender, yet painful and embarrassing visit, are touchingly
+depicted in lines which he wrote immediately afterward, and which,
+though not addressed to her by name, are evidently intended for the eye
+and the heart of the fair lady of Annesley:
+
+  "Well! thou art happy, and I feel
+    That I should thus be happy too;
+  For still my heart regards thy weal
+    Warmly, as it was wont to do.
+
+  Thy husband's blest--and 'twill impart
+    Some pangs to view his happier lot:
+  But let them pass--Oh! how my heart
+    Would hate him, if he loved thee not!
+
+  "When late I saw thy favorite child
+    I thought my jealous heart would break;
+  But when the unconscious infant smiled,
+    I kiss'd it for its mother's sake.
+
+  "I kiss'd it, and repress'd my sighs
+    Its father in its face to see;
+  But then it had its mother's eyes,
+    And they were all to love and me.
+
+  "Mary, adieu! I must away:
+    While thou art blest I'll not repine;
+  But near thee I can never stay:
+    My heart would soon again be thine.
+
+  "I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride
+    Had quench'd at length my boyish flame
+  Nor knew, till seated by thy side,
+    My heart in all, save love, the same.
+
+  "Yet I was calm: I knew the time
+    My breast would thrill before thy look;
+  But now to tremble were a crime--
+    We met, and not a nerve was shook.
+
+  "I saw thee gaze upon my face,
+    Yet meet with no confusion there:
+  One only feeling could'st thou trace;
+    The sullen calmness of despair.
+
+  "Away! away! my early dream
+    Remembrance never must awake:
+  Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream?
+    My foolish heart, be still, or break."
+
+The revival of this early passion, and the melancholy associations
+which it spread over those scenes in the neighborhood of Newstead,
+which would necessarily be the places of his frequent resort while in
+England, are alluded to by him as a principal cause of his first
+departure for the Continent:
+
+  "When man expell'd from Eden's bowers
+    A moment lingered near the gate,
+  Each scene recalled the vanish'd hours,
+    And bade him curse his future fate.
+
+  "But wandering on through distant climes,
+    He learnt to bear his load of grief;
+  Just gave a sigh to other times,
+    And found in busier scenes relief.
+
+  "Thus, Mary, must it be with me,
+    And I must view thy charms no more;
+  For, while I linger near to thee,
+    I sigh for all I knew before."
+
+It was in the subsequent June that he set off on his pilgrimage by sea
+and land, which was to become the theme of his immortal poem. That the
+image of Mary Chaworth, as he saw and loved her in the days of his
+boyhood, followed him to the very shore, is shown in the glowing
+stanzas addressed to her on the eve of embarkation--
+
+  "'Tis done--and shivering in the gale
+    The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
+  And whistling o'er the bending mast,
+    Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast;
+  And I must from this land be gone.
+    Because I cannot love but one.
+
+  "And I will cross the whitening foam,
+    And I will seek a foreign home;
+  Till I forget a false fair face,
+    I ne'er shall find a resting place;
+  My own dark thoughts I cannot shun,
+    But ever love, and love but one.
+
+  "To think of every early scene,
+    Of what we are, and what we've been,
+  Would whelm some softer hearts with woe--
+    But mine, alas! has stood the blow;
+  Yet still beats on as it begun,
+    And never truly loves but one.
+
+  "And who that dear loved one may be
+    Is not for vulgar eyes to see,
+  And why that early love was cross'd,
+    Thou know'st the best, I feel the most;
+  But few that dwell beneath the sun
+    Have loved so long, and loved but one.
+
+  "I've tried another's fetters too,
+    With charms, perchance, as fair to view;
+  And I would fain have loved as well,
+    But some unconquerable spell
+  Forbade my bleeding breast to own
+    A kindred care for aught but one.
+
+  "'Twould soothe to take one lingering view,
+    And bless thee in my last adieu;
+  Yet wish I not those eyes to weep
+    For him who wanders o'er the deep;
+  His home, his hope, his youth are gone,
+    Yet still he loves, and loves but one."
+
+The painful interview at Annesley Hall, which revived with such
+intenseness his early passion, remained stamped upon his memory with
+singular force, and seems to have survived all his "wandering through
+distant climes," to which he trusted as an oblivious antidote. Upward
+of two years after that event, when, having made his famous pilgrimage,
+he was once more an inmate of Newstead Abbey, his vicinity to Annesley
+Hall brought the whole scene vividly before him, and he thus recalls it
+in a poetic epistle to a friend--
+
+  "I've seen my bride another's bride,--
+  Have seen her seated by his side,--
+  Have seen the infant which she bore,
+  Wear the sweet smile the mother wore,
+  When she and I in youth have smiled
+  As fond and faultless as her child:--
+  Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,
+  Ask if I felt no secret pain.
+
+  "And I have acted well my part,
+  And made my cheek belie my heart,
+  Returned the freezing glance she gave,
+  Yet felt the while _that_ woman's slave;--
+  Have kiss'd, as if without design,
+  The babe which ought to have been mine,
+  And show'd, alas! in each caress,
+  Time had not made me love the less."
+
+"It was about the time," says Moore in his life of Lord Byron, "when he
+was thus bitterly feeling and expressing the blight which his heart had
+suffered from a _real_ object of affection, that his poems on an
+imaginary one, 'Thyrza,' were written." He was at the same time
+grieving over the loss of several of his earliest and dearest friends
+the companions of his joyous school-boy hours. To recur to the
+beautiful language of Moore, who writes with the kindred and kindling
+sympathies of a true poet: "All these recollections of the young and
+the dead mingled themselves in his mind with the image of her, who,
+though living, was for him, as much lost as they, and diffused that
+general feeling of sadness and fondness through his soul, which found a
+vent in these poems.... It was the blending of the two affections in
+his memory and imagination, that gave birth to an ideal object
+combining the best features of both, and drew from him those saddest
+and tenderest of love poems, in which we find all the depth and
+intensity of real feeling, touched over with such a light as no reality
+ever wore."
+
+An early, innocent, and unfortunate passion, however fruitful of pain
+it may be to the man, is a lasting advantage to the poet. It is a well
+of sweet and bitter fancies; of refined and gentle sentiments; of
+elevated and ennobling thoughts; shut up in the deep recesses of the
+heart, keeping it green amidst the withering blights of the world, and,
+by its casual gushings and overflowings, recalling at times all the
+freshness, and innocence, and enthusiasm of youthful days. Lord Byron
+was conscious of this effect, and purposely cherished and brooded over
+the remembrance of his early passion, and of all the scenes of Annesley
+Hall connected with it. It was this remembrance that attuned his mind
+to some of its most elevated and virtuous strains, and shed an
+inexpressible grace and pathos over his best productions.
+
+Being thus put upon the traces of this little love-story, I cannot
+refrain from threading them out, as they appear from time to time in
+various passages of Lord Byron's works. During his subsequent rambles
+in the East, when time and distance had softened away his "early
+romance" almost into the remembrance of a pleasing and tender dream, he
+received accounts of the object of it, which represented her, still in
+her paternal Hall, among her native bowers of Annesley, surrounded by a
+blooming and beautiful family, yet a prey to secret and withering
+melancholy--
+
+  ----"In her home,
+  A thousand leagues from his,--her native home,
+  She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy,
+  Daughters and sons of beauty, but--behold!
+  Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
+  The settled shadow of an inward strife,
+  And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
+  _As if its lids were charged with unshed tears_."
+
+For an instant the buried tenderness of early youth and the fluttering
+hopes which accompanied it, seemed to have revived in his bosom, and
+the idea to have flashed upon his mind that his image might be
+connected with her secret woes--but he rejected the thought almost as
+soon as formed.
+
+  "What could her grief be?--she had all she loved,
+  And he who had so loved her was not there
+  To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
+  Or ill repress'd affection, her pure thoughts.
+  What could her grief be?--she had loved him not,
+  Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
+  Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd
+  Upon her mind--a spectre of the past."
+
+The cause of her grief was a matter of rural comment in the
+neighborhood of Newstead and Annesley. It was disconnected from all
+idea of Lord Byron, but attributed to the harsh and capricious conduct
+of one to whose kindness and affection she had a sacred claim. The
+domestic sorrows which had long preyed in secret on her heart, at
+length affected her intellect, and the "bright morning star of
+Annesley" was eclipsed for ever.
+
+  "The lady of his love,--oh! she was changed
+  As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
+  Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
+  They had not their own lustre, but the look
+  Which is not of the earth; she was become
+  The queen of a fantastic realm: but her thoughts
+  Were combinations of disjointed things;
+  And forms impalpable and unperceived
+  Of others' sight, familiar were to hers.
+  And this the world calls frenzy."
+
+Notwithstanding lapse of time, change of place, and a succession of
+splendid and spirit-stirring scenes in various countries, the quiet and
+gentle scene of his boyish love seems to have held a magic sway over
+the recollections of Lord Byron, and the image of Mary Chaworth to have
+unexpectedly obtruded itself upon his mind like some supernatural
+visitation. Such was the fact on the occasion of his marriage with Miss
+Milbanke; Annesley Hall and all its fond associations floated like a
+vision before his thoughts, even when at the altar, and on the point of
+pronouncing the nuptial vows. The circumstance is related by him with a
+force and feeling that persuade us of its truth.
+
+  "A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
+  The wanderer was returned.--I saw him stand
+  Before an altar--with a gentle bride;
+  Her face was fair, but was not that which made
+  The star-light of his boyhood;--as he stood
+  Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
+  The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
+  That in the antique oratory shook
+  His bosom in its solitude; and then--
+  As in that hour--a moment o'er his face
+  The tablet of unutterable thoughts
+  Was traced,--and then it faded as it came,
+  And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
+  The fitting vows, but beard not his own words,
+  And all things reel'd around him: he could see
+  Not that which was, nor that which should have been--
+  But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
+  And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
+  The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
+  All things pertaining to that place and hour,
+  And her who was his destiny, came back,
+  And thrust themselves between him and the light:
+  What business had they there at such a time?"
+
+The history of Lord Byron's union is too well known to need narration.
+The errors, and humiliations, and heart-burnings that followed upon it,
+gave additional effect to the remembrance of his early passion, and
+tormented him with the idea, that had he been successful in his suit to
+the lovely heiress of Annesley, they might both have shared a happier
+destiny. In one of his manuscripts, written long after his marriage,
+having accidentally mentioned Miss Chaworth as "my M. A. C." "Alas!"
+exclaims he, with a sudden burst of feeling, "why do I say _my_?
+Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our
+fathers; it would have joined lands broad and rich; it would have
+joined at least _one_ heart, and two persons not ill-matched in
+years-and--and--and--what has been the result?"
+
+But enough of Annesley Hall and the poetical themes connected with it.
+I felt as if I could linger for hours about its ruined oratory, and
+silent hall, and neglected garden, and spin reveries and dream dreams,
+until all became an ideal world around me. The day, however, was fast
+declining, and the shadows of evening throwing deeper shades of
+melancholy about the place. Taking our leave of the worthy old
+housekeeper, therefore, with a small compensation and many thanks for
+her civilities, we mounted our horses and pursued our way back to
+Newstead Abbey.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAKE.
+
+  "Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,
+    Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
+  By a river, which its softened way did take
+    in currents through the calmer water spread
+  Around: the wild fowl nestled in the brake
+    And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:
+  The woods sloped downward to its brink, and stood
+    With their green faces fixed upon the flood."
+
+
+Such is Lord Byron's description of one of a series of beautiful sheets
+of water, formed in old times by the monks by damming up the course of
+a small river. Here he used daily to enjoy his favorite recreations in
+swimming and sailing. The "wicked old Lord," in his scheme of rural
+devastation, had cut down all the woods that once fringed the lake;
+Lord Byron, on coming of age, endeavored to restore them, and a
+beautiful young wood, planted by him, now sweeps up from the water's
+edge, and clothes the hillside opposite to the Abbey. To this woody
+nook Colonel Wildman has given the appropriate title of "the Poet's
+Corner."
+
+The lake has inherited its share of the traditions and fables connected
+with everything in and about the Abbey. It was a petty Mediterranean
+sea on which the "wicked old Lord" used to gratify his nautical tastes
+and humors. He had his mimic castles and fortresses along its shores,
+and his mimic fleets upon its waters, and used to get up mimic sea-
+fights. The remains of his petty fortifications still awaken the
+curious inquiries of visitors. In one of his vagaries, he caused a
+large vessel to be brought on wheels from the sea-coast and launched in
+the lake. The country people were surprised to see a ship thus sailing
+over dry land. They called to mind a saying of Mother Shipton, the
+famous prophet of the vulgar, that whenever a ship freighted with ling
+should cross Sherwood Forest, Newstead would pass out of the Byron
+family. The country people, who detested the old Lord, were anxious to
+verify the prophecy. Ling, in the dialect of Nottingham, is the name
+for heather; with this plant they heaped the fated bark as it passed,
+so that it arrived full freighted at Newstead.
+
+The most important stories about the lake, however, relate to the
+treasures that are supposed to lie buried in its bosom. These may have
+taken their origin in a fact which actually occurred. There was one
+time fished up from the deep part of the lake a great eagle of molten
+brass, with expanded wings, standing on a pedestal or perch of the same
+metal. It had doubtless served as a stand or reading-desk, in the Abbey
+chapel, to hold a folio Bible or missal.
+
+The sacred relic was sent to a brazier to be cleaned. As he was at work
+upon it, he discovered that the pedestal was hollow and composed of
+several pieces. Unscrewing these, he drew forth a number of parchment
+deeds and grants appertaining to the Abbey, and bearing the seals of
+Edward III. and Henry VIII., which had thus been concealed, and
+ultimately sunk in the lake by the friars, to substantiate their right
+and title to these domains at some future day.
+
+One of the parchment scrolls thus discovered, throws rather an awkward
+light upon the kind of life led by the friars of Newstead. It is an
+indulgence granted to them for a certain number of months, in which
+plenary pardon is assured in advance for all kinds of crimes, among
+which, several of the most gross and sensual are specifically
+mentioned, and the weakness of the flesh to which they are prone.
+
+After inspecting these testimonials of monkish life, in the regions of
+Sherwood Forest, we cease to wonder at the virtuous indignation of
+Robin Hood and his outlaw crew, at the sleek sensualists of the
+cloister:
+
+  "I never hurt the husbandman,
+  That use to till the ground,
+  Nor spill their blood that range the wood
+  To follow hawk and hound,
+
+  "My chiefest spite to clergy is,
+  Who in these days bear sway;
+  With friars and monks with their fine spunks,
+  I make my chiefest prey."--OLD BALLAD OF ROBIN HOOD.
+
+The brazen eagle has been transferred to the parochial and collegiate
+church of Southall, about twenty miles from Newstead, where it may
+still be seen in the centre of the chancel, supporting, as of yore, a
+ponderous Bible. As to the documents it contained, they are carefully
+treasured up by Colonel Wildman among his other deeds and papers, in an
+iron chest secured by a patent lock of nine bolts, almost equal to a
+magic spell.
+
+The fishing up of this brazen relic, as I have already hinted, has
+given rise to the tales of treasure lying at the bottom of the lake,
+thrown in there by the monks when they abandoned the Abbey. The
+favorite story is, that there is a great iron chest there filled with
+gold and jewels, and chalices and crucifixes. Nay, that it has been
+seen, when the water of the lake was unusually low. There were large
+iron rings at each end, but all attempts to move it were ineffectual;
+either the gold it contained was too ponderous, or what is more
+probable, it was secured by one of those magic spells usually laid upon
+hidden treasure. It remains, therefore, at the bottom of the lake to
+this day; and it is to be hoped, may one day or other be discovered by
+the present worthy proprietor.
+
+
+
+
+ROBIN HOOD AND SHERWOOD FOREST.
+
+
+While at Newstead Abbey I took great delight in riding and rambling
+about the neighborhood, studying out the traces of merry Sherwood
+Forest, and visiting the haunts of Robin Hood. The relics of the old
+forest are few and scattered, but as to the bold outlaw who once held a
+kind of freebooting sway over it, there is scarce a hill or dale, a
+cliff or cavern, a well or fountain, in this part of the country, that
+is not connected with his memory. The very names of some of the tenants
+on the Newstead estate, such as Beardall and Hardstaff, sound as if
+they may have been borne in old times by some of the stalwart fellows
+of the outlaw gang. One of the earliest books that captivated my fancy
+when a child, was a collection of Robin Hood ballads, "adorned with
+cuts," which I bought of an old Scotch pedler, at the cost of all my
+holiday money. How I devoured its pages, and gazed upon its uncouth
+woodcuts! For a time my mind was filled with picturings of "merry
+Sherwood," and the exploits and revelling of the hold foresters; and
+Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and their doughty compeers, were
+my heroes of romance.
+
+These early feelings were in some degree revived when I found myself in
+the very heart of the far-famed forest, and, as I said before, I took a
+kind of schoolboy delight in hunting up all traces of old Sherwood and
+its sylvan chivalry. One of the first of my antiquarian rambles was on
+horseback, in company with Colonel Wildman and his lady, who undertook
+to guide me to Borne of the moldering monuments of the forest. One of
+these stands in front of the very gate of Newstead Park, and is known
+throughout the country by the name of "The Pilgrim Oak." It is a
+venerable tree, of great size, overshadowing a wide arena of the road.
+Under its shade the rustics of the neighborhood have been accustomed to
+assemble on certain holidays, and celebrate their rural festivals. This
+custom had been handed down from father to son for several generations,
+until the oak had acquired a kind of sacred character.
+
+The "old Lord Byron," however, in whose eyes nothing was sacred, when
+he laid his desolating hand on the groves and forests of Newstead,
+doomed likewise this traditional tree to the axe. Fortunately the good
+people of Nottingham heard of the danger of their favorite oak, and
+hastened to ransom it from destruction. They afterward made a present
+of it to the poet, when he came to the estate, and the Pilgrim Oak is
+likely to continue a rural gathering place for many coming generations.
+
+From this magnificent and time-honored tree we continued on our sylvan
+research, in quest of another oak, of more ancient date and less
+flourishing condition. A ride of two or three miles, the latter part
+across open wastes, once clothed with forest, now bare and cheerless,
+brought us to the tree in question. It was the Oak of Ravenshead, one
+of the last survivors of old Sherwood, and which had evidently once
+held a high head in the forest; it was now a mere wreck, crazed by
+time, and blasted by lightning, and standing alone on a naked waste,
+like a ruined column in a desert.
+
+  "The scenes are desert now, and bare,
+  Where flourished once a forest fair,
+  When these waste glens with copse were lined,
+  And peopled with the hart and hind.
+  Yon lonely oak, would he could tell
+  The changes of his parent dell,
+  Since he, so gray and stubborn now,
+  Waved in each breeze a sapling bough.
+  Would he could tell how deep the shade
+  A thousand mingled branches made.
+  Here in my shade, methinks he'd say,
+  The mighty stag at noontide lay,
+  While doe, and roe, and red-deer good,
+  Hare bounded by through gay green-wood."
+
+At no great distance from Ravenshead Oak is a small cave which goes by
+the name of Robin Hood's stable. It is in the breast of a hill, scooped
+out of brown freestone, with rude attempt at columns and arches. Within
+are two niches, which served, it is said, as stalls for the bold
+outlaw's horses. To this retreat he retired when hotly pursued by the
+law, for the place was a secret even from his band. The cave is
+overshadowed by an oak and alder, and is hardly discoverable even at
+the present day; but when the country was overrun with forest it must
+have been completely concealed.
+
+There was an agreeable wildness and loneliness in a great part of our
+ride. Our devious road wound down, at one time among rocky dells, by
+wandering streams, and lonely pools, haunted by shy water-fowl. We
+passed through a skirt of woodland, of more modern planting, but
+considered a legitimate offspring of the ancient forest, and commonly
+called Jock of Sherwood. In riding through these quiet, solitary
+scenes, the partridge and pheasant would now and then burst upon the
+wing, and the hare scud away before us.
+
+Another of these rambling rides in quest of popular antiquities, was to
+a chain of rocky cliffs, called the Kirkby Crags, which skirt the Robin
+Hood hills. Here, leaving my horse at the foot of the crags, I scaled
+their rugged sides, and seated myself in a niche of the rocks, called
+Robin Hood's chair. It commands a wide prospect over the valley of
+Newstead, and here the bold outlaw is said to have taken his seat, and
+kept a look-out upon the roads below, watching for merchants, and
+bishops, and other wealthy travellers, upon whom to pounce down, like
+an eagle from his eyrie.
+
+Descending from the cliffs and remounting my horse, a ride of a mile or
+two further along a narrow "robber path," as it was called, which wound
+up into the hills between perpendicular rocks, led to an artificial
+cavern cut in the face of a cliff, with a door and window wrought
+through the living stone. This bears the name of Friar Tuck's cell, or
+hermitage, where, according to tradition, that jovial anchorite used to
+make good cheer and boisterous revel with his freebooting comrades.
+
+Such were some of the vestiges of old Sherwood and its renowned
+"yeomandrie," which I visited in the neighborhood of Newstead. The
+worthy clergyman who officiated as chaplain at the Abbey, seeing my
+zeal in the cause, informed me of a considerable tract of the ancient
+forest, still in existence about ten miles distant. There were many
+fine old oaks in it, he said, that had stood for centuries, but were
+now shattered and "stag-headed," that is to say, their upper branches
+were bare, and blasted, and straggling out like the antlers of, a deer.
+Their trunks, too, were hollow, and full of crows and jackdaws, who
+made them their nestling places. He occasionally rode over to the
+forest in the long summer evenings, and pleased himself with loitering
+in the twilight about the green alleys and under the venerable trees.
+
+The description given by the chaplain made me anxious to visit this
+remnant of old Sherwood, and he kindly offered to be my guide and
+companion. We accordingly sallied forth one morning on horseback on
+this sylvan expedition. Our ride took us through a part of the country
+where King John had once held a hunting seat; the ruins of which are
+still to be seen. At that time the whole neighbor hood was an open
+royal forest, or Frank chase, as it was termed; for King John was an
+enemy to parks and warrens, and other inclosures, by which game was
+fenced in for the private benefit and recreation of the nobles and the
+clergy.
+
+Here, on the brow of a gentle hill, commanding an extensive prospect of
+what had once been forest, stood another of those monumental trees,
+which, to my mind, gave a peculiar interest to this neighborhood. It
+was the Parliament Oak, so called in memory of an assemblage of the
+kind held by King John beneath its shade. The lapse of upward of six
+centuries had reduced this once mighty tree to a mere crumbling
+fragment, yet, like a gigantic torso in ancient statuary, the grandeur
+of the mutilated trunk gave evidence of what it had been in the days of
+its glory. In contemplating its mouldering remains, the fancy busied
+itself in calling up the scene that must have been presented beneath
+its shade, when this sunny hill swarmed with the pageantry of a warlike
+and hunting court. When silken pavilions and warrior-tents decked its
+crest, and royal standards, and baronial banners, and knightly pennons
+rolled out to the breeze. When prelates and courtiers, and steel-clad
+chivalry thronged round the person of the monarch, while at a distance
+loitered the foresters in green, and all the rural and hunting train
+that waited upon his sylvan sports.
+
+   'A thousand vassals mustered round
+   With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound;
+   And through the brake the rangers stalk,
+   And falc'ners hold the ready hawk;
+   And foresters in green-wood trim
+   Lead in the leash the greyhound grim."
+
+Such was the phantasmagoria that presented itself for a moment to my
+imagination, peopling the silent place before me with empty shadows of
+the past. The reverie however was transient; king, courtier, and steel-
+clad warrior, and forester in green, with horn, and hawk, and hound,
+all faded again into oblivion, and I awoke to all that remained of this
+once stirring scene of human pomp and power--a mouldering oak, and a
+tradition.
+
+  "We are such stuff as dreams are made of!"
+
+A ride of a few miles farther brought us at length among the venerable
+and classic shades of Sherwood, Here I was delighted to find myself in
+a genuine wild wood, of primitive and natural growth, so rarely to be
+met with in this thickly peopled and highly cultivated country. It
+reminded me of the aboriginal forests of my native land. I rode through
+natural alleys and green-wood groves, carpeted with grass and shaded by
+lofty and beautiful birches. What most interested me, however, was to
+behold around me the mighty trunks of veteran oaks, old monumental
+trees, the patriarchs of Sherwood Forest. They were shattered, hollow,
+and moss-grown, it is true, and their "leafy honors" were nearly
+departed; but like mouldering towers they were noble and picturesque in
+their decay, and gave evidence, even in their ruins, of their ancient
+grandeur.
+
+As I gazed about me upon these vestiges of once "Merrie Sherwood," the
+picturings of my boyish fancy began to rise in my mind, and Robin Hood
+and his men to stand before me.
+
+   "He clothed himself in scarlet then,
+    His men were all in green;
+   A finer show throughout the world
+    In no place could be seen.
+
+  "Good lord! it was a gallant sight
+    To see them all In a row;
+  With every man a good broad-sword
+    And eke a good yew bow."
+
+The horn of Robin Hood again seemed to resound through the forest. I
+saw this sylvan chivalry, half huntsmen, half freebooters, trooping
+across the distant glades, or feasting and revelling beneath the trees;
+I was going on to embody in this way all the ballad scenes that had
+delighted me when a boy, when the distant sound of a wood-cutter's axe
+roused me from my day-dream.
+
+The boding apprehensions which it awakened were too soon verified. I
+had not ridden much farther, when I came to an open space where the
+work of destruction was going on. Around me lay the prostrate trunks of
+venerable oaks, once the towering and magnificent lords of the forest,
+and a number of wood-cutters were hacking and hewing at another
+gigantic tree, just tottering to its fall.
+
+Alas! for old Sherwood Forest: it had fallen into the possession of a
+noble agriculturist; a modern utilitarian, who had no feeling for
+poetry or forest scenery. In a little while and this glorious woodland
+will be laid low; its green glades be turned into sheep-walks; its
+legendary bowers supplanted by turnip-fields; and "Merrie Sherwood"
+will exist but in ballad and tradition.
+
+"O for the poetical superstitions," thought I, "of the olden time! that
+shed a sanctity over every grove; that gave to each tree its tutelar
+genius or nymph, and threatened disaster to all who should molest the
+hamadryads in their leafy abodes. Alas! for the sordid propensities of
+modern days, when everything is coined into gold, and this once holiday
+planet of ours is turned into a mere 'working-day world.'"
+
+My cobweb fancies put to flight, and my feelings out of tune, I left
+the forest in a far different mood from that in which I had entered it,
+and rode silently along until, on reaching the summit of a gentle
+eminence, the chime of evening bells came on the breeze across the
+heath from a distant village.
+
+I paused to listen.
+
+"They are merely the evening bells of Mansfield," said my companion.
+
+"Of Mansfield!" Here was another of the legendary names of this storied
+neighborhood, that called up early and pleasant associations. The
+famous old ballad of the King and the Miller of Mansfield came at once
+to mind, and the chime of the bells put me again in good humor.
+
+A little farther on, and we were again on the traces of Robin Hood.
+Here was Fountain Dale, where he had his encounter with that stalwart
+shaveling Friar Tuck, who was a kind of saint militant, alternately
+wearing the casque and the cowl:
+
+   "The curtal fryar kept Fountain dale
+    Seven long years and more,
+   There was neither lord, knight or earl
+    Could make him yield before."
+
+The moat is still shown which is said to have surrounded the stronghold
+of this jovial and fighting friar; and the place where he and Robin
+Hood had their sturdy trial of strength and prowess, in the memorable
+conflict which lasted
+
+   "From ten o'clock that very day
+   Until four in the afternoon,"
+
+and ended in the treaty of fellowship. As to the hardy feats, both of
+sword and trencher, performed by this "curtal fryar," behold are they
+not recorded at length in the ancient ballads, and in the magic pages
+of Ivanhoe?
+
+The evening was fast coming on, and the twilight thickening, as we rode
+through these haunts famous in outlaw story. A melancholy seemed to
+gather over the landscape as we proceeded, for our course lay by
+shadowy woods, and across naked heaths, and along lonely roads, marked
+by some of those sinister names by which the country people in England
+are apt to make dreary places still more dreary. The horrors of
+"Thieves' Wood," and the "Murderers' Stone," and "the Hag Nook," had
+all to be encountered in the gathering gloom of evening, and threatened
+to beset our path with more than mortal peril. Happily, however, we
+passed these ominous places unharmed, and arrived in safety at the
+portal of Newstead Abbey, highly satisfied with our green-wood foray.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROOK CELL.
+
+
+In the course of my sojourn at the Abbey, I changed my quarters from
+the magnificent old state apartment haunted by Sir John Byron the
+Little, to another in a remote corner of the ancient edifice,
+immediately adjoining the ruined chapel. It possessed still more
+interest in my eyes, from having been the sleeping apartment of Lord
+Byron during his residence at the Abbey. The furniture remained the
+same. Here was the bed in which he slept, and which he had brought with
+him from college; its gilded posts surmounted by coronets, giving
+evidence of his aristocratical feelings. Here was likewise his college
+sofa; and about the walls were the portraits of his favorite butler,
+old Joe Murray, of his fancy acquaintance, Jackson the pugilist,
+together with pictures of Harrow School and the College at Cambridge,
+at which he was educated. The bedchamber goes by the name of the Book
+Cell, from its vicinity to the Rookery which, since time immemorial,
+has maintained possession of a solemn grove adjacent to the chapel.
+This venerable community afforded me much food for speculation during
+my residence in this apartment. In the morning I used to hear them
+gradually waking and seeming to call each other up. After a time, the
+whole fraternity would be in a flutter; some balancing and swinging on
+the tree tops, others perched on the pinnacle of the Abbey church, or
+wheeling and hovering about in the air, and the ruined walls would
+reverberate with their incessant cawings. In this way they would linger
+about the rookery and its vicinity for the early part of the morning,
+when, having apparently mustered all their forces, called over the
+roll, and determined upon their line of march, they one and all would
+sail off in a long straggling flight to maraud the distant fields. They
+would forage the country for miles, and remain absent all day,
+excepting now and then a scout would come home, as if to see that all
+was well. Toward night the whole host might be seen, like a dark cloud
+in the distance, winging their way homeward. They came, as it were,
+with whoop and halloo, wheeling high in the air above the Abbey, making
+various evolutions before they alighted, and then keeping up an
+incessant cawing in the tree tops, until they gradually fell asleep.
+
+It is remarked at the Abbey, that the rooks, though they sally forth on
+forays throughout the week, yet keep about the venerable edifice on
+Sundays, as if they had inherited a reverence for the day, from their
+ancient confreres, the monks. Indeed, a believer in the metempsychosis
+might easily imagine these Gothic-looking birds to be the embodied
+souls of the ancient friars still hovering about their sanctified
+abode.
+
+I dislike to disturb any point of popular and poetic faith, and was
+loath, therefore, to question the authenticity of this mysterious
+reverence for the Sabbath on the part of the Newstead rooks; but
+certainly in the course of my sojourn in the Rook Cell, I detected them
+in a flagrant outbreak and foray on a bright Sunday morning.
+
+Beside the occasional clamor of the rookery, this remote apartment was
+often greeted with sounds of a different kind, from the neighboring
+ruins. The great lancet window in front of the chapel, adjoins the very
+wall of the chamber; and the mysterious sounds from it at night have
+been well described by Lord Byron:
+
+----"Now loud, now frantic,
+  The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings
+  The owl his anthem, when the silent quire
+  Lie with their hallelujahs quenched like fire.
+
+  "But on the noontide of the moon, and when
+    The wind is winged from one point of heaven,
+  There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then
+    Is musical-a dying accent driven
+  Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again.
+    Some deem it but the distant echo given
+  Back to the night wind by the waterfall,
+  And harmonized by the old choral wall.
+
+  "Others, that some original shape or form,
+    Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power
+  To this gray ruin, with a voice to charm.
+    Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower;
+  The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such
+  The fact:--I've heard it,--once perhaps too much."
+
+Never was a traveller in quest of the romantic in greater luck. I had
+in sooth, got lodged in another haunted apartment of the Abbey; for in
+this chamber Lord Byron declared he had more than once been harassed at
+midnight by a mysterious visitor. A black shapeless form would sit
+cowering upon his bed, and after gazing at him for a time with glaring
+eyes, would roll off and disappear. The same uncouth apparition is said
+to have disturbed the slumbers of a newly married couple that once
+passed their honeymoon in this apartment.
+
+I would observe, that the access to the Rook Cell is by a spiral stone
+staircase leading up into it, as into a turret, from, the long shadowy
+corridor over the cloisters, one of the midnight walks of the Goblin
+Friar. Indeed, to the fancies engendered in his brain in this remote
+and lonely apartment, incorporated with the floating superstitions of
+the Abbey, we are no doubt indebted for the spectral scene in "Don
+Juan."
+
+  "Then as the night was clear, though cold, he threw
+    His chamber door wide open--and went forth
+  Into a gallery, of sombre hue,
+    Long furnish'd with old pictures of great worth,
+  Of knights and dames, heroic and chaste too,
+    As doubtless should be people of high birth.
+
+  "No sound except the echo of his sigh
+    Or step ran sadly through that antique house,
+  When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
+    A supernatural agent--or a mouse,
+  Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
+  Most people, as it plays along the arras.
+
+  "It was no mouse, but lo! a monk, arrayed
+    In cowl, and beads, and dusky garb, appeared,
+  Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade;
+    With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
+  His garments only a slight murmur made;
+    He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
+  But slowly; and as he passed Juan by
+  Glared, without pausing, on him a bright eye.
+
+  "Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
+    Of such a spirit in these halls of old,
+  But thought, like most men, there was nothing in't
+    Beyond the rumor which such spots unfold,
+  Coin'd from surviving superstition's mint,
+    Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,
+  But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper.
+  And did he see this? or was it a vapor?
+
+  "Once, twice, thrice pass'd, repass'd--the thing of air,
+    Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t'other place;
+  And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,
+    Yet could not speak or move; but, on its base
+  As stauds a statue, stood: he felt his hair
+    Twine like a knot of snakes around his face;
+  He tax'd his tongue for words, which were not granted
+  To ask the reverend person what he wanted.
+
+  "The third time, after a still longer pause,
+    The shadow pass'd away--but where? the hall
+  Was long, and thus far there was no great cause
+    To think its vanishing unnatural:
+  Doors there were many, through which, by the laws
+    Of physics, bodies, whether short or tall,
+  Might come or go; but Juan could not state
+  Through which the spectre seem'd to evaporate.
+
+  "He stood, how long he knew not, but it seem'd
+    An age--expectant, powerless, with his eyes
+  Strain'd on the spot where first the figure gleam'd:
+    Then by degrees recall'd his energies,
+  And would have pass'd the whole off as a dream.
+    But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,
+  Waking already, and return'd at length
+  Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength."
+
+As I have already observed, it is difficult to determine whether Lord
+Byron was really subject to the superstitious fancies which have been
+imputed to him, or whether he merely amused himself by giving currency
+to them among his domestics and dependents. He certainly never scrupled
+to express a belief in supernatural visitations, both verbally and in
+his correspondence. If such were his foible, the Rook Cell was an
+admirable place to engender these delusions. As I have lain awake at
+night, I have heard all kinds of mysterious and sighing sounds from the
+neighboring ruin. Distant footsteps, too, and the closing of doors in
+remote parts of the Abbey, would send hollow reverberations and echoes
+along the corridor and up the spiral staircase. Once, in fact, I was
+roused by a strange sound at the very door of my chamber. I threw it
+open, and a form "black and shapeless with glaring eyes" stood before
+me. It proved, however, neither ghost nor goblin, but my friend
+Boatswain, the great Newfoundland dog, who had conceived a
+companionable liking for me, and occasionally sought me in my
+apartment. To the hauntings of even such a visitant as honest Boatswain
+may we attribute some of the marvellous stories about the Goblin Friar.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE WHITE LADY.
+
+
+In the course of a morning's ride with Colonel Wildman, about the Abbey
+lands, we found ourselves in one of the prettiest little wild woods
+imaginable. The road to it had led us among rocky ravines overhung with
+thickets, and now wound through birchen dingles and among beautiful
+groves and clumps of elms and beeches. A limpid rill of sparkling
+water, winding and doubling in perplexed mazes, crossed our path
+repeatedly, so as to give the wood the appearance of being watered by
+numerous rivulets. The solitary and romantic look of this piece of
+woodland, and the frequent recurrence of its mazy stream, put him in
+mind, Colonel Wildman said, of the little German fairy tale of Undine,
+in which is recorded the adventures of a knight who had married a
+water-nymph. As he rode with his bride through her native woods, every
+stream claimed her as a relative; one was a brother, another an uncle,
+another a cousin. We rode on amusing ourselves with applying this
+fanciful tale to the charming scenery around us, until we came to a
+lowly gray-stone farmhouse, of ancient date, situated in a solitary
+glen, on the margin of the brook, and overshadowed by venerable trees.
+It went by the name, as I was told, of the Weir Mill farmhouse. With
+this rustic mansion was connected a little tale of real life, some
+circumstances of which were related to me on the spot, and others I
+collected in the course of my sojourn at the Abbey.
+
+Not long after Colonel Wildman had purchased the estate of Newstead, he
+made it a visit for the purpose of planning repairs and alterations. As
+he was rambling one evening, about dusk, in company with his architect,
+through this little piece of woodland, he was struck with its peculiar
+characteristics, and then, for the first time, compared it to the
+haunted wood of Undine. While he was making the remark, a small female
+figure in white, flitted by without speaking a word, or indeed
+appearing to notice them. Her step was scarcely heard as she passed,
+and her form was indistinct in the twilight.
+
+"What a figure for a fairy or sprite!" exclaimed Colonel Wildman. "How
+much a poet or a romance writer would make of such an apparition, at
+such a time and in such a place!"
+
+He began to congratulate himself upon having some elfin inhabitant for
+his haunted wood, when, on proceeding a few paces, he found a white
+frill lying in the path, which had evidently fallen from the figure
+that had just passed.
+
+"Well," said he, "after all, this is neither sprite nor fairy, but a
+being of flesh, and blood, and muslin."
+
+Continuing on, he came to where the road passed by an old mill in front
+of the Abbey. The people of the mill were at the door. He paused and
+inquired whether any visitor had been at the Abbey, but was answered in
+the negative.
+
+"Has nobody passed by here?"
+
+"No one, sir."
+
+"That's strange! Surely I met a female in white, who must have passed
+along this path."
+
+"Oh, sir, you mean the Little White Lady--oh, yes, she passed by here
+not long since."
+
+"The Little White Lady! And pray who is the Little White Lady?"
+
+"Why, sir, that nobody knows; she lives in the Weir Mill farmhouse,
+down in the skirts of the wood. She comes to the Abbey every morning,
+keeps about it all day, and goes away at night. She speaks to nobody,
+and we are rather shy of her, for we don't know what to make of her."
+
+Colonel Wildman now concluded that it was some artist or amateur
+employed in making sketches of the Abbey, and thought no more about the
+matter. He went to London, and was absent for some time. In the
+interim, his sister, who was newly married, came with her husband to
+pass the honeymoon at the Abbey. The Little White Lady still resided in
+the Weir Mill farmhouse, on the border of the haunted wood, and
+continued her visits daily to the Abbey. Her dress was always the same,
+a white gown with a little black spencer or bodice, and a white hat
+with a short veil that screened the upper part of her countenance. Her
+habits were shy, lonely, and silent; she spoke to no one, and sought no
+companionship, excepting with the Newfoundland dog that had belonged to
+Lord Byron. His friendship she secured by caressing him and
+occasionally bringing him food, and he became the companion of her
+solitary walks. She avoided all strangers, and wandered about the
+retired parts of the garden; sometimes sitting for hours by the tree on
+which Lord Byron had carved his name, or at the foot of the monument
+which he had erected among the ruins of the chapel. Sometimes she read,
+sometimes she wrote with a pencil on a small slate which she carried
+with her, but much of her time was passed in a kind of reverie.
+
+The people about the place gradually became accustomed to her, and
+suffered her to wander about unmolested; their distrust of her subsided
+on discovering that most of her peculiar and lonely habits arose from
+the misfortune of being deaf and dumb. Still she was regarded with some
+degree of shyness, for it was the common opinion that she was not
+exactly in her right mind.
+
+Colonel Wildman's sister was informed of all these circumstances by the
+servants of the Abbey, among whom the Little White Lady was a theme of
+frequent discussion. The Abbey and its monastic environs being haunted
+ground, it was natural that a mysterious visitant of the kind, and one
+supposed to be under the influence of mental hallucination, should
+inspire awe in a person unaccustomed to the place. As Colonel Wildman's
+sister was one day walking along abroad terrace of the garden, she
+suddenly beheld the Little White Lady coming toward her, and, in the
+surprise and agitation of the moment, turned and ran into the house.
+Day after day now elapsed, and nothing more was seen of this singular
+personage. Colonel Wildman at length arrived at the Abbey, and his
+sister mentioned to him her encounter and fright in the garden. It
+brought to mind his own adventure with the Little White Lady in the
+wood of Undine, and he was surprised to find that she still continued
+her mysterious wanderings about the Abbey. The mystery was soon
+explained. Immediately after his arrival he received a letter written
+in the most minute and delicate female hand, and in elegant and even
+eloquent language. It was from the Little White Lady. She had noticed
+and been shocked by the abrupt retreat of Colonel Wildman's sister on
+seeing her in the garden walk, and expressed her unhappiness at being
+an object of alarm to any of his family. She explained the motives of
+her frequent and long visits to the Abbey, which proved to be a
+singularly enthusiastic idolatry of the genius of Lord Byron, and a
+solitary and passionate delight in haunting the scenes he had once
+inhabited. She hinted at the infirmities which cut her off from all
+social communion with her fellow beings, and at her situation in life
+as desolate and bereaved; and concluded by hoping that he would not
+deprive her of her only comfort, the permission of visiting the Abbey
+occasionally, and lingering about the walks and gardens.
+
+Colonel Wildman now made further inquiries concerning her, and found
+that she was a great favorite with the people of the farmhouse where
+she boarded, from the gentleness, quietude, and innocence of her
+manners. When at home, she passed the greater part of her time in a
+small sitting-room, reading and writing. Colonel Wildman immediately
+called on her at the farmhouse. She received him with some agitation
+and embarrassment, but his frankness and urbanity soon put her at her
+ease. She was past the bloom of youth, a pale, nervous little being,
+and apparently deficient in most of her physical organs, for in
+addition to being deaf and dumb, she saw but imperfectly. They carried
+on a communication by means of a small slate, which she drew out of her
+reticule, and on which they wrote their questions and replies. In
+writing or reading she always approached her eyes close to the written
+characters.
+
+This defective organization was accompanied by a morbid sensibility
+almost amounting to disease. She had not been born deaf and dumb; but
+had lost her hearing in a fit of sickness, and with it the power of
+distinct articulation. Her life had evidently been checkered and
+unhappy; she was apparently without family or friend, a lonely,
+desolate being, cut off from society by her infirmities.
+
+"I am always among strangers," she said, "as much so in my native
+country as I could be in the remotest parts of the world. By all I am
+considered as a stranger and an alien; no one will acknowledge any
+connection with me. I seem not to belong to the human species."
+
+Such were the circumstances that Colonel Wildman was able to draw forth
+in the course of his conversation, and they strongly interested him in
+favor of this poor enthusiast. He was too devout an admirer of Lord
+Byron himself, not to sympathize in this extraordinary zeal of one of
+his votaries, and he entreated her to renew her visits at the Abbey,
+assuring her that the edifice and its grounds should always be open to
+her.
+
+The Little White Lady now resumed her daily walks in the Monk's Garden,
+and her occasional seat at the foot of the monument; she was shy and
+diffident, however, and evidently fearful of intruding. If any persons
+were walking in the garden she would avoid them, and seek the most
+remote parts; and was seen like a sprite, only by gleams and glimpses,
+as she glided among the groves and thickets. Many of her feelings and
+fancies, during these lonely rambles, were embodied in verse, noted
+down on her tablet, and transferred to paper in the evening on her
+return to the farmhouse. Some of these verses now lie before me,
+written with considerable harmony of versification, but chiefly curious
+as being illustrative of that singular and enthusiastic idolatry with
+which she almost worshipped the genius of Byron, or rather, the
+romantic image of him formed by her imagination.
+
+Two or three extracts may not be unacceptable. The following are from a
+long rhapsody addressed to Lord Byron:
+
+  "By what dread charm thou rulest the mind
+    It is not given for us to know;
+  We glow with feelings undefined,
+    Nor can explain from whence they flow.
+
+  "Not that fond love which passion breathes
+    And youthful hearts inflame;
+  The soul a nobler homage gives,
+    And bows to thy great name.
+
+  "Oft have we own'd the muses' skill,
+    And proved the power of song,
+  But sweeter notes ne'er woke the thrill
+    That solely to thy verse belong.
+
+  "This--but far more, for thee we prove,
+    Something that bears a holier name,
+  Than the pure dream of early love,
+    Or friendship's nobler flame.
+
+  "Something divine--Oh! what it is
+    Thy muse alone can tell,
+  So sweet, but so profound the bliss
+    We dread to break the spell."
+
+This singular and romantic infatuation, for such it might truly be
+called, was entirely spiritual and ideal, for, as she herself declares
+in another of her rhapsodies, she had never beheld Lord Byron; he was,
+to her, a mere phantom of the brain.
+
+  "I ne'er have drunk thy glance--thy form
+    My earthly eye has never seen,
+  Though oft when fancy's visions warm,
+    It greets me in some blissful dream.
+
+  "Greets me, as greets the sainted seer
+    Some radiant visitant from high,
+  When heaven's own strains break on his ear,
+    And wrap his soul in ecstasy."
+
+Her poetical wanderings and musings were not confined to the Abbey
+grounds, but extended to all parts of the neighborhood connected with
+the memory of Lord Byron, and among the rest to the groves and gardens
+of Annesley Hall, the seat of his early passion for Miss Chaworth. One
+of her poetical effusions mentions her having seen from Howet's Hill in
+Annesley Park, a "sylph-like form," in a car drawn by milk-white
+horses, passing by the foot of the hill, who proved to be the "favorite
+child," seen by Lord Byron, in his memorable interview with Miss
+Chaworth after her marriage. That favorite child was now a blooming
+girl approaching to womanhood, and seems to have understood something
+of the character and story of this singular visitant, and to have
+treated her with gentle sympathy. The Little White Lady expresses, in
+touching terms, in a note to her verses, her sense of this gentle
+courtesy. "The benevolent condescension," says she, "of that amiable
+and interesting young lady, to the unfortunate writer of these simple
+lines will remain engraved upon a grateful memory, till the vital spark
+that now animates a heart that too sensibly feels, and too seldom
+experiences such kindness, is forever extinct."
+
+In the mean time, Colonel Wildman, in occasional interviews, had
+obtained further particulars of the story of the stranger, and found
+that poverty was added to the other evils of her forlorn and isolated
+state. Her name was Sophia Hyatt. She was the daughter of a country
+bookseller, but both her parents had died several years before. At
+their death, her sole dependence was upon her brother, who allowed her
+a small annuity on her share of the property left by their father, and
+which remained in his hands. Her brother, who was a captain of a
+merchant vessel, removed with his family to America, leaving her almost
+alone in the world, for she had no other relative in England but a
+cousin, of whom she knew almost nothing. She received her annuity
+regularly for a time, but unfortunately her brother died in the West
+Indies, leaving his affairs in confusion, and his estate overhung by
+several commercial claims, which threatened to swallow up the whole.
+Under these disastrous circumstances, her annuity suddenly ceased; she
+had in vain tried to obtain a renewal of it from the widow, or even an
+account of the state of her brother's affairs. Her letters for three
+years past had remained unanswered, and she would have been exposed to
+the horrors of the most abject want, but for a pittance quarterly doled
+out to her by her cousin in England.
+
+Colonel Wildman entered with characteristic benevolence into the story
+of her troubles. He saw that she was a helpless, unprotected being,
+unable, from her infirmities and her ignorance of the world, to
+prosecute her just claims. He obtained from her the address of her
+relations in America, and of the commercial connection of her brother;
+promised, through the medium of his own agents in Liverpool, to
+institute an inquiry into the situation of her brother's affairs, and
+to forward any letters she might write, so as to insure their reaching
+their place of destination.
+
+Inspired with some faint hopes, the Little White Lady continued her
+wanderings about the Abbey and its neighborhood. The delicacy and
+timidity of her deportment increased the interest already felt for her
+by Mrs. Wildman. That lady, with her wonted kindness, sought to make
+acquaintance with her, and inspire her with confidence. She invited her
+into the Abbey; treated her with the most delicate attention, and,
+seeing that she had a great turn for reading, offered her the loan of
+any books in her possession. She borrowed a few, particularly the works
+of Sir Walter Scott, but soon returned them; the writings of Lord Byron
+seemed to form the only study in which she delighted, and when not
+occupied in reading those, her time was passed in passionate
+meditations on his genius. Her enthusiasm spread an ideal world around
+her in which she moved and existed as in a dream, forgetful at times of
+the real miseries which beset her in her mortal state.
+
+One of her rhapsodies is, however, of a very melancholy cast;
+anticipating her own death, which her fragile frame and growing
+infirmities rendered but too probable. It is headed by the following
+paragraph.
+
+"Written beneath the tree on Crowholt Hill, where it is my wish to be
+interred (if I should die in Newstead)."
+
+I subjoin a few of the stanzas: they are addressed to Lord Byron:
+
+  "Thou, while thou stand'st beneath this tree,
+    While by thy foot this earth is press'd,
+  Think, here the wanderer's ashes be--
+    And wilt thou say, sweet be thy rest!
+
+  "'Twould add even to a seraph's bliss,
+    Whose sacred charge thou then may be,
+  To guide--to guard--yes, Byron! yes,
+    That glory is reserved for me."
+
+  "If woes below may plead above
+    A frail heart's errors, mine forgiven,
+  To that 'high world' I soar, where 'love
+    Surviving' forms the bliss of Heaven.
+
+  "O wheresoe'er, in realms above,
+    Assign'd my spirit's new abode,
+  'Twill watch thee with a seraph's love,
+    Till thou too soar'st to meet thy God.
+
+  "And here, beneath this lonely tree--
+    Beneath the earth thy feet have press'd,
+  My dust shall sleep--once dear to thee
+    These scenes--here may the wanderer rest!"
+
+In the midst of her reveries and rhapsodies, tidings reached Newstead
+of the untimely death of Lord Byron. How they were received by this
+humble but passionate devotee I could not ascertain; her life was too
+obscure and lonely to furnish much personal anecdote, but among her
+poetical effusions are several written in a broken and irregular
+manner, and evidently under great agitation.
+
+The following sonnet is the most coherent and most descriptive of her
+peculiar state of mind:
+
+  "Well, thou art gone--but what wert thou to me?
+    I never saw thee--never heard thy voice,
+  Yet my soul seemed to claim affiance with thee.
+    The Roman bard has sung of fields Elysian,
+  Where the soul sojourns ere she visits earth;
+    Sure it was there my spirit knew thee, Byron!
+  Thine image haunted me like a past vision;
+    It hath enshrined itself in my heart's core;
+  'Tis my soul's soul--it fills the whole creation.
+    For I do live but in that world ideal
+  Which the muse peopled with her bright fancies,
+    And of that world thou art a monarch real,
+  Nor ever earthly sceptre ruled a kingdom,
+    With sway so potent as thy lyre, the mind's dominion."
+
+Taking all the circumstances here adduced into consideration, it is
+evident that this strong excitement and exclusive occupation of the
+mind upon one subject, operating upon a system in a high state of
+morbid irritability, was in danger of producing that species of mental
+derangement called monomania. The poor little being was aware, herself,
+of the dangers of her case, and alluded to it in the following passage
+of a letter to Colonel Wildman, which presents one of the most
+lamentable pictures of anticipated evil ever conjured up by the human
+mind.
+
+"I have long," writes she, "too sensibly felt the decay of my mental
+faculties, which I consider as the certain indication of that dreaded
+calamity which I anticipate with such terror. A strange idea has long
+haunted my mind, that Swift's dreadful fate will be mine. It is not
+ordinary insanity I so much apprehend, but something worse--absolute
+idiotism!
+
+"O sir! think what I must suffer from such an idea, without an earthly
+friend to look up to for protection in such a wretched state--exposed
+to the indecent insults which such spectacles always excite. But I dare
+not dwell upon the thought: it would facilitate the event I so much
+dread, and contemplate with horror. Yet I cannot help thinking from
+people's behavior to me at times, and from after reflections upon my
+conduct, that symptoms of the disease are already apparent."
+
+Five months passed away, but the letters written by her, and forwarded
+by Colonel Wildman to America relative to her brother's affairs,
+remained unanswered; the inquiries instituted by the Colonel had as yet
+proved equally fruitless. A deeper gloom and despondency now seemed to
+gather upon her mind. She began to talk of leaving Newstead, and
+repairing to London, in the vague hope of obtaining relief or redress
+by instituting some legal process to ascertain and enforce the will of
+her deceased brother. Weeks elapsed, however, before she could summon
+up sufficient resolution to tear herself away from the scene of
+poetical fascination. The following simple stanzas, selected from a
+number written about the time, express, in humble rhymes, the
+melancholy that preyed upon her spirits:
+
+  "Farewell to thee, Newstead, thy time-riven towers,
+    Shall meet the fond gaze of the pilgrim no more;
+  No more may she roam through thy walks and thy bowers.
+    Nor muse in thy cloisters at eve's pensive hour.
+
+  "Oh, how shall I leave you, ye hills and ye dales,
+    When lost in sad musing, though sad not unblest,
+  A lone pilgrim I stray--Ah! in these lonely vales,
+    I hoped, vainly hoped, that the pilgrim might rest.
+
+  "Yet rest is far distant--in the dark vale of death,
+    Alone I shall find it, an outcast forlorn--
+  But hence vain complaints, though by fortune bereft
+    Of all that could solace in life's early morn.
+
+  Is not man from his birth doomed a pilgrim to roam
+    O'er the world's dreary wilds, whence by fortune's rude gust.
+  In his path, if some flowret of joy chanced to bloom,
+    It is torn and its foliage laid low in the dust."
+
+At length she fixed upon a day for her departure. On the day previous,
+she paid a farewell visit to the Abbey; wandering over every part of
+the grounds and garden; pausing and lingering at every place
+particularly associated with the recollection of Lord Byron; and
+passing a long time seated at the foot of the monument, which she used
+to call "her altar." Seeking Mrs. Wildman, she placed in her hands a
+sealed packet, with an earnest request that she would not open it until
+after her departure from the neighborhood. This done she took an
+affectionate leave of her, and with many bitter tears bade farewell to
+the Abbey.
+
+On retiring to her room that evening, Mrs. Wildman could not refrain
+from inspecting the legacy of this singular being. On opening the
+packet, she found a number of fugitive poems, written in a most
+delicate and minute hand, and evidently the fruits of her reveries and
+meditations during her lonely rambles; from these the foregoing
+extracts have been made. These were accompanied by a voluminous letter,
+written with the pathos and eloquence of genuine feeling, and depicting
+her peculiar situation and singular state of mind in dark but painful
+colors.
+
+"The last time," says she, "that I had the pleasure of seeing you, in
+the garden, you asked me why I leave Newstead; when I told you my
+circumstances obliged me, the expression of concern which I fancied I
+observed in your look and manner would have encouraged me to have been
+explicit at the time, but from my inability of expressing myself
+verbally."
+
+She then goes on to detail precisely her pecuniary circumstances, by
+which it appears that her whole dependence for subsistence was on an
+allowance of thirteen pounds a year from her cousin, who bestowed it
+through a feeling of pride, lest his relative should come upon the
+parish. During two years this pittance had been augmented from other
+sources, to twenty-three pounds, but the last year it had shrunk within
+its original bounds, and was yielded so grudgingly, that she could not
+feel sure of its continuance from one quarter to another. More than
+once it had been withheld on slight pretences, and she was in constant
+dread lest it should be entirely withdrawn.
+
+"It is with extreme reluctance," observed she, "that I have so far
+exposed my unfortunate situation; but I thought you expected to know
+something more of it, and I feared that Colonel Wildman, deceived by
+appearances, might think that I am in no immediate want, and that the
+delay of a few weeks, or months, respecting the inquiry, can be of no
+material consequence. It is absolutely necessary to the success of the
+business that Colonel Wildman should know the exact state of my
+circumstances without reserve, that he may be enabled to make a correct
+representation of them to any gentleman whom he intends to interest,
+who, I presume, if they are not of America themselves, have some
+connections there, through whom my friends may be convinced of the
+reality of my distress, if they pretend to doubt it, as I suppose they
+do. But to be more explicit is impossible; it would be too humiliating
+to particularize the circumstances of the embarrassment in which I am
+unhappily involved--my utter destitution. To disclose all might, too,
+be liable to an inference which I hope I am not so void of delicacy, of
+natural pride, as to endure the thought of. Pardon me, madam, for thus
+giving trouble, where I have no right to do--compelled to throw myself
+upon Colonel Wildman's humanity, to entreat his earnest exertions in my
+behalf, for it is now my only resource. Yet do not too much despise me
+for thus submitting to imperious necessity--it is not love of life,
+believe me it is not, nor anxiety for its preservation. I cannot say,
+'There are things that make the world dear to me,'--for in the world
+there is not an object to make me wish to linger here another hour,
+could I find that rest and peace in the grave which I have never found
+on earth, and I fear will be denied me there."
+
+Another part of her letter develops more completely the dark
+despondency hinted at in the conclusion of the foregoing extract--and
+presents a lamentable instance of a mind diseased, which sought in
+vain, amidst sorrow and calamity, the sweet consolations of religious
+faith.
+
+"That my existence has hitherto been prolonged," says she, "often
+beyond what I have thought to have been its destined period, is
+astonishing to myself. Often when my situation has been as desperate,
+as hopeless, or more so, if possible, than it is at present, some
+unexpected interposition of Providence has rescued me from a fate that
+has appeared inevitable. I do not particularly allude to recent
+circumstances or latter years, for from my earlier years I have been
+the child of Providence--then why should I distrust its care now? I do
+not _dis_trust it--neither do I trust it. I feel perfectly
+unanxious, unconcerned, and indifferent as to the future; but this is
+not trust in Providence--not that trust which alone claims it
+protections. I know this is a blamable indifference--it is more--for it
+reaches to the interminable future. It turns almost with disgust from
+the bright prospects which religion offers for the consolation and
+support of the wretched, and to which I was early taught, by an almost
+adored mother, to look forward with hope and joy; but to me they can
+afford no consolation. Not that I doubt the sacred truths that religion
+inculcates. I cannot doubt--though I confess I have sometimes tried to
+do so, because I no longer wish for that immortality of which it
+assures us. My only wish now is for rest and peace--endless rest. 'For
+rest--but not to feel 'tis rest,' but I cannot delude myself with the
+hope that such rest will be my lot. I feel an internal evidence,
+stronger than any arguments that reason or religion can enforce, that I
+have that within me which is imperishable; that drew not its origin
+from the 'clod of the valley.' With this conviction, but without a hope
+to brighten the prospect of that dread future:
+
+"'I dare not look beyond the tomb, Yet cannot hope for peace before.'
+Such an unhappy frame of mind, I am sure, madam, must excite your
+commiseration. It is perhaps owing, in part at least, to the solitude
+in which I have lived, I may say, even in the midst of society; when I
+have mixed in it; as my infirmities entirely exclude me from that sweet
+intercourse of kindred spirits--that sweet solace of refined
+conversation; the little intercourse I have at any time with those
+around me cannot be termed conversation--they are not kindred spirits--
+and even where circumstances have associated me (but rarely indeed)
+with superior and cultivated minds, who have not disdained to admit me
+to their society, they could not by all their generous efforts, even in
+early youth, lure from my dark soul the thoughts that loved to lie
+buried there, nor inspire me with the courage to attempt their
+disclosure; and yet of all the pleasures of polished life which fancy
+has often pictured to me in such vivid colors, there is not one that I
+have so ardently coveted as that sweep reciprocation of ideas, the
+supreme bliss of enlightened minds in the hour of social converse. But
+this I knew was not decreed for me--
+
+  "'Yet this was in my nature-'
+
+but since the loss of my hearing I have always been incapable of verbal
+conversation. I need not, however, inform you, madam, of this. At the
+first interview with which you favored me, you quickly discovered my
+peculiar unhappiness in this respect; you perceived from my manner that
+any attempt to draw me into conversation would be in vain--had it been
+otherwise, perhaps you would not have disdained now and then to have
+soothed the lonely wanderer with yours. I have sometimes fancied when I
+have seen you in the walk, that you seemed to wish to encourage me to
+throw myself in your way. Pardon me if my imagination, too apt to
+beguile me with such dear illusions, has deceived me into too
+presumptuous an idea here. You must have observed that I generally
+endeavored to avoid both you and Colonel Wildman. It was to spare your
+generous hearts the pain of witnessing distress you could not
+alleviate. Thus cut off, as it were, from all human society, I have
+been compelled to live in a world of my own, and certainly with the
+beings with which my world is peopled, I am at no loss to converse.
+But, though I love solitude and am never in want of subjects to amuse
+my fancy, yet solitude too much indulged in must necessarily have an
+unhappy effect upon the mind, which, when left to seek for resources
+wholly within itself will, unavoidably, in hours of gloom and
+despondency, brood over corroding thoughts that prey upon the spirits,
+and sometimes terminate in confirmed misanthropy--especially with those
+who, from constitution, or early misfortunes, are inclined to
+melancholy, and to view human nature in its dark shades. And have I not
+cause for gloomy reflections? The utter loneliness of my lot would
+alone have rendered existence a curse to one whom nature has formed
+glowing with all the warmth of social affection, yet without an object
+on which to place it--without one natural connection, one earthly
+friend to appeal to, to shield me from the contempt, indignities, and
+insults, to which my deserted situation continually exposed me."
+
+I am giving long extracts from this letter, yet I cannot refrain from
+subjoining another letter, which depicts her feelings with respect to
+Newstead.
+
+"Permit me, madame, again to request your and Colonel Wildman's
+acceptance of these acknowledgments which I cannot too often repeat,
+for your unexampled goodness to a rude stranger. I know I ought not to
+have taken advantage of your extreme good nature so frequently as I
+have. I should have absented myself from your garden during the stay of
+the company at the Abbey, but, as I knew I must be gone long before
+they would leave it, I could not deny myself the indulgence, as you so
+freely gave me your permission to continue my walks, but now they are
+at an end. I have taken my last farewell of every dear and interesting
+spot, which I now never hope to see again, unless my disembodied spirit
+may be permitted to revisit them.--Yet O! if Providence should enable
+me again to support myself with any degree of respectability, and you
+should grant me some little humble shed, with what joy shall I return
+and renew my delightful rambles. But dear as Newstead is to me, I will
+never again come under the same unhappy circumstances as I have this
+last time--never without the means of at least securing myself from
+contempt. How dear, how very dear Newstead is to me, how unconquerable
+the infatuation that possesses me, I am now going to give a too
+convincing proof. In offering to your acceptance the worthless trifles
+that will accompany this, I hope you will believe that I have no view
+to your amusement. I dare not hope that the consideration of their
+being the products of your own garden, and most of them written there,
+in my little tablet, while sitting at the foot of _my Altar_--I
+could not, I cannot resist the earnest desire of leaving this memorial
+of the many happy hours I have there enjoyed. Oh! do not reject them,
+madam; suffer them to remain with you, and if you should deign to honor
+them with a perusal, when you read them repress, if you can, the smile
+that I know will too naturally arise, when you recollect the appearance
+of the wretched being who has dared to devote her whole soul to the
+contemplation of such more than human excellence. Yet, ridiculous as
+such devotion may appear to some, I must take leave to say, that if the
+sentiments which I have entertained for that exalted being could be
+duly appreciated, I trust they would be found to be of such a nature as
+is no dishonor even for him to have inspired."...
+
+"I am now coming to take a last, last view of scenes too deeply
+impressed upon my memory ever to be effaced even by madness itself. O
+madam! may you never know, nor be able to conceive the agony I endure
+in tearing myself from all that the world contains of dear and sacred
+to me: the only spot on earth where I can ever hope for peace or
+comfort. May every blessing the world has to bestow attend you, or
+rather, may you long, long live in the enjoyment of the delights of
+your own paradise, in secret seclusion from a world that has no real
+blessings to bestow. Now I go--but O might I dare to hope that when you
+are enjoying these blissful scenes, a thought of the unhappy wanderer
+might sometimes cross your mind, how soothing would such an idea be, if
+I dared to indulge it--could you see my heart at this moment, how
+needless would it be to assure you of the respectful gratitude, the
+affectionate esteem, this heart must ever bear you both."
+
+The effect of this letter upon the sensitive heart of Mrs. Wildman may
+be more readily conceived than expressed. Her first impulse was to give
+a home to this poor homeless being, and to fix her in the midst of
+those scenes which formed her earthly paradise. She communicated her
+wishes to Colonel Wildman, and they met with an immediate response in
+his generous bosom. It was settled on the spot, that an apartment
+should be fitted up for the Little White Lady in one of the new
+farmhouses, and every arrangement made for her comfortable and
+permanent maintenance on the estate. With a woman's prompt benevolence,
+Mrs. Wildman, before she laid her head upon her pillow, wrote the
+following letter to the destitute stranger:
+
+"NEWSTEAD ABBEY,
+  "Tuesday night, September 20, 1825.
+
+"On retiring to my bedchamber this evening I have opened your letter,
+and cannot lose a moment in expressing to you the strong interest which
+it has excited both in Colonel Wildman and myself, from the details of
+your peculiar situation, and the delicate, and, let me add, elegant
+language in which they are conveyed. I am anxious that my note should
+reach you previous to your departure from this neighborhood, and should
+be truly happy if, by any arrangement for your accommodation, I could
+prevent the necessity of your undertaking the journey. Colonel Wildman
+begs me to assure you that he will use his best exertions in the
+investigation of those matters which you have confided to him, and
+should you remain here at present, or return again after a short
+absence, I trust we shall find means to become better acquainted, and
+to convince you of the interest I feel, and the real satisfaction it
+would afford me to contribute in any way to your comfort and happiness.
+I will only now add my thanks for the little packet which I received
+with your letter, and I must confess that the letter has so entirely
+engaged my attention, that I have not as yet had time for the attentive
+perusal of its companion.
+
+Believe me, dear madam, with sincere good wishes,
+
+  "Yours truly,
+    "LOUISA WILDMAN."
+
+Early the next morning a servant was dispatched with the letter to the
+Weir Mill farm, but returned with the information that the Little White
+Lady had set off, before his arrival, in company with the farmer's
+wife, in a cart for Nottingham, to take her place in the coach for
+London. Mrs. Wildman ordered him to mount horse instantly, follow with
+all speed, and deliver the letter into her hand before the departure of
+the coach.
+
+The bearer of good tidings spared neither whip nor spur, and arrived at
+Nottingham on a gallop. On entering the town, a crowd obstructed him in
+the principal street. He checked his horse to make his way through it
+quietly. As the crowd opened to the right and left, he beheld a human
+body lying on the pavement.--It was the corpse of the Little White
+Lady!
+
+It seems that on arriving in town and dismounting from the cart, the
+farmer's wife had parted with her to go on an errand, and the White
+Lady continued on toward the coach-office. In crossing a street a cart
+came along, driven at a rapid rate. The driver called out to her, but
+she was too deaf to hear his voice or the rattling of his cart. In an
+instant she was knocked down by the horse, and the wheels passed over
+her body, and she died without a groan.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey
+by Washington Irving
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY ***
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