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Project Gutenberg&rsquo;s Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, by Washington Irving

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Title: Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey

Author: Washington Irving

Posting Date: October 8, 2012 [EBook #7948]
Release Date: April, 2005
First Posted: June 4, 2003
Last Updated: June 1, 2018


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</pre>
    <div style="height: 8em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY
    </h1>
    <h2>
      By Washington Irving
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      <b>CONTENTS</b>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> ARRIVAL AT THE ABBEY. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE ABBEY GARDEN. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> PLOUGH MONDAY. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> OLD SERVANTS. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ABBEY. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> ANNESLEY HALL. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE LAKE. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> ROBIN HOOD AND SHERWOOD FOREST. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE ROOK CELL. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE LITTLE WHITE LADY. </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      ABBOTSFORD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;mighty minstrel of the north.&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
  And curs of low degree;&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      all open-mouthed and vociferous.&mdash;I should correct my quotation;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a little while the &ldquo;lord of the castle&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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: &ldquo;Come, drive down,
      drive down to the house,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;ye&rsquo;re just in time for breakfast, and
      afterward ye shall see all the wonders of the Abbey.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I would have excused myself, on the plea of having already made my
      breakfast. &ldquo;Hout, man,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;a ride in the morning in the keen air
      of the Scotch hills is warrant enough for a second breakfast.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
      &ldquo;You must not think our neighborhood is to be read in a morning, like a
      newspaper,&rdquo; said Scott. &ldquo;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&mdash;unless you be a true and
      nothing-doubting antiquary. When you come back, I&rsquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Lay of the Last Minstrel:&rdquo; and would
      repeat, with broad Scottish accent, the passage which celebrated it.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Nor herb nor flowret glistened there
  But was carved in the cloister arches as fair.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      He pointed out, also, among the carved work a nun&rsquo;s head of much beauty,
      which he said Scott always stopped to admire&mdash;&ldquo;for the shirra had a
      wonderful eye for all sic matters.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I would observe that Scott seemed to derive more consequence in the
      neighborhood from being sheriff of the county than from being poet.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the interior of the Abbey Johnny Bower conducted me to the identical
      stone on which Stout &ldquo;William of Deloraine&rdquo; and the monk took their seat
      on that memorable night when the wizard&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I pointed out the whole to the shirra,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and he could na&rsquo;
      gainsay but it was varra clear.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s grave, which called forth the antiquarian research of
      Johnny Bower.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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&rsquo;s huge portal to expand.

  &ldquo;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&rsquo;s cowl and visage pale,
  Danced on the dark brown warrior&rsquo;s mail,
    And kissed his waving plume.

  &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Lay of the Last Minstrel&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He could not bear that any other production of the poet should be
      preferred to the &ldquo;Lay of the Last Minstrel.&rdquo; &ldquo;Faith,&rdquo; said he to me, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
      just e&rsquo;en as gude a thing as Mr. Scott has written&mdash;an&rsquo; if he were
      stannin&rsquo; there I&rsquo;d tell him so&mdash;an&rsquo; then he&rsquo;d lauff.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was loud in his praises of the affability of Scott. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll come here
      sometimes,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;with great folks in his company, an&rsquo; the first I
      know of it is his voice, calling out &lsquo;Johnny!&mdash;Johnny Bower!&rsquo;&mdash;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&rsquo; me, just like an auld wife&mdash;and to
      think that of a man who has such an awfu&rsquo; knowledge o&rsquo; history!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;leddies,&rdquo; 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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;If thou would&rsquo;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.&rdquo; etc.
</pre>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;It does na light up
      a&rsquo; the Abbey at since, to be sure,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;but then you can shift
      it about and show the auld ruin bit by bit, whiles the moon only shines on
      one side.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, &ldquo;You see, gentlemen, I can&rsquo;t help giving way to this nonsense,&rdquo;
       would resume his gravity and jog on as before.
    </p>
    <p>
      Scott amused himself with these peculiarities. &ldquo;I make no doubt,&rdquo; said he,
      &ldquo;when Maida is alone with these young dogs, he throw&rsquo;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, &lsquo;Ha&rsquo; done with your nonsense, youngsters: what
      will the laird and that other gentleman think of me if I give way to such
      foolery?&rsquo;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;piped to
      fun,&rdquo; and the sailors were dancing and cutting all kinds of capers to the
      music of the ship&rsquo;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. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s of no use,&rdquo; said he, jerking up his
      waistband and giving a side glance at us, &ldquo;one can&rsquo;t dance always
      nouther.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      It was but a transient outbreak, and he returned instantly, wagging his
      tail, and looking up dubiously in his master&rsquo;s face; uncertain whether he
      would censure or applaud.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aye, aye, old boy!&rdquo; cried Scott, &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
       continued he; &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;l.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These simple anecdotes may serve to show the delightful play of Scott&rsquo;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 &ldquo;crack wi&rsquo; the laird.&rdquo; One of them was a
      burgess of Selkirk, with whom Scott had some joke about-the old song:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Up with the Souters o&rsquo; Selkirk,
  And down with the Earl of Horne.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Scott accosted him in an affable tone, and asked for a pinch of snuff. The
      old man drew forth a horn snuff-box. &ldquo;Hoot, man,&rdquo; said Scott, &ldquo;not that
      old mull: where&rsquo;s the bonnie French one that I brought you from Paris?&rdquo;
       &ldquo;Troth, your honor,&rdquo; replied the old fellow, &ldquo;sic a mull as that is nae
      for week-days.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;It was not so much the value of the
      gifts,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that pleased them, as the idea that the laird should
      think of them when so far away.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;the banks and braes of
      bonnie Doon,&rdquo; 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&rsquo; 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, &ldquo;<i>and it seemed to him as if the country
      had grown more beautiful, since Burns had written his bonnie little songs
      about it.</i>&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;In youth&rsquo;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&rsquo;s stream.

  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      Scott went on to expatiate on the popular songs of Scotland. &ldquo;They are a
      part of our national inheritance,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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&mdash;a gem of our own mountains; or rather, it is a
      precious relic of old times, that bears the national character stamped
      upon it&mdash;like a cameo, that shows what the national visage was in
      former days, before the breed was crossed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aha!&rdquo; cried Scott, &ldquo;there will be a good shot for Master Walter; we must
      send him this way with his gun, when we go home. Walter&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Our ramble took us on the hills commanding an extensive prospect. &ldquo;Now,&rdquo;
       said Scott, &ldquo;I have brought you, like the pilgrim in the Pilgrim&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;It may be partiality,&rdquo;
       said he, at length; &ldquo;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>I think I should die!</i>&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aye, and that&rsquo;s the great charm of your country,&rdquo; cried Scott. &ldquo;You love
      the forest as I do the heather&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The conversation here turned upon Campbell&rsquo;s poem of &ldquo;Gertrude of
      Wyoming,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;What a pity it is,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know or won&rsquo;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.&rdquo; Here Scott repeated several passages in a
      magnificent style. &ldquo;What a grand idea is that,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;about prophetic
      boding, or, in common parlance, second sight&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &lsquo;Coming events cast their shadows before.&rsquo;
</pre>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is a noble thought, and nobly expressed, And there&rsquo;s that glorious
      little poem, too, of &lsquo;Hohenlinden;&rsquo; after he had written it, he did not
      seem to think much of it, but considered some of it&rsquo;d&mdash;d drum and
      trumpet lines.&rsquo; 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,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;Campbell is, in a manner, a bugbear to himself.
      The brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his further
      efforts. <i>He is afraid of the shadow that his own fame casts before him</i>.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      While we were thus chatting, we heard the report of a gun among the hills.
      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Walter, I think,&rdquo; said Scott; &ldquo;he has finished his morning&rsquo;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.&rdquo; I inquired into the nature of Walter&rsquo;s
      studies. &ldquo;Faith,&rdquo; said Scott, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s own description of his children in his
      introduction to one of the cantos of Marmion&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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?

  &ldquo;Yes, prattlers, yes, the daisy&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s elbow, looking up wistfully in his master&rsquo;s eye, while Finette,
      the pet spaniel, placed herself near Mrs. Scott, by whom, I soon
      perceived, she was completely spoiled.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Cy git le preux Percy.&rdquo; (Here lies the brave Percy.)
</pre>
    <p>
      I paused, supposing it to be the tomb of some stark warrior of the olden
      time, but Scott drew me on. &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s nothing but one of the
      monuments of my nonsense, of which you&rsquo;ll find enough hereabouts.&rdquo; 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&mdash;sitting in state in Scott&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied he, &ldquo;and tell
      your friends that a man from the Lowlands drove it where the devil himself
      cannot draw it out again.&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;&ldquo;the
      very life-blood, very possibly,&rdquo; said Scott, &ldquo;of some gay young officer,
      who had cherished these songs as a keepsake from some lady-love in Paris.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Why, soldiers, why,
  Should we be melancholy, boys?
  Why, soldiers, why,
  Whose business &rsquo;tis to die!
  For should next campaign
  Send us to him who made us, boys
  We&rsquo;re free from pain:
  But should we remain,
  A bottle and kind landlady
  Makes all well again.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I find since that Scott published translations of these songs among some
      of his smaller poems.
    </p>
    <p>
      The evening passed away delightfully in this quaint-looking apartment,
      half study, half drawing-room. Scott read several passages from the old
      romance of &ldquo;Arthur,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Then I am
      king of the cats!&rdquo; and vanished up the chimney. The funeral seen by the
      gude man, was one of the cat dynasty.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Our grimalkin here,&rdquo; added Scott, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In this way Scott would make the habits and peculiarities of even the dumb
      animals about him subjects for humorous remark or whimsical story.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;The Young Chevalier.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These songs were much relished by Scott, notwithstanding his loyalty; for
      the unfortunate &ldquo;Chevalier&rdquo; 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
      &ldquo;Chevalier,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s daughter. The last may be thought an easy
      alternative, but unfortunately, the baron&rsquo;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s elbow, and
      pointing to the gallows, seen in perspective through the open portal.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;It was one of his air castles,&rdquo;
       he said, &ldquo;which he was reducing to solid stone and mortar.&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;There is no
      telling,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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&mdash;the
      mouldier the better.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He went on to mention circumstances of &ldquo;mighty import&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;The Monastery;&rdquo; and it is a pity that he never succeeded
      in following out these shadowy, but enthusiastic conceptions.
    </p>
    <p>
      A summons to breakfast broke off our conversation, when I begged to
      recommend to Scott&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before dismissing the theme of the relics from the Abbey, I will mention
      another, illustrative of Scott&rsquo;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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;lasses&rdquo;
       dared to remove it. It was a matter of great wonder and speculation among
      them that the laird should have such an &ldquo;awsome fancy for an auld girning
      skull.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;
      standing with a nobleman in his neighborhood about the boundaries of their
      estates. It was the leading object of the little man&rsquo;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 &ldquo;mair preceese,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;like unto a
      weaver&rsquo;s beam.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      On one of his visits he called upon his lawyer, but was told he was not at
      home, but his lady was. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just the same thing,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I ha&rsquo; had just as much pleasure,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Slow Willie Mowbray,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      These little stories and anecdotes, which abounded in Scott&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, &ldquo;who, poor fellow,&rdquo; premised he, &ldquo;is dead and gone&mdash;&rdquo;
       &ldquo;Why, Mr. Scott,&rdquo; exclaimed the good lady, &ldquo;Macnab&rsquo;s not dead, is he?&rdquo;
       &ldquo;Faith, my dear,&rdquo; replied Scott, with humorous gravity, &ldquo;if he&rsquo;s not dead
      they&rsquo;ve done him great injustice&mdash;for they&rsquo;ve buried him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;In my
      hurry,&rdquo; writes he, &ldquo;I have not thanked you, in Sophia&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;&ldquo;And
      what like are thae barbarians in their own country?&rdquo; said Lauckie, &ldquo;can
      they write?&mdash;can they cipher?&rdquo; He was quite astonished to learn that
      they were nearly as much advanced in civilization as the gude folks of
      Abbotsford.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s
      novels, and I looked to recognize him in some of the succeeding works from
      his pen; but I looked in vain.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said he, pausing, &ldquo;is Huntley Bank, on which Thomas the Rhymer lay
      musing and sleeping when he saw, or dreamt he saw, the queen of Elfland:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;&lsquo;True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
  A ferlie he spied wi&rsquo; his e&rsquo;e;
  And there he saw a ladye bright,
  Come riding down by the Eildon tree.

  &ldquo;&lsquo;Her skirt was o&rsquo; the grass-green silk,
  Her mantle o&rsquo; the velvet fyne;
  At ilka tett of her horse&rsquo;s mane
  Hung fifty siller bells and nine.&rsquo;&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      Here Scott repeated several of the stanzas and recounted the circumstance
      of Thomas the Rhymer&rsquo;s interview with the fairy, and his being transported
      by her to fairy land&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;And til seven years were gone and past,
  True Thomas on earth was never seen.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a fine old story,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and might be wrought up into a capital
      tale.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along,

  But had its legend or its song.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      His voice was deep and sonorous, he spoke with a Scottish accent, and with
      somewhat of the Northumbrian &ldquo;burr,&rdquo; which, to my mind, gave a Doric
      strength and simplicity to his elocution. His recitation of poetry was, at
      times, magnificent.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s
      muzzle was stained with blood. Never was culprit more completely caught in
      <i>flagrante delicto</i>. 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. &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Scott,
      &ldquo;it&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      &ldquo;daundering&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;I rather think,&rdquo; added Scott, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;siller in pouch&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a&rsquo; varra weel&mdash;it&rsquo;s a&rsquo; varra weel, Torwoodlee,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but
      who would ha&rsquo; thought that your father&rsquo;s son would ha&rsquo; sold two gude
      estates to build a shaw&rsquo;s (cuckoo&rsquo;s) nest on the side of a hill?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;I doubt,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;whether the parson&rsquo;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,&rdquo; added
      he, &ldquo;I rather think I prefer the honest parson&rsquo;s good humor to his
      patron&rsquo;s good breeding; I have a great regard for a hearty laugher.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;Formerly they came here
      occasionally as sportsmen,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; continued he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Sandy Knowe crags.&rdquo; 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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Still with vain fondness could I trace
  Anew each kind familiar face,
  That brightened at our evening fire;
  From the thatched mansion&rsquo;s gray-haired sire,
  Wise without learning plain and good,
  And sprung of Scotland&rsquo;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&rsquo;s child;
  But half a plague, and half a jest,
  Was still endured, beloved, carest.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      On referring to Scott&rsquo;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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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&rsquo;s first day,
  Glow in the line, and prompt the lay.
  Then rise those crags, that mountain tower.
  Which charmed my fancy&rsquo;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&rsquo;s speed
  Claimed homage from a shepherd&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s blue,
  And, home returning, filled the hall
  With revel, wassail-rout, and brawl&mdash;
  Methought that still, with tramp and clang
  The gate-way&rsquo;s broken arches rang;
  Methought grim features, seamed with scars,
  Glared through the window&rsquo;s rusty bars.
  And ever by the winter hearth,
  Old tales I heard of woe or mirth,
  Of lovers&rsquo; slights, of ladies&rsquo; charms,
  Of witches&rsquo; spells, of warriors&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;The Eve of St. John.&rdquo; It is to
      be hoped that those who actually possess so interesting a monument of
      Scott&rsquo;s early days, will preserve it from further dilapidation.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;There had seemed to him,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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:&rdquo;
     </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Betide, betide, whate&rsquo;er betide,
  Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Locus Sepultura, Antiquessima Familia De Haga De Bemerside.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Lady of the Lake,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Border
      Minstrelsy,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;mighty minstrel of the north&rdquo;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s grand vizier, and she gave a
      playful account one evening, as she was hanging on her father&rsquo;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, &ldquo;Well, well, Tom, have it your own
      way.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      After a time, however, Purdie would present himself at the door of the
      parlor, and observe, &ldquo;I ha&rsquo; been thinking over the matter, and upon the
      whole, I think I&rsquo;ll take your honor&rsquo;s advice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Scott laughed heartily when this anecdote was told of him. &ldquo;It was with
      him and Tom,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;as it was with an old laird and a pet servant,
      whom he had indulged until he was positive beyond all endurance.&rdquo; &ldquo;This
      won&rsquo;t do!&rdquo; cried the old laird, in a passion, &ldquo;we can&rsquo;t live together any
      longer&mdash;we must part.&rdquo; &ldquo;An&rsquo; where the deil does your honor mean to
      go?&rdquo; replied the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      I would, moreover, observe of Tom Purdie, that he was a firm believer in
      ghosts, and warlocks, and all kinds of old wives&rsquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the course of our morning&rsquo;s walk, we stopped at a small house belonging
      to one of the laborers on the estate. The object of Scott&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;It was a pity,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our ramble this morning took us again up the Rhymer&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length, I asked whether we had not better seek some shelter. &ldquo;True,&rdquo;
       said Scott, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s walk, we will bide a bit under the lee of this bank until
      the shower is over.&rdquo; Taking his seat under shelter of a thicket, he called
      to his man George for his tartan, then turning to me, &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said he,
      &ldquo;come under my plaidy, as the old song goes;&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Scott spoke in warm terms of Hogg, and repeated passages from his
      beautiful poem of &ldquo;Kelmeny,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hogg, in one of his poems, I believe the &ldquo;Pilgrims of the Sun,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, man,&rdquo; said Blackwood, &ldquo;I dinna ken what ye mean in this passage.&rdquo;
       &ldquo;Hout tout, man,&rdquo; replied Hogg, impatiently, &ldquo;I dinna ken always what I
      mean mysel.&rdquo; There is many a metaphysical poet in the same predicament
      with honest Hogg.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, &ldquo;Search No. 2.&rdquo; I paused for a moment
      and repeated the inscription aloud, trying to recollect something I had
      heard or read to which it alluded. &ldquo;Pshaw,&rdquo; cried Scott, &ldquo;it is only some
      of Lord Somerville&rsquo;s nonsense&mdash;get in!&rdquo; In an instant scenes in the
      Antiquary connected with &ldquo;Search No. 1,&rdquo; flashed upon my mind. &ldquo;Ah! I
      remember now,&rdquo; said I, and with a laugh took my seat, but adverted no more
      to the circumstance.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;&mdash;there was a man
      living who declared he had seen the bull,&mdash;and he was believed by
      many of his simple neighbors. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t choose to contradict the tale,&rdquo;
       said Scott, &ldquo;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&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;You will never weed these popular stories and
      songs and superstitions out of Scotland,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It would do your heart good,&rdquo; continued he, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He went on to speak of the elves and sprites, so frequent in Scottish
      legend. &ldquo;Our fairies, however,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;fairy knowes,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Hout man,&rdquo; replied the other, &ldquo;are ye in the heart o&rsquo; Glasgow,
      and speer the name of it?&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;fairy knowe,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      When they were gone, Scott spoke of them in the most cordial manner. &ldquo;I
      wished to show you,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s debts, that no ill word or ill will might rest upon
      his memory.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;In
      a word,&rdquo; added Scott, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;They have kind hearts,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
       added he, laying his hand upon my shoulder, &ldquo;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&mdash;and
      if you are otherwise&mdash;there they are to comfort you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      By this time we had reached the gate, when he halted, and took my hand. &ldquo;I
      will not say farewell,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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&mdash;but come when you please, you will
      always find Abbotsford open to you, and a hearty welcome.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&rsquo;s whole time was taken up in riding and
      driving about the country, or in social conversation at home. &ldquo;All this
      time,&rdquo; said Wilkie to me, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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. &lsquo;Laidlaw,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;to-morrow
      morning we&rsquo;ll go across the water and take the dogs with us&mdash;there&rsquo;s
      a place where I think we shall be able to find a hare.&rsquo;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In short,&rdquo; added Wilkie, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s concerns, no
      one&rsquo;s thoughts, no one&rsquo;s opinions, no one&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <h3>
      NEWSTEAD ABBEY
    </h3>
    <h3>
      HISTORICAL NOTICE.
    </h3>
    <p>
      Being about to give a few sketches taken during a three weeks&rsquo; sojourn in
      the ancestral mansion of the late Lord Byron, I think it proper to premise
      some brief particulars concerning its history.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Sir John
      Byron the Little, with the great Beard.&rdquo; He converted the saintly edifice
      into a castellated dwelling, making it his favorite residence and the seat
      of his forest jurisdiction.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Hark, how the hall resounding to the strain,
    Shakes with the martial music&rsquo;s novel din!
  The heralds of a warrior&rsquo;s haughty reign,
    High crested banners wave thy walls within.

  &ldquo;Of changing sentinels the distant hum,
    The mirth of feasts, the clang of burnish&rsquo;d arms,
  The braying trumpet, and the hoarser drum,
    Unite in concert with increased alarms.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;the Wicked Lord Byron.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>tete a tete</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The death of the &ldquo;Old Lord,&rdquo; or &ldquo;The Wicked Lord Byron,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;And who is the next heir?&rdquo; asked the proud and happy mother.
      &ldquo;They say,&rdquo; answered the old woman, &ldquo;it is a little boy who lives at
      Aberdeen.&rdquo; &ldquo;And this is he, bless him!&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s Life of Lord Byron.]
    </p>
    <p>
      During Lord Byron&rsquo;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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;Of the mail-covered barons who, proudly, to battle
    Led thy vassals from Europe to Palestine&rsquo;s plain,
   The escutcheon and shield, which with every wind rattle,
    Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      [Footnote: Lines on leaving Newstead Abbey.]
    </p>
    <p>
      In another poem he expresses the melancholy feeling with which he took
      possession of his ancestral mansion:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;Deserted now, he scans thy gray-worn towers,
    Thy vaults, where dead of feudal ages sleep,
  Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers,
    These&mdash;these he views, and views them but to weep.

  &ldquo;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 &rsquo;gainst the will of fate.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      [Footnote: Elegy on Newstead Abbey.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; [Footnote: Letter of the late Charles
      Skinner Mathews, Esq.]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;Come what may,&rdquo; said he in one of his letters, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;old lord,&rdquo; and began to think that madness was
      inherent in the Byron race, or that some wayward star ruled over the
      Abbey.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Venice, November 18, 1818.
    </p>
    <p>
      My Dear Wildman,
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
Ever yours most truly and affectionately,
  BYRON.]
</pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;hemlock and thistle,&rdquo; and restored to their pristine and
      dignified formality.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      ARRIVAL AT THE ABBEY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      I had been passing a merry Christmas in the good old style at Barlhoro&rsquo;
      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&rsquo;s wayward predecessor.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The irregular gray pile, of motley architecture, answered to the
      description given by Lord Byron:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;An old, old monastery once, and now
   Still older mansion, of a rich and rare
   Mixed Gothic&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
</pre>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;&mdash;in a higher niche, alone, but crown&rsquo;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&rsquo;d:
  She made the earth below seem holy ground.&rdquo;&mdash;DON JUAN, Canto III.]
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play&rsquo;d,
    Symmetrical, but deck&rsquo;d with carvings quaint,
  Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,
    And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:
  The spring rush&rsquo;d through grim mouths of granite made,
    And sparkled into basins, where it spent
  Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
  Like man&rsquo;s vain glory, and his vainer troubles.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      [Footnote: DON JUAN, Canto III]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Sir John Byron the Little with the great Beard,&rdquo; looked
      grimly down from his canvas, while, at the opposite end, a white marble
      bust of the <i>genius loci</i>, the noble poet, shone conspicuously from
      its pedestal.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;The mansion&rsquo;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&rsquo;d, to decorate the scene;
  The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,
   And spoke more of the friar than the monk.

  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE ABBEY GARDEN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;the Devil&rsquo;s Wood,&rdquo; and enjoys but an equivocal character
      in the neighborhood. It was planted by &ldquo;The Wicked Lord Byron,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;The old Lord&rsquo;s Devils.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  I did remind you of our own dear lake
    By the old hall, <i>which may be mine no more;</i>
  Leman&rsquo;s is fair; but think not I forsake
    The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
  Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
    Ere <i>that</i> or <i>thou</i> can fade these eyes before;
  Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
  Resign&rsquo;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&mdash;but none like thee.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo; stew, or fish pond, a dark pool, overhung by gloomy
      cypresses, with a solitary water-hen swimming about in it.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;As it fares,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;so will fare my
      fortunes.&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;Such, such was my hope&mdash;when in infancy&rsquo;s years
    On the laud of my fathers I reared thee with pride;
  They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears&mdash;
  Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      &mdash;&mdash;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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;After life&rsquo;s fitful fever, he sleeps well.
  Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
  Can touch him further!&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;When time, or soon or late, shall bring
    The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
  Oblivion! may thy languid wing
    Wave gently o&rsquo;er my dying bed!

  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;A nature that could inspire such attachments,
      must have been generous and beneficent.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      PLOUGH MONDAY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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&rsquo; 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&rsquo;
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      To these succeeded a set of morris-dancers, gayly dressed up with ribbons
      and hawks&rsquo;-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 &ldquo;fool plough&rdquo; from house to
      house, singing ballads and performing antics, for which they were rewarded
      with money and good cheer.
    </p>
    <p>
      But it is not in &ldquo;merry Sherwood Forest&rdquo; 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&rsquo; 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&rsquo; hall by rustics, who inherited the custom
      and the poetry from preceding generations. The boar&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      &ldquo;the young Squire.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      OLD SERVANTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s apartment,
      she took shelter in one of the &ldquo;rockhouses,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Nay, nay,&rdquo; replied Nanny, tartly, &ldquo;I want no young mistress in <i>my
      house</i>.&rdquo; So much for the love of rule&mdash;poor Nanny&rsquo;s house was a
      hole in a rock!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said William, &ldquo;I ha&rsquo; 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.&rdquo; The Colonel and his lady,
      however, have not thought proper to put honest William&rsquo;s gratitude to so
      severe a test.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;old lord,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, &ldquo;Well, old boy, you will take your place
      here some twenty years hence.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that, sir,&rdquo; growled Joe, in reply, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      What chiefly, however, concerned Joe&rsquo;s pride and ambition, was a plan of
      the Colonel&rsquo;s to have the ancient refectory of the convent, a great
      vaulted room, supported by Gothic columns, converted into a servants&rsquo;
      hall. Here Joe looked forward to rule the roast at the head of the
      servants&rsquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lord, sir,&rdquo; exclaimed the hale old fellow, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s my air-bath, I&rsquo;m all the
      better for it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;&ldquo;Come,
      come, old boy,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;be of good heart, you will yet take your place
      in the servants&rsquo; hall.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nay, nay, sir,&rdquo; replied he, &ldquo;I did hope once that I should live to see it&mdash;I
      looked forward to it with pride, I confess, but it is all over with me now&mdash;I
      shall soon go home!&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ABBEY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s room and servants&rsquo;
      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; &ldquo;a sad toil for
      the poor youth,&rdquo; added Nanny, &ldquo;he being so lame.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His meals were scanty and irregular, consisting of dishes which Nanny
      seemed to hold in great contempt, such as pillau, macaroni, and light
      puddings.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Once, it is true,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; added Nanny, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Finding that we listened to her with great attention, Nanny Smith went on
      with her gossiping. &ldquo;One time,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t say but I was glad to get out of the room.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There was at one time (and for that matter there is still) a good deal
      said about ghosts haunting about the Abbey. The keeper&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Lord Byron one day said to me, &lsquo;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.&rsquo; 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&mdash;something all black and hairy, he said it was the devil.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For my part,&rdquo; continued Nanny Smith, &ldquo;I never saw anything of the kind&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; replied the Colonel, good-humoredly, &ldquo;I am
      glad to find I have a brownie to work for me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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&rsquo;d the friars, one friar still
    Would not be driven away.

  &ldquo;Though he came in his might, with King Henry&rsquo;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&rsquo;d, unchased, unchain&rsquo;d,
    And he did not seem form&rsquo;d of clay,
  For he&rsquo;s seen in the porch, and he&rsquo;s seen in the church,
    Though he is not seen by day.

  &ldquo;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, &rsquo;tis said,
    He flits on the bridal eve;
  And &rsquo;tis held as faith, to their bed of death,
    He comes&mdash;but not to grieve.

  &ldquo;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,
    &lsquo;Tis shadow&rsquo;d by his cowl;
  But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
    And they seem of a parted soul.

  &ldquo;But beware! beware of the Black Friar,
    He still retains his sway,
  For he is yet the church&rsquo;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&rsquo;s right.

  &ldquo;Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
    And he&rsquo;ll say nought to you;
  He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
    As o&rsquo;er the grass the dew.
  Then gramercy! for the Black Friar;
    Heaven sain him! fair or foul,
  And whatsoe&rsquo;er may be his prayer
    Let ours be for his soul.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      Such is the story of the goblin friar, which, partly through old
      tradition, and partly through the influence of Lord Byron&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Sir John Byron the Little with the great Beard.&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;For by dim lights the portraits of the dead
    Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.
  &mdash;&mdash;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      ANNESLEY HALL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      At about three miles&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The passion thus early conceived was blown into a flame, during a six
      weeks&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The six weeks&rsquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      His love for Miss Chaworth, to use Lord Byron&rsquo;s own expression, was &ldquo;the
      romance of the most romantic period of his life,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;The love of better things and better days;
    The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
  Of what is called the world, and the world&rsquo;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&rsquo;er entrance
  The heart in an existence of its own,
  Of which another&rsquo;s bosom is the zone.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &lsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the six weeks&rsquo; vacation ended this brief romance. Byron returned to
      school deeply enamored, but if he had really made any impression on Miss
      Chaworth&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      With that pride of spirit&mdash;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. &ldquo;The
      next time I see you,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I suppose you will be Mrs. Chaworth&rdquo; (for
      she was to retain her family name). Her reply was, &ldquo;I hope so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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
      &ldquo;Dream,&rdquo; and an exquisite picture given of himself, and the lovely object
      of his boyish idolatry&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;I saw two beings to the hues of youth
  Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
  Green, and of mild declivity, the last
  As &lsquo;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;&mdash;the hill
  Was crown&rsquo;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&mdash;the one on all that was beneath
  Fair as herself&mdash;but the boy gazed on her;
  And both were fair, and one was beautiful:
  And both were young&mdash;yet not alike in youth:
  As the sweet moon in the horizon&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      I stood upon the spot consecrated by this memorable interview. Below me
      extended the &ldquo;living landscape,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;You must be attached
      to the old building,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;after having lived so long in it.&rdquo; &ldquo;Ah,
      sir!&rdquo; replied she, &ldquo;I am <i>getting in years</i>, 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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. &ldquo;Nay, nay,&rdquo; exclaimed she, &ldquo;let him alone, let him go where he
      pleases. He&rsquo;s welcome. Ah, dear me! If he lived here I should take great
      care of him&mdash;he should want for nothing.&mdash;Well!&rdquo; continued she,
      fondling him, &ldquo;who would have thought that I should see a dog of Lord
      Byron in Annesley Hall!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose, then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you recollect something of Lord Byron, when he
      used to visit here?&rdquo; &ldquo;Ah, bless him!&rdquo; cried she, &ldquo;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 <i>his bright morning star of
      Annesley</i>.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt the beautiful poetic phrase thrill through me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You appear to like the memory of Lord Byron,&rdquo; said I.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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&mdash;his heart
   Unknowing of its cause of agony.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      There was a little Welsh air, call &ldquo;Mary Ann,&rdquo; which, from bearing her own
      name, he associated with herself, and often persuaded her to sing it over
      and over for him.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;wicked Lord Byron.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      A feeling of the kind he has embodied in one of his stanzas of &ldquo;Don Juan:&rdquo;
     </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Dream,&rdquo; wherein he pictures his departure
      from Annesley, after learning that Mary Chaworth was engaged to be married&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &lsquo;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;&mdash;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&rsquo;d head on his hands, and shook as &lsquo;twere
  With a convulsion&mdash;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,&mdash;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&rsquo;er his face
  A tablet of unutterable thoughts
  Was traced, and then it faded as it came;
  He dropp&rsquo;d the hand he held, and with slow steps
  Return&rsquo;d, but not as bidding her adieu,
  For they did part with mutual smiles:&mdash;he pass&rsquo;d
  From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
  And mounting on his steed he went his way,
  And ne&rsquo;er repassed that hoary threshold more.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yet, notwithstanding what he asserts in the verses last quoted, he did
      pass the &ldquo;hoary threshold&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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&rsquo;s blest&mdash;and &lsquo;twill impart
    Some pangs to view his happier lot:
  But let them pass&mdash;Oh! how my heart
    Would hate him, if he loved thee not!

  &ldquo;When late I saw thy favorite child
    I thought my jealous heart would break;
  But when the unconscious infant smiled,
    I kiss&rsquo;d it for its mother&rsquo;s sake.

  &ldquo;I kiss&rsquo;d it, and repress&rsquo;d my sighs
    Its father in its face to see;
  But then it had its mother&rsquo;s eyes,
    And they were all to love and me.

  &ldquo;Mary, adieu! I must away:
    While thou art blest I&rsquo;ll not repine;
  But near thee I can never stay:
    My heart would soon again be thine.

  &ldquo;I deem&rsquo;d that time, I deem&rsquo;d that pride
    Had quench&rsquo;d at length my boyish flame
  Nor knew, till seated by thy side,
    My heart in all, save love, the same.

  &ldquo;Yet I was calm: I knew the time
    My breast would thrill before thy look;
  But now to tremble were a crime&mdash;
    We met, and not a nerve was shook.

  &ldquo;I saw thee gaze upon my face,
    Yet meet with no confusion there:
  One only feeling could&rsquo;st thou trace;
    The sullen calmness of despair.

  &ldquo;Away! away! my early dream
    Remembrance never must awake:
  Oh! where is Lethe&rsquo;s fabled stream?
    My foolish heart, be still, or break.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;When man expell&rsquo;d from Eden&rsquo;s bowers
    A moment lingered near the gate,
  Each scene recalled the vanish&rsquo;d hours,
    And bade him curse his future fate.

  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;&lsquo;Tis done&mdash;and shivering in the gale
    The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
  And whistling o&rsquo;er the bending mast,
    Loud sings on high the fresh&rsquo;ning blast;
  And I must from this land be gone.
    Because I cannot love but one.

  &ldquo;And I will cross the whitening foam,
    And I will seek a foreign home;
  Till I forget a false fair face,
    I ne&rsquo;er shall find a resting place;
  My own dark thoughts I cannot shun,
    But ever love, and love but one.

  &ldquo;To think of every early scene,
    Of what we are, and what we&rsquo;ve been,
  Would whelm some softer hearts with woe&mdash;
    But mine, alas! has stood the blow;
  Yet still beats on as it begun,
    And never truly loves but one.

  &ldquo;And who that dear loved one may be
    Is not for vulgar eyes to see,
  And why that early love was cross&rsquo;d,
    Thou know&rsquo;st the best, I feel the most;
  But few that dwell beneath the sun
    Have loved so long, and loved but one.

  &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve tried another&rsquo;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.

  &ldquo;&lsquo;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&rsquo;er the deep;
  His home, his hope, his youth are gone,
    Yet still he loves, and loves but one.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;wandering through
      distant climes,&rdquo; 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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen my bride another&rsquo;s bride,&mdash;
  Have seen her seated by his side,&mdash;
  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:&mdash;
  Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,
  Ask if I felt no secret pain.

  &ldquo;And I have acted well my part,
  And made my cheek belie my heart,
  Returned the freezing glance she gave,
  Yet felt the while <i>that</i> woman&rsquo;s slave;&mdash;
  Have kiss&rsquo;d, as if without design,
  The babe which ought to have been mine,
  And show&rsquo;d, alas! in each caress,
  Time had not made me love the less.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was about the time,&rdquo; says Moore in his life of Lord Byron, &ldquo;when he
      was thus bitterly feeling and expressing the blight which his heart had
      suffered from a <i>real</i> object of affection, that his poems on an
      imaginary one, &lsquo;Thyrza,&rsquo; were written.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s works. During his subsequent rambles in the East,
      when time and distance had softened away his &ldquo;early romance&rdquo; 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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &mdash;&mdash;&ldquo;In her home,
  A thousand leagues from his,&mdash;her native home,
  She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy,
  Daughters and sons of beauty, but&mdash;behold!
  Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
  The settled shadow of an inward strife,
  And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
  <i>As if its lids were charged with unshed tears</i>.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;but he rejected the thought almost as soon as
      formed.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;What could her grief be?&mdash;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&rsquo;d affection, her pure thoughts.
  What could her grief be?&mdash;she had loved him not,
  Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
  Nor could he be a part of that which prey&rsquo;d
  Upon her mind&mdash;a spectre of the past.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;bright morning star of Annesley&rdquo; was eclipsed for ever.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;The lady of his love,&mdash;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&rsquo; sight, familiar were to hers.
  And this the world calls frenzy.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;A change came o&rsquo;er the spirit of my dream.
  The wanderer was returned.&mdash;I saw him stand
  Before an altar&mdash;with a gentle bride;
  Her face was fair, but was not that which made
  The star-light of his boyhood;&mdash;as he stood
  Even at the altar, o&rsquo;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&mdash;
  As in that hour&mdash;a moment o&rsquo;er his face
  The tablet of unutterable thoughts
  Was traced,&mdash;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&rsquo;d around him: he could see
  Not that which was, nor that which should have been&mdash;
  But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
  And the remember&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      The history of Lord Byron&rsquo;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 &ldquo;my M. A. C.&rdquo; &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; exclaims he, with a
      sudden burst of feeling, &ldquo;why do I say <i>my</i>? 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 <i>one</i>
      heart, and two persons not ill-matched in years-and&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;what
      has been the result?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE LAKE.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      Such is Lord Byron&rsquo;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 &ldquo;wicked old Lord,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s edge, and clothes the
      hillside opposite to the Abbey. To this woody nook Colonel Wildman has
      given the appropriate title of &ldquo;the Poet&rsquo;s Corner.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;wicked old Lord&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;I never hurt the husbandman,
  That use to till the ground,
  Nor spill their blood that range the wood
  To follow hawk and hound,

  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;&mdash;OLD BALLAD OF ROBIN HOOD.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      ROBIN HOOD AND SHERWOOD FOREST.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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, &ldquo;adorned with cuts,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;merry Sherwood,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;The Pilgrim Oak.&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The &ldquo;old Lord Byron,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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&rsquo;d say,
  The mighty stag at noontide lay,
  While doe, and roe, and red-deer good,
  Hare bounded by through gay green-wood.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      At no great distance from Ravenshead Oak is a small cave which goes by the
      name of Robin Hood&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Descending from the cliffs and remounting my horse, a ride of a mile or
      two further along a narrow &ldquo;robber path,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s cell, or hermitage,
      where, according to tradition, that jovial anchorite used to make good
      cheer and boisterous revel with his freebooting comrades.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such were some of the vestiges of old Sherwood and its renowned
      &ldquo;yeomandrie,&rdquo; 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
      &ldquo;stag-headed,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   &lsquo;A thousand vassals mustered round
   With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound;
   And through the brake the rangers stalk,
   And falc&rsquo;ners hold the ready hawk;
   And foresters in green-wood trim
   Lead in the leash the greyhound grim.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;a mouldering oak, and a
      tradition.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;We are such stuff as dreams are made of!&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;leafy honors&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      As I gazed about me upon these vestiges of once &ldquo;Merrie Sherwood,&rdquo; the
      picturings of my boyish fancy began to rise in my mind, and Robin Hood and
      his men to stand before me.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   &ldquo;He clothed himself in scarlet then,
    His men were all in green;
   A finer show throughout the world
    In no place could be seen.

  &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s axe roused me from my
      day-dream.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Merrie Sherwood&rdquo; will exist but
      in ballad and tradition.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;O for the poetical superstitions,&rdquo; thought I, &ldquo;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 &lsquo;working-day world.&rsquo;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I paused to listen.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They are merely the evening bells of Mansfield,&rdquo; said my companion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of Mansfield!&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   &ldquo;The curtal fryar kept Fountain dale
    Seven long years and more,
   There was neither lord, knight or earl
    Could make him yield before.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   &ldquo;From ten o&rsquo;clock that very day
   Until four in the afternoon,&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      and ended in the treaty of fellowship. As to the hardy feats, both of
      sword and trencher, performed by this &ldquo;curtal fryar,&rdquo; behold are they not
      recorded at length in the ancient ballads, and in the magic pages of
      Ivanhoe?
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Thieves&rsquo; Wood,&rdquo; and the
      &ldquo;Murderers&rsquo; Stone,&rdquo; and &ldquo;the Hag Nook,&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE ROOK CELL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
&mdash;&mdash;&ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;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&rsquo;er tree or tower;
  The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such
  The fact:&mdash;I&rsquo;ve heard it,&mdash;once perhaps too much.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;Don Juan.&rdquo;
     </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Then as the night was clear, though cold, he threw
    His chamber door wide open&mdash;and went forth
  Into a gallery, of sombre hue,
    Long furnish&rsquo;d with old pictures of great worth,
  Of knights and dames, heroic and chaste too,
    As doubtless should be people of high birth.

  &ldquo;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&mdash;or a mouse,
  Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
  Most people, as it plays along the arras.

  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;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&rsquo;t
    Beyond the rumor which such spots unfold,
  Coin&rsquo;d from surviving superstition&rsquo;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?

  &ldquo;Once, twice, thrice pass&rsquo;d, repass&rsquo;d&mdash;the thing of air,
    Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t&rsquo;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&rsquo;d his tongue for words, which were not granted
  To ask the reverend person what he wanted.

  &ldquo;The third time, after a still longer pause,
    The shadow pass&rsquo;d away&mdash;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&rsquo;d to evaporate.

  &ldquo;He stood, how long he knew not, but it seem&rsquo;d
    An age&mdash;expectant, powerless, with his eyes
  Strain&rsquo;d on the spot where first the figure gleam&rsquo;d:
    Then by degrees recall&rsquo;d his energies,
  And would have pass&rsquo;d the whole off as a dream.
    But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,
  Waking already, and return&rsquo;d at length
  Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;black
      and shapeless with glaring eyes&rdquo; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE LITTLE WHITE LADY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In the course of a morning&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What a figure for a fairy or sprite!&rdquo; exclaimed Colonel Wildman. &ldquo;How
      much a poet or a romance writer would make of such an apparition, at such
      a time and in such a place!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;after all, this is neither sprite nor fairy, but a being
      of flesh, and blood, and muslin.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Has nobody passed by here?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No one, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s strange! Surely I met a female in white, who must have passed
      along this path.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, sir, you mean the Little White Lady&mdash;oh, yes, she passed by here
      not long since.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Little White Lady! And pray who is the Little White Lady?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know what to make of her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Colonel Wildman&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am always among strangers,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Little White Lady now resumed her daily walks in the Monk&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two or three extracts may not be unacceptable. The following are from a
      long rhapsody addressed to Lord Byron:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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.

  &ldquo;Not that fond love which passion breathes
    And youthful hearts inflame;
  The soul a nobler homage gives,
    And bows to thy great name.

  &ldquo;Oft have we own&rsquo;d the muses&rsquo; skill,
    And proved the power of song,
  But sweeter notes ne&rsquo;er woke the thrill
    That solely to thy verse belong.

  &ldquo;This&mdash;but far more, for thee we prove,
    Something that bears a holier name,
  Than the pure dream of early love,
    Or friendship&rsquo;s nobler flame.

  &ldquo;Something divine&mdash;Oh! what it is
    Thy muse alone can tell,
  So sweet, but so profound the bliss
    We dread to break the spell.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;I ne&rsquo;er have drunk thy glance&mdash;thy form
    My earthly eye has never seen,
  Though oft when fancy&rsquo;s visions warm,
    It greets me in some blissful dream.

  &ldquo;Greets me, as greets the sainted seer
    Some radiant visitant from high,
  When heaven&rsquo;s own strains break on his ear,
    And wrap his soul in ecstasy.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s Hill in Annesley
      Park, a &ldquo;sylph-like form,&rdquo; in a car drawn by milk-white horses, passing by
      the foot of the hill, who proved to be the &ldquo;favorite child,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The benevolent condescension,&rdquo; says
      she, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s affairs, and to forward any letters she might write, so
      as to insure their reaching their place of destination.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Written beneath the tree on Crowholt Hill, where it is my wish to be
      interred (if I should die in Newstead).&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I subjoin a few of the stanzas: they are addressed to Lord Byron:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Thou, while thou stand&rsquo;st beneath this tree,
    While by thy foot this earth is press&rsquo;d,
  Think, here the wanderer&rsquo;s ashes be&mdash;
    And wilt thou say, sweet be thy rest!

  &ldquo;&lsquo;Twould add even to a seraph&rsquo;s bliss,
    Whose sacred charge thou then may be,
  To guide&mdash;to guard&mdash;yes, Byron! yes,
    That glory is reserved for me.&rdquo;

  &ldquo;If woes below may plead above
    A frail heart&rsquo;s errors, mine forgiven,
  To that &lsquo;high world&rsquo; I soar, where &lsquo;love
    Surviving&rsquo; forms the bliss of Heaven.

  &ldquo;O wheresoe&rsquo;er, in realms above,
    Assign&rsquo;d my spirit&rsquo;s new abode,
  &lsquo;Twill watch thee with a seraph&rsquo;s love,
    Till thou too soar&rsquo;st to meet thy God.

  &ldquo;And here, beneath this lonely tree&mdash;
    Beneath the earth thy feet have press&rsquo;d,
  My dust shall sleep&mdash;once dear to thee
    These scenes&mdash;here may the wanderer rest!&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The following sonnet is the most coherent and most descriptive of her
      peculiar state of mind:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Well, thou art gone&mdash;but what wert thou to me?
    I never saw thee&mdash;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&rsquo;s core;
  &lsquo;Tis my soul&rsquo;s soul&mdash;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&rsquo;s dominion.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have long,&rdquo; writes she, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s dreadful fate will be mine. It is not
      ordinary insanity I so much apprehend, but something worse&mdash;absolute
      idiotism!
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s
      behavior to me at times, and from after reflections upon my conduct, that
      symptoms of the disease are already apparent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Five months passed away, but the letters written by her, and forwarded by
      Colonel Wildman to America relative to her brother&rsquo;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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;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&rsquo;s pensive hour.

  &ldquo;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&mdash;Ah! in these lonely vales,
    I hoped, vainly hoped, that the pilgrim might rest.

  &ldquo;Yet rest is far distant&mdash;in the dark vale of death,
    Alone I shall find it, an outcast forlorn&mdash;
  But hence vain complaints, though by fortune bereft
    Of all that could solace in life&rsquo;s early morn.

  Is not man from his birth doomed a pilgrim to roam
    O&rsquo;er the world&rsquo;s dreary wilds, whence by fortune&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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 &ldquo;her altar.&rdquo;
       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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The last time,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is with extreme reluctance,&rdquo; observed she, &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;compelled to throw myself upon Colonel Wildman&rsquo;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&mdash;it is not love of life, believe me it is not,
      nor anxiety for its preservation. I cannot say, &lsquo;There are things that
      make the world dear to me,&rsquo;&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Another part of her letter develops more completely the dark despondency
      hinted at in the conclusion of the foregoing extract&mdash;and presents a
      lamentable instance of a mind diseased, which sought in vain, amidst
      sorrow and calamity, the sweet consolations of religious faith.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That my existence has hitherto been prolonged,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;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&mdash;then why
      should I distrust its care now? I do not <i>dis</i>trust it&mdash;neither
      do I trust it. I feel perfectly unanxious, unconcerned, and indifferent as
      to the future; but this is not trust in Providence&mdash;not that trust
      which alone claims it protections. I know this is a blamable indifference&mdash;it
      is more&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;endless
      rest. &lsquo;For rest&mdash;but not to feel &rsquo;tis rest,&rsquo; 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 &lsquo;clod of the valley.&rsquo; With this conviction, but without a hope to
      brighten the prospect of that dread future:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;&lsquo;I dare not look beyond the tomb, Yet cannot hope for peace before.&rsquo; 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&mdash;that sweet solace of refined
      conversation; the little intercourse I have at any time with those around
      me cannot be termed conversation&mdash;they are not kindred spirits&mdash;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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;&lsquo;Yet this was in my nature&mdash;&rsquo;
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I am giving long extracts from this letter, yet I cannot refrain from
      subjoining another letter, which depicts her feelings with respect to
      Newstead.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Permit me, madame, again to request your and Colonel Wildman&rsquo;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.&mdash;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&mdash;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 <i>my
      Altar</i>&mdash;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.&rdquo;...
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;s prompt benevolence, Mrs. Wildman, before she laid
      her head upon her pillow, wrote the following letter to the destitute
      stranger:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
&ldquo;NEWSTEAD ABBEY,
  &ldquo;Tuesday night, September 20, 1825.
</pre>
    <p>
      &ldquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Believe me, dear madam, with sincere good wishes,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &ldquo;Yours truly,
    &ldquo;LOUISA WILDMAN.&rdquo;
 </pre>
    <p>
      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&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;It was the corpse of the Little White Lady!
    </p>
    <p>
      It seems that on arriving in town and dismounting from the cart, the
      farmer&rsquo;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.
    </p>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
<pre xml:space="preserve">






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