of 1804 until the end of May, 1812, when he removed to Abbotsford. "A more beautiful situation for the residence of a poet could not be conceived," wrote Lockhart. "The house was then a small one, but, compared with the cottage at Lasswade, its accommodations were amply sufficient. You approached it through an old-fashioned garden, with holly hedges, and broad, green, terrace walks. On one side, close under the windows, is a deep ravine, clothed with venerable trees, down which a mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen, in its progress to the Tweed. The river itself is separated from the high bank on which the house stands, only by a narrow meadow of the richest verdure. Opposite, and all around, are the green hills. The valley there is narrow, and the aspect in every direction is that of perfect pastoral repose." "There was hardly even a gentleman's family within visiting distance." "The country all around, with here and there an insignificant exception, belongs to the Buccleuch estate; so that, whichever way he chose to turn, the bard of the clan had ample room and verge enough." "Ashiestiel," says William Howitt, "occupied as an abode a marked and joyous period of Scott's life. He was now a happy husband, the happy father of a lovely young family. Fortune was smiling on him. He held an honorable, and to him, delightful office, that of the Sheriff of the County of Selkirk; which bound him up with almost all that Border ballad country, in which he revelled as in a perfect fairy land." "He was acknowledged, though Southey, Wordsworth, Campbell, and Coleridge were now pouring out their finest productions, to be the most original and popular writer of the day." At Ashiestiel he composed "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," the "Lady of the Lake," and lesser works. "There was to be one fresh and higher flight, even by him, that of 'The Great Unknown,' and this was reserved for Abbotsford. There the fame of his romances began," "but here the sun of his poetic reputation ascended to its zenith. In particular, the poem of Marmion will for ever recall the memory and the scenery of Ashiestiel. The introductions to the different cantos, than which there are no poems in the English language more beautiful of their kind, are all imbued with the spirit of the place. They breathe at once the solitary beauty of the hills, the lovely charm of river, wood, and heath, and the genial blaze of the domestic hearth, on which love and friendship, and gladsome spirits of childhood, and the admiration of eager visitors to the secluded abode of 'The Last Minstrel,' had made an earthly paradise." The house, considerably altered since Scott's time, was made out of an old Border tower. "In the room looking down the Tweed, a beautiful view, Scott wrote." In his little drawing-room here, at least on a single occasion, "he entertained three duchesses at once." Revisiting this place in 1826 (after his financial troubles), Scott wrote in his diary: "Here I passed some happy years. Did I ever pass unhappy years anywhere? None that I remember, save those at the High School, which I thoroughly detested on account of the confinement." The estate is charmingly kept, and is, or lately was, in possession of a branch of his family. XXXII. "THE BLACK DWARF." Fourth Novel of the Series; written 1816; Published December, 1816; TRAVELLERS, while at Innerleithen, can easily visit places reputed to have witnessed some of the more important action of this story, and by there recalling it, can find not only an appropriate introduction to the Border Country that they are supposed to be approaching, but also agreeable illustration of characteristics of the last generation of those turbulent but picturesque persons who so peculiarly pertain to that region. Scott, when publishing this work, attempted, with little success, to divert from himself reputation of its authorship, in order to maintain his fancied disguise. It appeared as the First Series of the "Tales of my Landlord," and was dedicated "To His Loving Countrymen Men of the South, Gentlemen of the North, Illustrative of Ancient Scottish manners, Traditions of their respective districts, "Harold the Dauntless." by "Walter Scott," was almost simultaneously published; but this strategy did not render the disguise more impenetrable, and the poet generally received the credit due "The Great Unknown." The opening scene of this story introduces “The Black Dwarf" on Mucklestane Moor," a "dreary common," "in one of the most remote districts of the south of Scotland," a tract that can be recog nized as a generic description of much of the wild “Midland Border." The Dwarf, called "Elshander the Recluse," or "Cannie Elshie," had built there a stone hut, where he lived entirely alone. Halbert, or “ Hobbie Elliot of the Heugh-foot," a farmer, and the young Laird of Earnscliff (the former living in that vicinity) discovered him one night, while they were returning from a hunt. Thinking him a spirit, they then and afterward watched his movements, but their investigations did not immediately dispel the mystery attending him. When the season advanced and became more genial (as we are told), he sometimes sat outside the door of his hut, and thus was one day surprised by a party on horseback. Three of the riders - young ladies — succeeded in preventing his retreat; while the best mounted, best dressed, and incomparably the bestlooking of the three," began conversation with him. He recognized her, Isabella Vere, daughter of the Laird of Ellieslaw, and thus he began to make us acquainted with one of the secrets of the story. She soon departed with the company in which she came. In this was “a dark, stiff, and stately Sir Frederick Langley," a great favorite with her father, but not the least with her. Nevertheless, for some strange reason, he was her companion and suitor; and she seemed doomed to become his bride. The party with which she was riding, after travelling over a rough country, came duly to the castle of her father, named like his title, Ellieslaw. The original of this structure is said, by the wise, to be Traquair House, seat of the Earl of Traquair, across the river from Innerleithen; and if so, one, when at "St. Ronan's," may read pleasantly this story of its older stirring and picturesque times. "Traquair House or Palace" "as it is sometimes called," says Chambers, "received its present character from John, first Earl, since whose time little has been done." "Originally it was nothing more than a border tower," to which have been added "edifices of the reign of Charles I." It stands "at the head of a green meadow, where it rises amid the trees with its back towards the river." The front (three or four stories high, capped by a heavy roof and "pepper-box" turrets) "faces southward," along a broad avenue. This terminates in a "gateway" flanked by two heavy square posts, each surmounted by a bear in stone, executed in 1747, thought to suggest Tully Veolan in "Waverley," and the multitudinous bears of the Barons of Bradwardine. "The walls of the house are of great thickness and the accommodation is that of a past age. The library contains an interesting collection of books." The place recalls the lines by James Hogg, "Over the hills to Traquair ;" and a neighboring stream also recalls those by Rev. James Nichols, -"Where Quair rins sweet amang the flouirs," while one of the older of Scottish ballads sings of the forest of birches once here. The forest was, long ago, reduced to a few trees, and is now represented almost wholly by modern growths. Crawford's Bush aboon Traquair" is another metrical flower of its poetic garland. 66 So celebrated, indeed, is the place for its charms, and in local poetry, that another bard of this region, Dr. Pennecuik, has written the assertion, that, "On fair Tweedside, from Berwick to the Bield, So many charms, by nature and by art, Do there combine to captivate the heart, And please the eye, with what is fine and rare, An anecdote, related in the Third Part of the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," respecting an Earl of this House, illustrates curiously the times "of the very last Border freebooter of any note, William Armstrong, called also "Christie's Will." The Earl, when once at Jedburgh, procured release of this worthy from confinement for horse-stealing. "Some time afterward a lawsuit, of importance to Lord Traquair, was to be decided at the Court of Session" (Edinburgh); “and there was every reason to believe that judgment would turn upon the voice of the presiding judge, who has a casting vote, in case of an equal division among his brethren. The opinion of the president was unfavorable to Lord Traquair; and the point was, therefore, to keep him out of the way when the question should be tried. In this dilemma, the Earl had recourse to Christie's Will; who, at once, offered his service to kidnap the president. Upon due scrutiny, he found it was the judge's practice frequently to take the air, on horseback, on the sands of Leith, without an attendant. In one of these excursions, Christie's Will, who had long watched his opportunity, ventured to accost the president, and engage him in conversation." He thus succeeded in decoying him to a lonely spot, muffling him in a large cloak, and, by unfrequented paths, bearing him to the Tower of Graham, in Annandale, near Moffat, where he imprisoned him until the lawsuit was decided in favor of Lord Traquair. Will was then "directed to set the president at liberty;" and the latter, accordingly, was replaced on the sands of Leith, so cunningly that many years elapsed before he was able to learn the mode of his abduction, both he and his friends, meanwhile, being persuaded that it was effected by witchcraft. A clever ballad describes this lively affair. There is another specimen of the " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," relating to a fight said to have taken place near Traquair in an adventure of a Lord Lochinvar, "Out frae the English Border," very like that told in "Marmion." The ballad is entitled "Katherine Janfarie," "a weel-far'd may," "courted by mony men." Miss Vere was left at home with the "dark" Sir Frederick whom she detested, and with her mysterious father (for he grew stranger on acquaintance). Meanwhile, incidents elsewhere illustrate the social life of the times. Hobbie Elliot had, somehow, given real or pretended offence to a very wild neighbor, "Willie of Westburnflat ;" an example of the last of the Border Reivers, who demonstrated his sentiments by burning Hobbie's house and barns, and by carrying off― beside lesser plunder of cattle — Grace Armstrong, an extremely nice girl to whom Hobbie was soon to be married. Hobbie, with friends and allies, was soon seeking his lost treasure, at Willie's stronghold. This was an example of the style of structures inhabited by the "gentlemen" who practised such expressions of feeling, structures of which many remains continue to exist through the Border Country. The one here described is considered Goldieland, a wellknown "peel" standing on a bank overlooking the road southwest from Hawick, and not far from Branxholm Castle of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." "The tower," says the story, "was a small square building of the most gloomy aspect. The walls were of great thickness; and the windows, or slits which served the purpose of windows, seemed rather calculated to afford the defenders the means |