SCOTT'S LAST JOURNEY HOME. 71 



picture to the foregoing but in melancholy contrast 

 to it let us extract Lockhart's account of the last sad 

 home-coming of the great Magician of the Tweed. No 

 Borderer will " lay his banes far frae the Tweed," if 

 he can help it, and Sir Walter Scott felt at Naples 

 that he could not die away from Abbotsford. He came 

 back to London, and, although almost bereft of thought 

 and consciousness, still longed for his border-home, and 

 was brought to Edinburgh. Few Scotsmen, we fancy, 

 can read the narrative of his final journey to Abbots- 

 ford through familiar scenes, without an uncomfortable 

 sensation about the eyes : - 



"At a very early hour on the morning of Wednesday the llth, 

 we again placed him in his carriage, and he lay in the same 

 torpid state during the first two stages on the road to Tweed- 

 side. But as we descended the vale of the Gala he began to 

 gaze about him, and by degrees it was obvious that he was 

 recognising the features of that familiar landscape. Presently 

 he murmured a name or two ' Gala-water, surely Buckholm 

 Torwoodlee.' As we rounded the hill at Ladhope, and the 

 outline of the Eildons burst on him, he became greatly excited ; 

 and when turning himself on the couch his eye caught at length 

 his own towers at the distance of a mile, he sprang up with a 

 cry of delight. The river being in flood, we had to go round 

 a few miles by Melrose Bridge, and during the time this occu- 

 pied, his woods and house being within prospect, it required 

 occasionally both Dr. Watson's strength and mine, in addition 

 to Nicolson's, to keep him in the carriage. After passing the 

 bridge, the road for a couple of miles loses sight of Abbotsford, 

 and he relapsed into his stupor ; but on gaining the bank im- 

 mediately above it, his excitement became again ungovernable. 



" Mr. Laidlaw was waiting at the porch, and assisted us in 

 lifting him in. He sat bewildered for a few moments, and then 

 resting his eyes on Laidlaw, said ' Ha ! Willie Laidlaw ! man 

 how often have I thought of jou ! ' By this time his dogs had 

 assembled about his chair they began to fawn upon him and 

 lick his hand, and he alternately sobbed and smiled over them 

 until sleep oppressed him." 



He died on the 21st of September 1832, and five 

 days afterwards a stream of mourners followed his body 



