Statements concerning Sir Walter Scott. 271 



the older parts of the house are used in a different way 

 from what they were by Sir Walter and Lady Scott, some- 

 times makes it difRcult to convince ppople that it is perfectly 

 well known what their arrangements in the main were. 

 They were probably by no means the same as those of 

 the Eussells ; Colonel Kussell, in whose time the previous 

 addition to the house had been made, had a large family, 

 and being long in bad health, probably but little company. 

 Mr and Mrs Scott, as they were at the time of their 

 occupancy, had four young children, and an inordinate 

 number of visitors. 



Ashiesteel was by no means so out of the way at this 

 time as might be supposed ; one of the coaches between 

 London and Edinburgh crossed the Yair bridge, three 

 miles off. 



And, amocg others, it is known that Miss Anne Russell 

 was there on one occasion, and it is quite probable that 

 some of the family were there most seasons. 



Miss Christian Rutherford, who was then living with her 

 nieces at Lauriston Tower, near Edinburgh, is recorded to 

 have been at Ashiesteel when 8ir Walter was writing the 

 tirst chapters of " Waverley." She insisted ou knowing what 

 he was getting up so early for ; he must have lately 

 adapted the practice, for the Wordsworths had called at the 

 Lasswade House, two years before, and found nobody up. 



She, like his other principal advisers, and, for that matter, 

 perhaps most readers, was unfavourably impressed by those 

 first chapters; in fact it is intelligible enough that he laid 

 it aside and eventually published it anonymously. But she 

 was, of course, good authority as to his doing his early 

 writing in the dining-parlour, though the window which his 

 greyhounds used to get in and out of has now become a 

 press. The older part of the house is not much altered, 

 except in such details. 



It is quite possible that the view of Caddonlee, with the 

 old ramparts, and of the valley beyond it, from the back 

 of the house, may have had something to do with a 

 singularly uncomfortable arrangement of the Scotts. 



The family bedroom was in the gable of the west wino-, 

 but Sir Walter's dressing-room, where he kept his books, 

 was the furthest of three small bedrooms opening out of one 



