272 Statements concerning Sir Walter Scott. 



another on the other side of the staircase. The nearest, 

 which would have been the most obvious for the purpose, 

 was somewhat the largest, and therefore most available as a 

 guest-chamber ; and the second, which was then quite a 

 small bedroom, was the only one of the three which had 

 the advantage of a fireplace. This and the third, which 

 was then somewhat larger than it is now, and seems to 

 have suited Sir Walter's purpose well enough, could also 

 be reached by another stair. 



And both had the view down the valley. But when 

 either of the bedrooms was occupied, Sir Walter could only 

 get to his dressing-room by going down a steep stair, along 

 the passage on the ground floor, and up another stair, 

 lighted only by panes of glass in the wall of the dressing- 

 room. The separate entrance of this was done away by the 

 shifting of the partition, which changed the two rooms into 

 a good bedroom with a small dressing-room. 



It is quite possible this change might not have been made 

 if it had been known how specially connected the dressing- 

 room was with Sir Walter; but there was no one at all 

 in the way who remembered it, and certainly no one would 

 have conjectured that the rooms were used in this way. 



It is rather to be regretted that we do not know more 

 of this part of Sir Walter's life ; his reputation rested, 

 ostensibly at least, chiefly on the poems which he was 

 writing at this period. The only visitor who seems to have 

 left any record of his visit at Ashiesteel is Mr Murray, and 

 him he took one day to Melrose, and the next to the Eildon 

 hills, which is quite in keeping with the fact that his 

 interest in the country was in Koxburghshire. 



It was only under pressure from the Lord Lieutenant that 

 he came to live in his sheriffdom of Selkirk. Marmion is 

 the one of his works undoubtedly connected with Ashiesteel, 

 and it is generally the solitude of the country that he dwells 

 upon. He had previously located the Lay of the Minstrel at 

 Newark, but as the story was written for the Buccleugh 

 family, that was the natural frame, as Branxholme was the 

 natural scene of it. As to the visitors, the Wordsworths 

 were in Scotland the year before the Scotts moved to 

 Ashiesteel from Lass wade. It was probably one of the ''old 

 halls " Dorothy Wordsworth mentions having seen from the 



