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280 FISHING GOSSIP. 
stood in comparative proximity; and it was but 
natural too, having disparted the shutters and raised 
the blind, to gaze out, if not by moonlight, by starry 
influences of a purer order, in the direction of the 
Abbey. More conspicuous than even the outline of 
its mouldering walls were the stately yews that keep 
sentinelship in their vicinity. The effect imparted 
by them heightened greatly the solemn interest of the 
scene, but not more than did the moaning of the ad- 
jacent river, and the hooting at intervals of an owl 
which had left the monastic ivies, and sate perched 
high up among the plumes of one of the aforesaid 
sentinels, within fifty yards of where I stood. Not 
readily shall I forget the impression produced upon 
me under this appropriate combination of circum- 
stances ; but to describe how the emotions were 
worked upon until they lapsed into the condition 
best expressed as a state of reverie, is not easy. To 
me, when a mere boy, and during my attendance at 
the Edinburgh University classes, Sir Walter Scott 
in the flesh,—the towering figure, not ungainly in 
itself, but made so to a slight extent, in the view of 
the distant observer, through the medium of a mal- 
formed limb—the peaked forehead—small but saga- 
cious eyes, which were given effect to by their shagey, 
singularly shaggy brows,—all were familiar. As 
one of the deputy-clerks of Session, sitting in his 
place before the First Division of the Court, I had 
