XVI. 



ASHESTIEL AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



" Great nature mocks us if the heart can take 

 No tribute of high memory to invest 

 Her beauty with the sense of love and good : 

 I think of one who here did offering make 

 Of heart and hope — within whose gentle breast 

 Stirred thoughts for all that moved to higher mood." 



THIS is precisely the feeling with which we look at 

 Ashestiel. It is not by any means the most romantic 

 and beautiful portion of the Tweed. The heights are 

 here too far removed from the river, and the banks, 

 though well wooded, do not rise to a sufficiently high 

 slope, as they do above Neidpath Castle, for instance, 

 or below Peebles. But it is full of association and 

 romantic interest, because it was here that Sir Walter 

 Scott for several years found a home, and spent a very 

 active and interesting portion of his life. The constant 

 journeyings from Lasswade, where he had had a cottage 

 on a picturesque bank of the Esk, to discharge the 

 duties of the Sheriffship of Selkirkshire, ran away with 

 too much of his time, and the good folks of Selkirkshire 

 too, not unnaturally, grudged so much of the " Shirra's" 

 presence to other parts, and so he resolved to find a 

 house within the sphere of his judicial duties. 



On the 4th May 1804 we find him writing thus to 

 his friend Ellis : — 



" I have been engaged in travelling backwards and 



