Mr. Henderson of Eildon
Hall, had together on the effect which would be produced on the view
from their respective houses, of the planting going on upon the lands
of each. The reciprocity of feeling was such that the various
proprietors acted more like brothers in this matter, than like the
jealous and exclusive creatures which landowners, as such, so often
are.

Next to his interest in the management and growth of his own little
estate was Scott's interest in the management and growth of the Duke
of Buccleuch's. To the Duke he looked up as the head of his clan, with
something almost more than a feudal attachment, greatly enhanced of
course by the personal friendship which he had formed for him in early
life as the Earl of Dalkeith. This mixture of feudal and personal
feeling towards the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch continued during
their lives. Scott was away on a yachting tour to the Shetlands and
Orkneys in July and August, 1814, and it was during this absence that
the Duchess of Buccleuch died. Scott, who was in no anxiety about her,
employed himself in writing an amusing descriptive epistle to the Duke
in rough verse, chronicling his voyage, and containing expressions of
the profoundest reverence for the goodness and charity of the Duchess,
a letter which did not reach its destination till after the Duchess's
death. Scott himself heard of her death by chance when they landed for
a few hours on the coast of Ireland; he was quite overpowered by the
news, and went to bed only to drop into short nightmare sleeps, and to
wake with the dim memory of some heavy weight at his heart. The Duke
himself died five years later, leaving a son only thirteen years of
age (the present Duke), over whose interests, both as regarded his
education and his estates, Scott watched as jealously as if they had
been those of his own son. Many were the anxious letters he wrote to
Lord Montague as to his "young chief's" affairs, as he called them,
and great his pride in watching the promise of his youth. Nothing can
be clearer than that to Scott the feudal principle was something far
beyond a name; that he had at least as much pride in his devotion to
his chief, as he had in founding a house which he believed would
increase the influence--both territorial and personal--of the clan of
Scotts. The unaffected reverence which he felt for the Duke, though
mingled with warm personal affection, showed that Scott's feudal
feeling had something real