s "den," a small room behind the dining parlour, in company with
his dog, Maida. Besides his own huge elbow-chair, there were but two
others in the room, and one of these was reserved for his amanuensis, a
portrait of Claverhouse, over the chimneypiece, with a Highland target
on either side and broadswords and dirks disposed star-fashion round
them. A venerable cat, fat and sleek, watched the proceedings of his
toaster AND Maids with dignified equanimity.

_Abbotsford_

The house of Abbotsford was not completed, and finally rid of carpenters
and upholsterers, until Christmas, 1824; but the first time I saw it was
in 1818, and from that time onwards Scott's hospitality was extended
freely not only to the proprietors and tenants of the surrounding
district, but to a never-ending succession of visitors who came to
Abbotsford as pilgrims. In the seven or eight brilliant seasons when his
prosperity was at its height, he entertained under his roof as many
persons of distinction in rank, in politics, in art, in literature, and
in science, as the most princely nobleman of his age ever did in the
like space of time. It is not beyond the mark to add that of the eminent
foreigners who visited our Island within this period, a moiety crossed
the Channel mainly in consequence of the interest in which his writings
had invested Scotland, and that the hope of beholding the man under his
own roof was the crowning motive with half that moiety. His rural
neighbours were assembled principally at two annual festivals of sport;
one was a solemn bout of salmon fishing for the neighbouring gentry,
presided over by the Sheriff; and the other was the "Abbotsford Hunt," a
coursing field on a large scale, including, with many of the young
gentry, all Scott's personal favourites among the yeomen and farmers of
the surrounding country.

Notwithstanding all his prodigious hospitality, his double official
duties as Sheriff and Clerk of Session, the labours and anxieties in
which the ill-directed and tottering firm of Ballantyne involved him,
the keen interest which he took in every detail of the adornment of the
house and estate of Abbotsford, and finally, notwithstanding obstinate
and agonizing attacks of internal cramp which were undermining his
constitution, Scott continued to produce rapidly the wonderful series of
the Waverley Novels. "The Bride of Lammermoor," "Legend of Montrose" and
"Ivanhoe" appeared in 1819, "The Monastery," "The Abbot"