MS. play, by a young lady of New York, who kindly
requested me to read and correct it, equip it with prologue and
epilogue, procure for it a favorable reception from the manager of
Drury Lane, and make Murray or Constable bleed handsomely for the
copyright; and on inspecting the cover, I found that I had been
charged five pounds odd for the postage. This was bad enough--but
there was no help, so I groaned and submitted. A fortnight or so
after, another packet, of not less formidable bulk, arrived, and I was
absent enough to break its seal, too, without examination. Conceive my
horror when out jumped the same identical tragedy of The Cherokee
Lovers, with a second epistle from the authoress, stating that, as the
winds had been boisterous, she feared the vessel entrusted with her
former communication might have foundered, and therefore judged it
prudent to forward a duplicate."

Scott said he must retire to answer his letters, but that the sociable
and the ponies would be at the door by one o'clock, when he proposed
to show Melrose and Dryburgh to Lady Melville and any of the rest of
the party that chose to accompany them; adding that his son Walter
would lead anybody who preferred a gun to the likeliest place for a
blackcock, and that Charlie Purdie (Tom's brother) would attend upon
Mr. Wilson, and whoever else chose to try a cast of the salmon-rod. He
withdrew when all this was arranged, and appeared at the time
appointed, with perhaps a dozen letters sealed for the post, and a
coach-parcel addressed to James Ballantyne, which he dropt at the
turnpike-gate as we drove to Melrose. Seeing it picked up by a dirty
urchin, and carried {p.285} into a hedge pot-house, where
half-a-dozen nondescript wayfarers were smoking and tippling, I could
not but wonder that it had not been the fate of some one of those
innumerable packets to fall into unscrupulous hands, and betray the
grand secret. That very morning we had seen two post-chaises drawn up
at his gate, and the enthusiastic travellers, seemingly decent
tradesmen and their families, who must have been packed in a manner
worthy of Mrs. Gilpin, lounging about to catch a glimpse of him at his
going forth. But it was impossible in those days to pass between
Melrose and Abbotsford without encountering some odd figure, armed
with a sketch-book, evidently bent on a peep at the Great Unknown; and
it must be allowed that many of these pedestrians looked as if they
might have thought