t neighbour was at Yair, a few miles off lower down
the Tweed,--Yair of which he wrote in another of the introductions to
_Marmion_:--

"From Yair, which hills so closely bind
Scarce can the Tweed his passage find,
Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil,
Till all his eddying currents boil."

At Ashestiel it was one of his greatest delights to look after his
relative's woods, and to dream of planting and thinning woods of his
own, a dream only too amply realized. It was here that a new
kitchen-range was sunk for some time in the ford, which was so swollen
by a storm in 1805 that the horse and cart that brought it were
themselves with difficulty rescued from the waters. And it was here
that Scott first entered on that active life of literary labour in
close conjunction with an equally active life of rural sport, which
gained him a well-justified reputation as the hardest worker and the
heartiest player in the kingdom. At Lasswade Scott's work had been
done at night; but serious headaches made him change his habit at
Ashestiel, and rise steadily at five, lighting his own fire in winter.
"Arrayed in his shooting-jacket, or whatever dress he meant to use
till dinner-time, he was seated at his desk by six o'clock, all his
papers arranged before him in the most accurate order, and his books
of reference marshalled around him on the floor, while at least one
favourite dog lay watching his eye, just beyond the line of
circumvallation. Thus, by the time the family assembled for breakfast,
between nine and ten, he had done enough, in his own language, 'to
break the neck of the day's work.' After breakfast a couple of hours
more were given to his solitary tasks, and by noon he was, as he used
to say, his 'own man.' When the weather was bad, he would labour
incessantly all the morning; but the general rule was to be out and on
horseback by one o'clock at the latest; while, if any more distant
excursion had been proposed overnight, he was ready to start on it by
ten; his occasional rainy days of unintermitted study, forming, as he
said, a fund in his favour, out of which he was entitled to draw for
accommodation whenever the sun shone with special brightness." In his
earlier days none of his horses liked to be fed except by their
master. When Brown Adam was saddled, and the stable-door opened, the
horse would trot round to the leaping-on stone of his own accord, to
be mounted, and was quite intractable under any