one but Scott. Scott's
life might well be fairly divided--just as history is divided into
reigns--by the succession of his horses and dogs. The reigns of
Captain, Lieutenant, Brown Adam, Daisy, divide at least the period up
to Waterloo; while the reigns of Sybil Grey, and the Covenanter, or
Douce Davie, divide the period of Scott's declining years. During the
brilliant period of the earlier novels we hear less of Scott's horses;
but of his deerhounds there is an unbroken succession. Camp, Maida
(the "Bevis" of _Woodstock_), and Nimrod, reigned successively between
Sir Walter's marriage and his death. It was Camp on whose death he
relinquished a dinner invitation previously accepted, on the ground
that the death of "an old friend" rendered him unwilling to dine out;
Maida to whom he erected a marble monument, and Nimrod of whom he
spoke so affectingly as too good a dog for his diminished fortunes
during his absence in Italy on the last hopeless journey.

Scott's amusements at Ashestiel, besides riding, in which he was
fearless to rashness, and coursing, which was the chief form of
sporting in the neighbourhood, comprehended "burning the water," as
salmon-spearing by torchlight was called, in the course of which he
got many a ducking. Mr. Skene gives an amusing picture of their
excursions together from Ashestiel among the hills, he himself
followed by a lanky Savoyard, and Scott by a portly Scotch
butler--both servants alike highly sensitive as to their personal
dignity--on horses which neither of the attendants could sit well.
"Scott's heavy lumbering buffetier had provided himself against the
mountain storms with a huge cloak, which, when the cavalcade was at
gallop, streamed at full stretch from his shoulders, and kept flapping
in the other's face, who, having more than enough to do in preserving
his own equilibrium, could not think of attempting at any time to
control the pace of his steed, and had no relief but fuming and
_pesting_ at the _sacre manteau_, in language happily unintelligible
to its wearer. Now and then some ditch or turf-fence rendered it
indispensable to adventure on a leap, and no farce could have been
more amusing than the display of politeness which then occurred
between these worthy equestrians, each courteously declining in favour
of his friend the honour of the first experiment, the horses fretting
impatient beneath them, and the dogs clamouring encouragement."[24]
Such was Scott's order of lif