which unfavorable criticisms of my
performances had appeared, and in opposition to which Sir Walter Scott
told him he was too hard upon me, and that for his part he had seen
nothing so good since Mrs. Siddons. This encouraging verdict was
courteously forwarded to me by Mr. Ballantyne himself, who said he was
sure I would like to possess it. The first time I ever saw Walter Scott,
my father and myself were riding slowly down Princes Street, up which
Scott was walking; he stopped my father's horse, which was near the
pavement, and desired to be introduced to me. Then followed a string of
cordial invitations which previous engagements and our work at the
theater forbade our accepting, all but the pressing one with which he
wound up, that we would at least come and breakfast with him. The first
words he addressed to me as I entered the room were, "You appear to be a
very good horsewoman, which is a great merit in the eyes of an old
Border-man." Every _r_ in which sentence was rolled into a combination
of double _u_ and double _r_ by his Border burr, which made it memorable
to me by this peculiarity of his pleasant speech. My previous
acquaintance with Miss Ferrier's admirable novels would have made me
very glad of the opportunity of meeting her, and I should have thought
Sir Adam Ferguson delightfully entertaining, but that I could not bear
to lose, while listening to any one else, a single word spoken by Walter
Scott.

I never can forget, however, the description Sir Adam Ferguson gave me
of a morning he had passed with Scott at Abbotsford, which at that time
was still unfinished, and, swarming with carpenters, painters, masons,
and bricklayers, was surrounded with all the dirt and disorderly
discomfort inseparable from the process of house-building. The room they
sat in was in the roughest condition which admitted of their occupying
it, at all; the raw, new chimney smoked intolerably. Out-of-doors the
whole place was one chaos of bricks, mortar, scaffolding, tiles, and
slates. A heavy mist shrouded the whole landscape of lovely Tweed side,
and distilled in a cold, persistent, and dumb drizzle. Maida, the
well-beloved staghound, kept fidgeting in and out of the room, Walter
Scott every five minutes exclaiming, "Eh, Adam! the puir brute's just
wearying to get out;" or, "Eh, Adam! the puir creature's just crying to
come in;" when Sir Adam would open the door to the raw, chilly air for
the wet, muddy hound's exit or entrance,