W. SCOTT.

As the letters to Mr. Laidlaw did not travel by post, but in the
basket which had come laden with farm-produce for the use of the
family in Edinburgh, they have rarely any date but the day of the
week. This is, however, of no consequence.

TO MR. LAIDLAW, KAESIDE.

Wednesday. [January, 1818.]

DEAR WILLIE,--Should the weather be rough, and you
nevertheless obliged to come to town, do not think of
riding, but take the Blucher.[87] Remember, your health is
of consequence to your family. Pray talk generally with the
notables of Darnick--I mean Rutherford, {p.217} and so
forth--concerning the best ordering of the road to the
marle; and also of the foot-road. It appears to me some
route might be found more convenient than the present, but
that which is most agreeable to those interested shall also
be most agreeable for me. As a patriotic member of the
community of Darnick, I consider their rights equally
important as my own.

[Footnote 87: A stage-coach, so called, which ran
betwixt Edinburgh and Jedburgh.]

I told you I should like to convert the present steading at
Beechland into a little hamlet of laborers, which we will
name Abbotstown. The art of making people happy is to leave
them much to their own guidance, but some little regulation
is necessary. In the first place, I should like to have
active and decent people there; then it is to be considered
on what footing they should be. I conceive the best possible
is, that they should pay for their cottages, and cow-grass,
and potato ground, and be paid for their labor at the
ordinary rate. I would give them some advantages sufficient
to balance the following conditions, which, after all, are
conditions in my favor: _1st_, That they shall keep their
cottages and little gardens, and doors, tolerably neat; and
_2d_, That the men shall on no account shoot, or the boys
break timber or take birds' nests, or go among the planting.
I do not know any other restrictions, and these are easy. I
should think we might settle a few families very happily
here, which is an object I have much at heart, for I have no
notion of the proprietor who is only ambitious to be lord of
the "beast and the brute," and chases the hum