autumn before me. I may say of my head and fingers as the
farmer of his mare, when he indulged her with an extra feed,--

'Ye ken that Maggie winna sleep
For that or Simmer.'

We have taken our own horses with us, and I have my pony, and ride
when I find it convenient."

* * * * *

The following seems to have been among the first letters he wrote
after his return:--

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., ROKEBY.

ABBOTSFORD, 10th September, 1818.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--We have been cruising to and fro since we
left your land of woods and streams. Lord Melville wished me
to come and stay two days with him at Melville Castle, which
has broken in upon my time a little, and interrupted my
purpose of telling you as how we arrived safe at Abbotsford,
without a drop of rain, thus completing a tour of three
weeks in the same fine weather in which we commenced it--a
thing which never fell to my lot before. Captain Ferguson is
inducted into the office of Keeper of the Regalia, to the
great joy, I think, of all Edinburgh. He has entered upon a
farm (of eleven acres) in consequence of this advancement,
for you know it is a general rule, that whenever a Scotsman
gets his head _above water_, he immediately turns it to
_land_. As he has already taken all the advice of all the
_notables_ in and about the good village of Darnick, we
expect to see his farm look like a tailor's {p.272} book of
patterns, a snip of every several opinion which he has
received occupying its appropriate corner. He is truly what
the French call _un drole de corps_.

I wish you would allow your coachman to look out for me
among your neighbors a couple of young colts (rising three
would be the best age) that would match for a carriage some
two years hence. I have plenty of grass for them in the mean
while, and should never know the expense of their keep at
Abbotsford. He seemed to think he could pick them up at from
L25 to L30, which would make an immense saving hereafter.
Peter Matheson and he had arranged some sort of plan of this
kind. For a pair of very ordinary carriage-horses in
Edinburgh they ask L140 or more; so it is worth while to be
a little provident. Even then you only get one good horse,
the other being usually a