le and Captain
Ferguson. Having presented us to the First Lord of the Admiralty, he
fell back a little and said, "I am glad you came to-day, for I thought
it might be of use to you both, some time or other, to be known to my
old schoolfellow here, who is, and I hope {p.275} will long continue
to be, the great giver of good things in the Parliament House. I trust
you have had enough of certain pranks with your friend Ebony, and if
so, Lord Melville will have too much sense to remember them."[115] We
then walked round the plantation, as yet in a very young state, and
came back to the house by a formidable work which he was constructing
for the defence of his _haugh_ against the wintry violences of the
Tweed; and he discoursed for some time with keen interest upon the
comparative merits of different methods of embankment, but stopped now
and then to give us the advantage of any point of view in which his
new building on the eminence above pleased his eye. It had a fantastic
appearance--being but a fragment of the existing edifice--and not at
all harmonizing in its outline with "Mother Retford's" original
tenement to the eastward. Scott, however, expatiated _con amore_ on
the rapidity with which, being chiefly of darkish granite, it was
assuming a "time-honored" aspect. Ferguson, with a grave and
respectful look, observed, "Yes, it really has much the air of some
old fastness hard by the river Jordan." This allusion to the Chaldee
MS., already quoted, in the manufacture of which Ferguson fancied
Wilson and myself to have had a share, gave rise to a burst of
laughter among Scott's merry young folks and their companions, while
he himself drew in his nether lip, and rebuked the Captain with
"Toots, Adam! toots, Adam!" He then returned to his embankment, and
described how a former one had been entirely swept away in one night's
flood. But the Captain was ready with another verse of the Chaldee
MS., and groaned out, by way of echo, "Verily my fine gold hath
perished!" Whereupon the "Great Magician" elevated his huge oaken
staff as if to {p.276} lay it on the waggish soldier's back--but
flourished it gayly over his own head, and laughed louder than the
youngest of the company. As we walked and talked, the Pepper and
Mustard terriers kept snuffing about among the bushes and heather near
us, and started every five minutes a hare, which scudded away before
them and the ponderous staghound Maida--the Sheriff and all his tail
hollowin