"Aha!" cried Scott, "there will be a good shot for Master Walter; we
must send him this way with his gun, when we go home. Walter's the
family sportsman now, and keeps us in game. I have pretty nigh resigned
my gun to him; for I find I cannot trudge about as briskly as
formerly."

Our ramble took us on the hills commanding an extensive prospect.
"Now," said Scott, "I have brought you, like the pilgrim in the
Pilgrim's Progress, to the top of the Delectable Mountains, that I may
show you all the goodly regions hereabouts. Yonder is Lammermuir, and
Smalholme; and there you have Gallashiels, and Torwoodlie, and
Gallawater; and in that direction you see Teviotdale, and the Braes of
Yarrow; and Ettrick stream, winding along, like a silver thread, to
throw itself into the Tweed."

He went on thus to call over names celebrated in Scottish song, and
most of which had recently received a romantic interest from his own
pen. In fact, I saw a great part of the border country spread out
before me, and could trace the scenes of those poems and romances which
had, in a manner, bewitched the world. I gazed about me for a time with
mute surprise, I may almost say with disappointment. I beheld a mere
succession of gray waving hills, line beyond line, as far as my eye
could reach; monotonous in their aspect, and so destitute of trees,
that one could almost see a stout fly walking along their profile; and
the far-famed Tweed appeared a naked stream, flowing between bare
hills, without a tree or thicket on its banks; and yet, such had been
the magic web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole, that it had
a greater charm for me than the richest scenery I beheld in England.

I could not help giving utterance to my thoughts. Scott hummed for a