The ramble over the hills satisfied the most ardent pedestrians of the party. The prospect was wide and majestic—the heather-bloom, of which they availed themselves liberally, was pronounced to be equal to all the praise bestowed upon it; the streams of Ettrick and Gala Water, winding silverly through valley and meadow, before losing themselves in Tweed’s fair river, worthy of all poetic praise. But, truth to tell, they were disappointed with the absence of timber on the banks of the world-famous river. The hills, too, were bare; and to eyes accustomed to the primeval forests of giant eucalyptus which clothe Australian mountain-sides, and overhang the river banks, there seemed a want of adequate shelter. However, the whole surroundings were in keeping with ‘Caledonia, stern and wild,’ and as the plantations around Abbotsford, so lovingly tended by the Magician, whose art could cause groves and fountains to appear and vanish at command, had grown surprisingly since their establishment in 1812, it was decided finally not to give utterance to a syllable of disparagement. The landscape had sufficed for the home and happiness of the immortal possessor. On this occasion a wide expanse of the Border country lay spread out before them. They were thus enabled to verify the scenes of those ‘poems and romances which had bewitched the world.’
‘Kaeside,’ where ‘Willie Laidlaw,’ Sir Walter’s friend and amanuensis, dwelt, was also visited. Traditionary legends tell of the curse of chronic poverty, supposed to have been laid on the race by a malign ancestress. The name was familiar to Arnold Banneret, who had known in his youth a family of the same name in Australia. They were related to the man of whom Sir Walter had so high an opinion, and whom he honoured with his friendship. But the voyage across the wide Pacific, or the influence of a new country, had apparently neutralised the malediction, for the Australian Laidlaws, now a fairly numerous clan, are in all cases held in respect, as well for their high character as their large landed possessions.
And thus, the weather being gracious, and all accessories befitting, they rambled through and around the haunted regions, upon which, though familiar with the _dramatis personæ_ from childhood’s hour, they had never before set foot, or gazed with admiring eye.