"Every night," says Irving, "I retired with my mind filled with delightful recollections of the day, and every morning I arose with the certainty of new enjoyment."
And so vividly has he painted for the imagination of his happy readers those scenes of delight, those hours of social interchange of two great minds, that we are admitted as it were into free communion with them. On the banks of the silvery Tweed we stroll delighted, or pause to view the "gray waving hills," made so dear to all the lovers of Scott and Burns, through the enchantment which romance and poetry have thrown around them. We listen for the tinkling chime of the fairy bells as we pass through the glen of Thomas the Rhymer, almost expecting to see by our side, as we muse on the banks of the goblin stream, the queen of the fairies on her "dapple gray pony." Again, through the cloisters of Melrose Abbey we wander silently and in awe, almost wishing that honest John Boyer would leave us awhile unmolested even by the praises of his master the "shirra," whom he considers "not a bit proud," notwithstanding he has such "an awfu' knowledge o' history!" Or it may be we recline amid the purple heather and listen to the deep tones of the great magician himself, as he delights our ear with some quaint tradition of the olden time, while Maida, grave and dignified as becomes the rank he holds, crouches beside his master, disdaining to share the sports of Hamlet, Hector, "both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound" frolicking so wantonly on the bonny green knowe before us!
But at length the hour of parting comes. We feel the hearty grasp, and hear the farewell words with which Scott takes leave of his American friend, and as with them our delusion wrought by the magic pen of Irving vanishes, we would fain slay the enchantment—too bright to pass away unlamented!
"The pen of a ready writer, whereunto shall it be likened?
Let the calm child of genius, whose name shall never die,
For that the transcript of his mind hath made his thoughts immortal—
Let these, let all, with no faint praise, with no light gratitude, confess
The blessings poured upon the earth from the pen of a readywriter."
Closing the volume which had so enchained my senses, my mind, from dwelling upon the presence of Scott himself, as introduced through the unformal courtesy of our beloved Irving, naturally turned to the varied and wonderful productions of that master mind, and to the many characters thereby created, seeming to hold a sacred place in our thoughts and affections, as friends whom we had once known and loved!
I was suddenly aroused from my ruminations by a light tap on the shoulder. Judge of my astonishment when Meg Merrillies stood before me, clad in the same wild gipsy garb in which she had warned the Laird of Ellangowan on Ellangowan's height! In her shriveled hand it would seem she held the very sapling which for the last time she had plucked from the bonny woods which had so long waved above her bit shealing, until driven thence by the timorous and weak-minded laird. With this she again touched me, and in a half inviting, half commanding tone said:
"Gang wi' me, leddy, gang wi' me, and I will show ye a bonny company, amang whilk ye'll soon speer those ye're thinking o'."
I confess it was not without some trepidation I arose to follow my strange conductor, who, seizing my hand, rather dragged than led me through several long dark passages, until suddenly emerging from one still more gloomy than the others, my eyes were almost blinded with the glare of light and splendor that flashed upon them.