The 12th of July restored the author as usual to the supervision of his trees and carpenters; but he had already told the Ballantynes that the story which he had found it impossible to include in the recent series of Jedediah should be forthwith taken up as the opening one of a third; and instructed John to embrace the first favorable opportunity of offering Constable the publication of this, on the footing of 10,000 copies again forming the first edition; but now at length without any more stipulations connected with the unfortunate "old stock" of the Hanover Street Company. {p.271} Before he settled himself to his work, however, he made a little tour of the favorite description with his wife and children--halting for a few days at Drumlanrig, thence crossing the Border to Carlisle and Rokeby, and returning by way of Alnwick. On the 17th August he writes thus to John Ballantyne from Drumlanrig: "This is heavenly weather, and I am making the most of it, as I shall have a laborious 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 drôle de corps_.