But jollity revived in full vigor when the supper-tray was introduced; and to cap all merriment, Captain Ferguson dismissed us with The Laird of Cockpen. Lord and Lady Melville were to return to Melville Castle next {p.291} morning, and Mr. Wilson and I happened to mention that we were engaged to dine and sleep at the seat of my friend and relation, Mr. Pringle of Torwoodlee, on our way to Edinburgh. Scott immediately said that he would send word in the morning to the Laird, that he and Adam Ferguson meant to accompany us--such being the unceremonious style in which country neighbors in Scotland visit each other. Next day, accordingly, we all rode over together to Mr. Pringle's beautiful seat--the "distant Torwoodlee" of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, but distant not above five or six miles from Abbotsford--coursing hares as we proceeded, but inspecting the antiquities of the _Catrail_ to the interruption of our sport. We had another joyous evening at Torwoodlee. Scott and Ferguson returned home at night, and the morning after, as Wilson and I mounted for Edinburgh, our kind old host, his sides still sore with laughter, remarked that "the Sheriff and the Captain together were too much for any company." There was much talk between the Sheriff and Mr. Pringle about the Selkirkshire Yeomanry Cavalry, of which the latter had been the original commandant. Young Walter Scott had been for a year or more Cornet in the corps, and his father was consulting Torwoodlee about an entertainment which he meant to give them on his son's approaching birthday. It was then that the new dining-room was to be first _heated_ in good earnest; and Scott very kindly pressed Wilson and myself, at parting, to return for the occasion--which, however, we found it impossible to do. The reader must therefore be satisfied with what is said about it in one of the following letters:-- TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., ROKEBY. ABBOTSFORD, 5th November, 1818. MY DEAR MORRITT,--Many thanks for your kind letter of 29th October. The matter of the colts being as {p.292} you state, I shall let it lie over until next year, and then avail myself of your being in the neighborhood to get a good pair of four-year-olds, since it would be unnecessary to buy them a year younger, and incur all the risks of disease and accident, unless they could have been had at a proportional under-value.