"
Selkirk was his nearest town, and that was seven miles from Ashestiel;
and even his nearest neighbour was at Yair, a few miles off lower down
the Tweed,--Yair of which he wrote in another of the introductions to
_Marmion_:--
"From Yair, which hills so closely bind
Scarce can the Tweed his passage find,
Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil,
Till all his eddying currents boil."
At Ashestiel it was one of his greatest delights to look after his
relative's woods, and to dream of planting and thinning woods of his
own, a dream only too amply realized. It was here that a new
kitchen-range was sunk for some time in the ford, which was so swollen
by a storm in 1805 that the horse and cart that brought it were
themselves with difficulty rescued from the waters. And it was here
that Scott first entered on that active life of literary labour in
close conjunction with an equally active life of rural sport, which
gained him a well-justified reputation as the hardest worker and the
heartiest player in the kingdom.
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