Douglas,
having been a long narrow stripe of firs, which Scott used to compare to a
black hair-comb, and which gave the name of "The Doctor's Redding-Kame" to
the stretch of woods of which it is still the central line. Such was the
place which he made it the too great delight of the remainder of his life
to increase and beautify, by spending on it a good deal more than he had
earned, and that too in times when he should have earned a good deal more
than he ought to have thought even for a moment of spending. The cottage
grew to a mansion, and the mansion to a castle. The farm by the Tweed made
him long for a farm by the Cauldshiel's loch, and the farm by the
Cauldshiel's loch for Thomas the Rhymer's Glen; and as, at every step in
the ladder, his means of buying were really increasing--though they were
so cruelly discounted and forestalled by this growing land-hunger,--Scott
never realized into what troubles he was carefully running himself.
Of his life at Abbotsford at a later period when his building was
greatly enlarged, and his children grown up, we have a brilliant
picture from the pen of Mr.
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