Mr. Murray paid at this time another visit to Abbotsford.  Towards the end of 1814 Scott had surrounded the original farmhouse with a number of buildings—­kitchen, laundry, and spare bedrooms—­and was able to entertain company.  He received Murray with great cordiality, and made many enquiries as to Lord Byron, to whom Murray wrote on his return to London: 

John Murray to Lord Byron.

“Walter Scott commissioned me to be the bearer of his warmest greetings to you.  His house was full the day I passed with him; and yet, both in corners and at the surrounded table, he talked incessantly of you.  Unwilling that I should part without bearing some mark of his love (a poet’s love) for you, he gave me a superb Turkish dagger to present to you, as the only remembrance which, at the moment, he could think of to offer you.  He was greatly pleased with the engraving of your portrait, which I recollected to carry with me; and during the whole dinner—­when all were admiring the taste with which Scott had fitted up a sort of Gothic cottage—­he expressed his anxious wishes that you might honour him with a visit, which I ventured to assure him you would feel no less happy than certain in effecting when you should go to Scotland; and I am sure he would hail your lordship as ‘a very brother.’”

After all his visits had been paid, and he had made his arrangements with his printers and publishers, Mr. Murray returned to London with his wife and family.  Shortly after his arrival he received a letter from Mr. Blackwood.

Mr. Wm. Blackwood to John Murray.

November 8, 1814.

“I was much gratified by your letter informing me of your safe arrival.  How much you must be overwhelmed just now, and your mind distracted by so many calls upon your attention at once.  I hope that you are now in one of your best frames of mind, by which you are enabled, as you have told me, to go through, with more satisfaction to yourself, ten times the business you can do at other times.  While you are so occupied with your great concerns, I feel doubly obliged to you for your remembrance of my small matters.”

After referring to his illness, he proceeds: 

“Do not reflect upon your visit to the bard (Walter Scott).  You would have blamed yourself much more if you had not gone.  The advance was made by him through Ballantyne, and you only did what was open and candid.  We shall be at the bottom of these peoples’ views by-and-bye; at present I confess I only see very darkly—­but let us have patience; a little time will develop all these mysteries.  I have not seen Ballantyne since, and when I do see him I shall say very little indeed.  If there really is a disappointment in not being connected with Scott’s new poem, you should feel it much less than any man living—­having such a poet as Lord Byron.”

Although Murray failed to obtain an interest in “The Lady of the Lake,” he was offered and accepted, at Scott’s desire, a share in a new edition of “Don Roderick.”