Well, I got home, and narrated my adventures to my friends, and showed them my reliquary purchases, and declared my strengthening intention to make my ghostly visit by moonlight, if there was any moon to be had that night, which was a doubtful possibility.

In the course of the evening came in Mr. ——­, who had volunteered his services as guide and attendant during the interesting operation.

“When does the moon rise?” said one.

“O, a little after eleven o’clock, I believe,” said Mr. ——.

Some of the party gaped portentously.

“You know,” said I, “Scott says we must see it by moonlight; it is one of the proprieties of the place, as I understand.”

“How exquisite that description is, of the effect of moonlight!” says another.

“I think it probable,” says Mr. ——­, dryly, “that Scott never saw it by moonlight himself.  He was a man of very regular habits, and seldom went out evenings.”

The blank amazement with which this communication was received set S——­ into an inextinguishable fit of laughter.

“But do you really believe he never saw it?” said I, rather crestfallen.

“Well,” said the gentleman, “I have heard him charged with never having seen it, and he never denied it.”

Knowing that Scott really was as practical a man as Dr. Franklin, and as little disposed to poetic extravagances, and an exceedingly sensible, family kind of person, I thought very probably this might be true, unless he had seen it some time in his early youth.  Most likely good Mrs. Scott never would have let him commit the impropriety that we were about to, and run the risk of catching the rheumatism by going out to see how an old abbey looked at twelve o’clock at night.

We waited for the moon to rise, and of course it did not rise; nothing ever does when it is waited for.  We went to one window, and went to another; half past eleven came, and no moon.  “Let us give it up,” said I, feeling rather foolish.  However, we agreed to wait another quarter of an hour, and finally Mr. ——­ announced that the moon was risen; the only reason we did not see it was, because it was behind the Eildon Hills.  So we voted to consider her risen at any rate, and started out in the dark, threading the narrow streets of the village with the comforting reflection that we were doing what Sir Walter would think rather a silly thing.  When we got out before the abbey there was enough light behind the Eildon Hills to throw their three shadowy cones out distinctly to view, and to touch with a gloaming, uncertain ray the ivy-clad walls.  As we stood before the abbey, the guide fumbling with his keys, and finally heard the old lock clash as the door slowly opened to admit us, I felt a little shiver of the ghostly come over me, just enough to make it agreeable.

In the daytime we had criticized Walter Scott’s moonlight description in the lines which say,—­