October 23.—­Another sullen rainy day.  “Hazy weather, Mr. Noah,” as Punch says in the puppet-show.[61] I worked slow, however, and untowardly, and fell one leaf short of my task.

Went to Selkirk, and dined with the forest Club, for the first time I have been there this season.  It was the collar-day, but being extremely rainy, I did not go to see them course. N.B.—­Of all things, the greatest bore is to hear a dull and bashful man sing a facetious song.

October 24.—­Vilely low in spirits.  I have written a page and a half, and doubt whether I can write more to-day.  A thick throbbing at my heart, and fancies thronging on me.  A disposition to sleep, or to think on things melancholy and horrible while I wake.  Strange that one’s nerves should thus master them, for nervous the case is, as I know too well.  I am beginning to tire of my Journal, and no wonder, faith, if I have only such trash as this to record.  But the best is, a little exertion or a change of the current of thought relieves me.

God, who subjects us to these strange maladies, whether of mind or body I cannot say, has placed the power within our own reach, and we should be grateful.  I wrestled myself so far out of the Slough of Despond as to take a good long walk, and my mind is restored to its elasticity.  I did not attempt to work, especially as we were going down to Mertoun, and set off at five o’clock.

October 25.—­We arrived at Mertoun yesterday, and heard with some surprise that George had gone up in an air balloon, and ascended two miles and a half above this sublunary earth.  I should like to have an account of his sensations, but his letters said nothing serious about them.  Honest George, I certainly did not suspect him of being so flighty!  I visited the new plantations on the river-side with Mrs. Scott; I wish her lord and master had some of her taste for planting.  When I came home I walked through the Rhymer’s Glen, and I thought how the little fall would look if it were heightened.  When I came home a surprise amounting nearly to a shock reached me in another letter from L.J.S.[62] Methinks this explains the gloom which hung about me yesterday.  I own that the recurrence to these matters seems like a summons from the grave.  It fascinates me.  I ought perhaps to have stopped it at once, but I have not nerve to do so.  Alas! alas!—­But why alas? Humana perpessi sumus.

October 26.—­Sent off copy to Ballantyne.  Drove over to Huntly Burn at breakfast, and walked up to the dike they are building for the new plantation.  Returned home.  The Fergusons dined; and we had the kirn Supper.[63] I never saw a set of finer lads and lasses, and blithely did they ply their heels till five in the morning.  It did me good to see them, poor things.

October 27.—­This morning went again to Huntly Burn to breakfast.  There picked up Sir Adam and the Colonel, and drove down to old Melrose to see the hounds cast off upon the Gateheugh, the high rocky amphitheatre which encloses the peninsula of old Melrose, the Tweed pouring its dark and powerful current between them.  The galloping of the riders and hallooing of the huntsmen, the cry of the hounds and the sight of sly Reynard stealing away through the brakes, waked something of the old spirit within me—­