old friend the Laird of Blair.  Just as they retreat, Mr. Pontey is announced.  I was glad to see this great forester.  He is a little man, and gets along with an air of talent, something like Gifford, the famous editor of the Quarterly.  As in his case mental acuteness gave animation to that species of countenance which attends personal deformity.  The whole of his face was bizarre and odd, yet singularly impressive.  We walked round, I with great pain, by the Hooded Corbies’ seat, and this great Lord of the woodland gave the plantation great approbation.  He seems rather systematic in pruning, yet he is in a great measure right.  He is tolerably obstinate in his opinions.  He dined, leaving me flattered with his applause, and pleased with having seen him.

April 11.—­This day I went, with Anne and Miss Jane Erskine,[449] to see the laying of the stones of foundation of two bridges in my neighbourhood over Tweed and the Ettrick.  There was a great many people assembled.  The day was beautiful, the scene romantic, and the people in good spirits and good-humour.  Mr. Paterson[450] of Galashiels made a most excellent prayer; Mr. Smith[451] gave a proper repast to the workmen, and we subscribed sovereigns apiece to provide for any casualty.  I laid the foundation-stone of the bridge over Tweed, and Mr. C.B.  Scott[452] of Woll that of Ettrick.  The general spirit of good-humour made the scene, though without parade, extremely interesting.

April 12.—­We breakfasted with the Fergusons, after which Anne and Miss Erskine walked up the Rhymer’s Glen.  I could as easily have made a pilgrimage to Rome with pease in my shoes unboiled.  I drove home, and began to work about ten o’clock.  At one o’clock I rode, and sent off what I had finished.  Mr. Laidlaw dined with me.  In the afternoon we wrote five or six pages more.  I am, I fear, sinking a little, from having too much space to fill, and a want of the usual inspiration which makes me, like the chariot wheels of Pharaoh in the sands of the Red Sea, drive heavily.  It is the less matter if this prove, as I suspect, the last of this fruitful family.

April 13.—­Corrected a proof in the morning.  At ten o’clock began where I had left off at my romance.  Mr. Laidlaw agrees as to the portion of what we are presently busy with.  Laidlaw begins to smite the rock for not giving forth the water in quantity sufficient.  I remarked to him that this would not profit much.  Doing, perhaps, twelve pages a day will easily finish us, and if it prove dull, why, dull it must be.  I shall, perhaps, have half a dozen to make up this night.  I have against me the disadvantage of being called the Just, and every one of course is willing to worry me.  But they have been long at it, and even those works which have been worst received at their appearance now keep their ground fairly enough.  So we’ll try our old luck another voyage.

It is a close, thick rain, and I cannot ride, and I am too dead lame to walk in the house.  So, feeling really exhausted, I will try to sleep a little.