[Footnote 39:  Ibid., viii. 292.]

CHAPTER XII.

DISTRACTIONS AND AMUSEMENTS AT ABBOTSFORD.

Between 1814 and the end of 1825, Scott’s literary labour was interrupted only by one serious illness, and hardly interrupted by that,—­by a few journeys,—­one to Paris after the battle of Waterloo, and several to London,—­and by the worry of a constant stream of intrusive visitors.  Of his journeys he has left some records; but I cannot say that I think Scott would ever have reached, as a mere observer and recorder, at all the high point which he reached directly his imagination went to work to create a story.  That imagination was, indeed, far less subservient to his mere perceptions than to his constructive powers. Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk—­the records of his Paris journey after Waterloo—­for instance, are not at all above the mark of a good special correspondent.  His imagination was less the imagination of insight, than the imagination of one whose mind was a great kaleidoscope of human life and fortunes.  But far more interrupting than either illness or travel, was the lion-hunting of which Scott became the object, directly after the publication of the earlier novels.  In great measure, no doubt, on account of the mystery as to his authorship, his fame became something oppressive.  At one time as many as sixteen parties of visitors applied to see Abbotsford in a single day.  Strangers,—­especially the American travellers of that day, who were much less reticent and more irrepressible than the American travellers of this,—­would come to him without introductions, facetiously cry out “Prodigious!” in imitation of Dominie Sampson, whatever they were shown, inquire whether the new house was called Tullyveolan or Tillytudlem, cross-examine, with open note-books, as to Scott’s age, and the age of his wife, and appear to be taken quite by surprise when they were bowed out without being asked to dine.[40] In those days of high postage Scott’s bill for letters “seldom came under 150_l._ a year,” and “as to coach parcels, they were a perfect ruination.”  On one occasion a mighty package came by post from the United States, for which Scott had to pay five pounds sterling.  It contained a MS. play called The Cherokee Lovers, by a young lady of New York, who begged Scott to read and correct it, write a prologue and epilogue, get it put on the stage at Drury Lane, and negotiate with Constable or Murray for the copyright.  In about a fortnight another packet not less formidable arrived, charged with a similar postage, which Scott, not grown cautious through experience, recklessly opened; out jumped a duplicate copy of The Cherokee Lovers, with a second letter from the authoress, stating that as the weather had been stormy, and she feared that something might have happened to her former MS., she had thought it prudent to send him a duplicate.[41] Of course, when