cut under each hyperborean form.  The court was spacious, well paved, and perfectly clean, there being probably another entrance behind the stables for removing the litter.  Everything around appeared solitary, and would have been silent, but for the continued plashing of the fountain; and the whole scene still maintained the monastic illusion which the fancy of Waverley had conjured up.  And here we beg permission to close a chapter of still life. [Footnote:  See Note 7.]

CHAPTER IX

MORE OF THE MANOR-HOUSE AND ITS ENVIRONS

After having satisfied his curiosity by gazing around him for a few minutes, Waverley applied himself to the massive knocker of the hall-door, the architrave of which bore the date 1594.  But no answer was returned, though the peal resounded through a number of apartments, and was echoed from the court-yard walls without the house, startling the pigeons from the venerable rotunda which they occupied, and alarming anew even the distant village curs, which had retired to sleep upon their respective dunghills.  Tired of the din which he created, and the unprofitable responses which it excited, Waverley began to think that he had reached the castle of Orgoglio as entered by the victorious Prince Arthur,—­

    When ’gan he loudly through the house to call,
    But no man cared to answer to his cry;
    There reign’d a solemn silence over all,
    Nor voice was heard, nor wight was seen in bower or hall.

Filled almost with expectation of beholding some ’old, old man, with beard as white as snow,’ whom he might question concerning this deserted mansion, our hero turned to a little oaken wicket-door, well clenched with iron-nails, which opened in the court-yard wall at its angle with the house.  It was only latched, notwithstanding its fortified appearance, and, when opened, admitted him into the garden, which presented a pleasant scene. [Footnote:  Footnote:  At Ravelston may be seen such a garden, which the taste of the proprietor, the author’s friend and kinsman, Sir Alexander Keith, Knight Mareschal, has judiciously preserved.  That, as well as the house is, however, of smaller dimensions than the Baron of Bradwardine’s mansion and garden are presumed to have been.] The southern side of the house, clothed with fruit-trees, and having many evergreens trained upon its walls, extended its irregular yet venerable front along a terrace, partly paved, partly gravelled, partly bordered with flowers and choice shrubs.  This elevation descended by three several flights of steps, placed in its centre and at the extremities, into what might be called the garden proper, and was fenced along the top by a stone parapet with a heavy balustrade, ornamented from space to space with huge grotesque figures of animals seated upon their haunches, among which the favourite bear was repeatedly introduced.  Placed in the middle of the terrace between a sashed-door opening from the house and the central flight of steps, a huge animal of the same species supported on his head and fore-paws a sun-dial of large circumference, inscribed with more diagrams than Edward’s mathematics enabled him to decipher.