Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/158

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IIUNTLEY-BURN.

��HtJNTLEY-BuRX is a romantic stream issuing from a small lake, or tarn, on the estate at Abbotsford, and running a course of the wildest beauty, during which it falls over a steep bank into a natural basin, over hung with the mountain ash. It passes through a spot called the Rhymer s Glen, where, according to tra dition, " Tarn the Rhymour" used to hold intercourse with the Fairy Queen. It is in the vicinity of some of the plantings of Sir Walter Scott, and a place where he loved to wander by himself and with his guests. It was also still more endeared to him by the neighboring residence of the Ferguson family, with whom his own were in habits of delightful intimacy. To their hospitable roof he used to resort, when wea ried with an irruption of visitants, or that vapid flat tery, with which the heartless thought to compensate for their intrusions on his valuable time, which he occasionally complained to his friends was " pecked away by teaspoonfuls."

Mention is made of the death of one of the young ladies of the family at Huntley-Burn, in a touching

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