Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Huntley-Burn
HUNTLEY-BURN.
Imp of the Cauldshiel's shaded tarn,
Whence hast thou such a sparkling eye?
Such pleasant voice, thy tales to tell?
Such foot of silver dancing by?
Like merry child of sombre sire,
Thou charm'st the glen with playful wile,
Till the dark boughs that o'er thee droop
Imbibe the magic of thy smile.
A favorite sprite thou wert of him,
Who left to Abbotsford a name;
And to each zone of earth bequeathed
Some planted scion of his fame.
Thou gav'st him gentle thoughts, at twilight dim,
And now to us dost bear remembrance sweet of him.
October 1, 1840.
Huntley-Burn 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 tradition, "Tam 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 wearied with an irruption of visitants, or that vapid flattery, with which the heartless thought to compensate for their intrusions on his valuable time, which he sometimes complained to his friends was "pecked away by tea-spoonfuls."
Mention is made of the death of one of the young ladies of the family at Huntley-Burn, in a touching tribute of Lockhart to his departed wife, in the third volume of that interesting memorial of her father, which his powerful pen has completed for posterity.
"She, whom I may now sadly record as, next to Sir Walter himself, the chief ornament and delight of all our social meetings, she, to whose love I owed my own place in them, Scott's eldest daughter, the one of all his children, who in countenance, mind, and manners most resembled him, and who indeed was as like him in all things, as gentle, innocent woman can ever be to a great man, deeply tried and skilled in the struggles and perplexities of active life, she too is no more; and the very hour that saw her laid in her grave, her dearest friend, Margaret Ferguson, breathed her last also."