SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS LITTLE FRIENDS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XI, Issue 50, 16 December 1893, Page 527

SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS LITTLE FRIENDS.

All who have read the late Dr. John Brown's charming story of • Pet Marjorie will remember the great Sir Waltei s love and tenderness for childien : anything weak and helpless appealed to his noble ami kindly heart. There is no more charming lesson-book in the world than Scott s ‘Tales of a Grandfather, written originally for his little grandson, the delicate ‘Johnnie,’ of whom we have such frequent mention in Sir Waltei s journal, recently given to the public. The two following anecdotes may serve to illustrate his kind and fatherly way with children. My great grandfather's properly was situated a short distance from Ashestiel, where Sir XX alter lived before he built Abbotsford, and the two families were on very intimate terms, tine of my grand aunts, after a lapse of sixty years, loved to speak of his beaming smile, and the charming stories he used to tell her. One day he came upon her unexpectedly as she was climbing a paling to cross a field on her way to visit her little friend, Sophia Scott. • Trespassing, Maggie !’ he cried. ‘NX hat will the Shirra say ?’ (be was sheriff of the county at the time) ; then, seeing her dismayed look, he added with a smile, * But you ken that yer faither's bairns can never come by a wrong road to my house !' My next anecdote belongs to a younger generation. Sir Walter was then settled at Abbotsford, and his name had become a household word throughout the land. One day, my mother, then a little girl of seven, and her sister, were told that their aunts were going to take them over to Abbotsford, where a great man lived, one who wrote books. That was in itself sufficient, one would think, to strike awe into their childish minds ! And their grandmother gave them parting injunctions to remember what the great man said. One can imagine the state of trembling excitement which they were in as they drove along in the great ‘ chariot, all in their • best becomes,' and how weary the little mites were before the eventful drive was ended, and the great building of Abbotsford came in sight ; and how awe struck they must have been when the • great man ' came out to greet them, his noble head bowed down with age and trouble, and the weary toil after wealth, which always seemed to slip from his grasp just as he reached it : and the two little girls in their short waisted frocksand big bonnets, clinging to their aunt s kind hand, listening for the words of wisdom which were to fall from the great man’s lips. ‘ And what did Sir Walter say, dears ’’ asked grandmamma, on their return. ‘He said “ that it was a fine year for the grass to grow, ’ answers elevenyear old Mary Anne, while the other little voice cheeps out—- ‘ Oh, no, Mary Anne ; he said “ it was such a beautiful day, Fine Ear might hear the grass grow !” ’ Sir Walter had alluded to some fairy tale, so little sevenyear old’s memory was the best of the two’