'Tis the voice of the sluggard, I've heard him complain,
"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again;"
As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed,
Turns his side, and his shoulders, and his heavy head.
Dr. Watts.
The mansion-house of Dumbiedikes, to which we are now to introduce our
readers, lay three or four miles--no matter for the exact topography--to the
southward of St. Leonard's. It had once borne the appearance of some little
celebrity; for the "auld laird," whose humours and pranks were often mentioned in
the ale-houses for about a mile round it, wore a sword, kept a good horse, and a
brace of greyhounds; brawled, swore, and betted at cock-fights and horse-
matches; followed Somerville of Drum's hawks, and the Lord Ross's hounds, and
called himself point devise a gentleman. But the line had been veiled of its
splendour in the present proprietor, who cared for no rustic amusements, and
was as saying, timid, and retired, as his father had been at once grasping and
selfishly extravagant--daring, wild, and intrusive.
Dumbiedikes was what is called in Scotland a single house; that is, having only
one room occupying its whole depth from back to front, each of which single
apartments was illuminated by six or eight cross lights, whose diminutive panes
and heavy frames permitted scarce so much light to enter as shines through one
well-constructed modern window. This inartificial edifice, exactly such as a child
would build with cards, had a steep roof flagged with coarse grey stones instead
of slates; a half-circular turret, battlemented, or, to use the appropriate phrase,
bartizan'd on the top, served as a case for a narrow turnpike stair, by which an
ascent was gained from storey to storey; and at the bottom of the said turret was
a door studded with large-headed nails. There was no lobby at the bottom of the
tower, and scarce a landing-place opposite to the doors which gave access to
the apartments. One or two low and dilapidated outhouses, connected by a
courtyard wall equally ruinous, surrounded the mansion. The court had been
paved, but the flags being partly displaced and partly renewed, a gallant crop of
docks and thistles sprung up between them, and the small garden, which opened
by a postern through the wall, seemed not to be in a much more orderly
condition. Over the low-arched gateway which led into the yard there was a
carved stone, exhibiting some attempt at armorial bearings; and above the inner
entrance hung, and had hung, for many years, the mouldering hatchment, which
announced that umquhile Laurence Dumbie of Dumbiedikes had been gathered
to his fathers in Newbattle kirkyard. The approach to this palace of pleasure was
by a road formed by the rude fragments of stone gathered from the fields, and it
was surrounded by ploughed, but unenclosed land. Upon a baulk, that is, an
unploughed ridge of land interposed among the corn, the Laird's trusty palfrey
