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 was tethered by the
head, and picking a meal of grass. The whole argued neglect and
discomfort; the consequence, however, of idleness and indifference, not
of poverty.
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