Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 08

They roll'd him up in a sheet of lead— A sheet of lead for a funeral pall; They plunged him in the caldron red, And melted him—lead, and bones, and all. —Leyden.
A Gazetteer would inform you that Denholm is a village beautifully situated near the banks of the Teviot, about midway between Jedburgh and Hawick, and in the Parish of Cavers; and perhaps, if of modern date, it would add, it has the honour of being the birth-place of Dr. Leyden. However, it was somewhat early on a summer morning, a few years ago, that a young man, a stranger, with a fishing-rod in his hand, and a creel fastened to his shoulders, entered the village. He stood in the midst of it, and, turning round— This, then, said he, is the birth-place of Leyden—the son of genius—the martyr of study—the friend of Scott!
Few of the villagers were astir; and at the first he met—who carried a spade over his shoulder, and appeared to be a ditcher—he inquired if he could show him the house in which the bard and scholar was born.
Ou, ay, sir, said the man, I wat I can; I'll show ye that instantly, and proud to show you it, too.
That is good, thought the stranger; the prophet is dead, but he yet speaketh—he hath honour in his own country.
The ditcher conducted him across the green, and past the end of a house, which was described as being the school-house, and was newly built, and led him towards a humble building, the height of which was but a single storey, and which was found occupied by a millwright as a workshop. Yet, again, the stranger rejoiced to find that the occupier venerated his premises for the poet's sake, and that he honoured the genius of him who was born in their precincts.
And I wonder not at his having so said; for it is not every day that we stand beneath the thatch-clad roof—or any other roof—where was born one whose name time will bear written in undying characters on its wings, until those wings droop in the darkness of eternity.
The stranger proceeded up the Teviot, oftentimes thinking of Leyden, of all that he had written, and occasionally repeating passages aloud. He almost forgot that he had a rod in his hand—his eyes did anything but follow the fly, and, I need hardly say, his success was not great.