He did not go, as we remember, to Ancrum fight, but he returned with armour sorely dinted, having slain in private quarrel a knight whose cognisance was
"A hound in a silver leash bound
And his crest was a branch of the yew."
And that same eve the dead man was seen with the lady of Smailholme. The story is a version of that ancient tale, the Beresford ghost story, which can be traced from the chronicle of William of Malmesbury to its Irish avatar in the eighteenth century—and later. Do ghosts repeat themselves? It looks like it, for the Irish tale is very well authenticated.
It was not actually in the tower, but in the adjacent farmhouse of Sandyknowe, his grandfather's, that Scott, at first a puny child, passed his earliest years, absorbing every ballad and legend that the country people knew, and the story of every battle fought on the wide landscape, from Turn Again to Ancrum Moor.
We have reached the most beautiful part ol Tweed, dominated by the triple crest of the pyramidal Eildons, where the river lovingly embraces the woods of Gladswood and Ravens-wood, and the site of Old Melrose, a Celtic foundation of Aidan, while as yet the faith was preached by the Irish mission aries of St. Columba. This is the very garden of Tweed, a vast champaign, from which rise the Eildons, and far away above Rule Water "the stormy skirts of Ruberslaw," with the Lammermuir and Cheviot hills blue and faint on the northern and southern horizons.
On the ground of Drygrange, above Bemersyde, but on the right bank of Tweed at Newstead, the greatest stationary camp in Scotland of Agricola's time has been excavated by Mr. Curie, who also describes it in a magnificent and learned volume. Here were found beautiful tilting helmets, in the shape of heads of pretty Greek girls, and here were the enamelled brooches of the native women who dwelt with Roman lovers. But these must be sought, with coins, gems, pottery, weapons and implements of that forgotten day, in the National Museum in Edinburgh.
The chief tributary on the northern side as we mount the stream is Leader Water, where Homes had aince commanding."
Sing Erslington and Cowdenknowes,
Where Humes had aince commanding;