and cannot be recalled. Surely society is the worse for the loss of these racy, spontaneous fruits of intellect, study, and observation.
While dinner was getting ready at Whitehope, Laidlaw and Leyden strolled into the neighbouring churchyard of Yarrow, and saw the tomb of Mr Rutherford, the first minister of that parish after the Revolution, and the maternal great-grandfather of Scott. Leyden recited to his companion the ballads of The Eve of St John and Glenfinlas, which naturally impressed on the hearer a vivid idea of the poetical talents of the sheriff, and Laidlaw felt towards him as towards an old friend. This was increased by Scott’s partiality for dogs. He was struck with a very beautiful and powerful greyhound which followed Laidlaw, and he begged to have a brace of pups from the same dog, saying he had now become a forester, as sheriff of Ettrick, and must have dogs of the true mountain breed. ‘This request,’ said the other, ‘I took no little pains to fulfil. I kept the puppies till they were nearly a year old. My youngest brother, then a boy, took great delight in training them; and the way was this: he took a long pole having a string and a piece of meat fastened to it, and made the dogs run in a circular or oval course. Their eagerness to get the meat gave them, by much practice, great strength in the loins, and singular expertness in turning, besides singular alertness in mouthing, for which they were afterwards famous. Scott hunted with them for two years over the mountains of Tweedside and Yarrow, and never dreamed that a hare could escape them. He mentions them in the Introduction to the second canto of Marmion—
“Remember’st thou my greyhounds true?
O’er holt or hill there never flew,
From slip or leash there never sprang,
More fleet of foot, or sure of fang.”’
After this visit, Laidlaw doubled his diligence in gathering up fragments of the elder Muse, and the sheriff was profuse in acknowledgments:
‘My dear Sir—I am very much obliged to you for your letter and the enclosure. The Laird o’ Logie is particularly acceptable, as coming near the real history. Carmichael, mentioned in the ballad, was the ancestor of the Earl of Hyndford, and captain of James VI.’s guard, so that the circumstance of the prisoner’s being in his custody is highly probable. I will adopt the whole of this ballad instead of the common one called Ochiltree. Geordie I have seen before: the ballad is curious, though very rude. Ormond may be curious, but is modern. The story of Confessing the Queen of England is published by Bishop Percy, so I will neither trouble you about that nor about Dundee. “Glendinning” is a wrong reading: the name of the Highland chief who carries off the lady is Glenlyon, one of the Menzieses. Among Hogg’s ballads is a curious set of Lamington or Lochinvar, which I incline to adopt as better than that in the Minstrelsy. Who was Katherine Janfarie, the heroine? She could hardly be a damsel of rank, as the estate of Whitebank is an ancient patrimony of the Pringles. I don’t know what to make of Cockburn’s name, unless it be Perys, the modern Pierce, which is not a common name in Scotland. I am very much interested about the Tushilaw lines, which, from what you mention, must be worth recovering. I forgot to bring with me from Blackhouse your edition of the Goshawk, in which were some excellent various readings. I am so anxious to have a complete Scottish Otterburn, that I will omit the ballad entirely in the first volume, hoping to recover it in time for insertion in the third. I would myself be well pleased to delay the publication of all three for some time, but the booksellers are mutinous and impatient, as a book is always injured by being long out of print. As to the Liddesdale traditions, I think I am pretty correct, although doubtless much more may be recovered. The truth is that, in these traditions, as you must have observed, old people are usually very positive about their own mode of telling a story, and as uncharitably critical in their observations on those who differ from them.—Yours faithfully,
Walter Scott.’
Before the friends parted, Scott made a note of Hogg’s address, and from that time never ceased to take a warm interest in his fortunes. He corresponded with him, and becoming curious to see the poetical Shepherd, made another visit to Blackhouse, for the purpose of getting Laidlaw along with him as guide to Ettrick. The visit was highly agreeable. The sheriff’s bonhomie and lively conversation had deeply interested his companion, and he rode by his side in a sort of ecstasy as they journeyed again by St Mary’s Loch and the green hills of Dryhope, which rise beyond the wide expanse of smooth water. It was a fine summer morning, and the impressions of the day and the scene have been recorded in imperishable verse.[6] Dryhope Tower, so intimately associated with the memory of Mary Scott, the ‘Flower of Yarrow,’ made the travellers stop for a brief space; and Dhu Linn (where Marjory, the wife of Percy de Cockburn, sat while men were hanging her husband), with Chapelhope and other scenes and ruins famous in Border tradition, deeply interested Scott. At the west end of the Loch of the Lowes, the surrounding mountains close in, in the face of the traveller, apparently preventing all farther egress. At this spot, as Laidlaw was trying to find a safe place where they might cross the marsh through which the infant Yarrow finds its way to the loch, Scott’s servant, an English boy, rode up, and, touching his hat, respectfully inquired, with much interest, where the people got their necessaries! This unromantic question, and the naïveté of the lad’s manner, was a source of great amusement to the sheriff. The day’s journey was a favourite theme with Laidlaw. First, after passing the spots we have described, the horsemen crossed the ridge of hills that separates the Yarrow from her sister stream. These hills are high and green, but the more lofty parts of the ridge are soft and boggy, and they had often to pick their way, and proceed in single file. Then they followed a foot-track on the side of a long cleugh or hope, and at last descended towards the Ettrick, where they had in view the level green valley, walled in by high hills of dark green, with here and there gray crags, the church and the old place of Ettrick Hall in ruins, embosomed in trees. Scott was somewhat chafed by having left in his bedroom that morning his watch—a valuable gold repeater, presented to him on the occasion of his marriage—and to Laidlaw’s ejaculations of delight he sometimes replied quickly: ‘A savage enough place—a very savage place.’ His good-humour, however, was restored by the novelty of the scenes and the fine clear day, and he broke out with snatches of song, and told endless anecdotes, either new, or better told than ever they were before. The travellers went to dine at Ramsey-cleugh, where they were sure of a cordial welcome and a good farmer’s dinner; and Laidlaw sent off to Blackhouse for the sheriff’s watch (which he received next morning), and to Ettrick House for Hogg, that he might come and spend the evening with them. The Shepherd (who then retained all his original simplicity of character) came to tea, and he brought with him a bundle of manuscripts, of size enough at least to shew his industry—all of course ballads, and fragments of ballads. The penmanship was executed with more care than Hogg had ever bestowed on anything before. Scott was surprised and pleased with Hogg’s appearance, and with the hearty familiarity with which Jamie, as he was called, was received by Laidlaw and the Messrs Bryden of Ramsey-cleugh. Hogg was no less gratified. ‘The sheriff of a county in those days,’ said Laidlaw, ‘was regarded by the class to whom Hogg belonged with much of the fear and respect that their forbears looked up to the ancient hereditary sheriffs, who had the power of pit and gallows in their hands; and here Jamie found himself all at once not only the chief object of the sheriff’s notice and flattering attention, but actually seated at the same table with him.’ Hogg’s genius was sufficient passport to the best society. His appearance was also prepossessing. His clear ruddy cheek and sparkling eye spoke of health and vivacity, and he was light and agile in his figure. When a youth, he had a remarkably fine head of long curling brown hair, which he wore coiled up under his bonnet; and on Sundays, when he entered the church and let down his locks, the lasses (on whom Jamie always turned an expressive espiègle glance) looked towards him with envy and admiration. He doubtless thought of himself as the Gaelic bard did of Allan of Muidart—