The Scott Country

is "own romantic town"-might surely claim to enclose, if not the kernel, an essential part of the interest that surrounds the fame and the name of Sir Walter. Around it, between the Pentlands

inny's h

ted Wood

d a title to be ranked as a province of the Scott Country. So might Perthshire, by virtue of the "Fair City" and its "Fair Maid", and joint ownership, with Stirling and Dumbarton, of entrancing scenes on Loch

sing shores of the Solway; or Redesdale and Teesdale, Gilsland and Triermain. The Peak District, Sherwood Forest, and the Marches of Wales; Kenilworth, and Woodstock, and even London streets themselves might tender

, does not 7 recall the author of Waverley so instantly and intimately to our thoughts and affections as Abbotsford; and the triple Eildon, rather than Arthur's Seat, is the "high place" of the Scott cult. If

atest a

f all the B

of Border

Kelso, familiar with Border scenes, as well as steeped in Border lore. At a later stage in his growth, lame as he was, with Shortreed and other congenial companions h

h rock its

lay for

as with a

legends wit

scene the i

beams from

whole Borderland, and had exp

Annan, a

in ae hi

Neidpath and Manor, or, at farthest, "Merlin's Grave", beside Drummelzier and under Tinnis. Nor did his genius much frequent the lower courses of Tweed, below Kelso Bridge and Wark Castle, and the inflow of the "sullen Till", although here also are many scenes of beauty and pages of story that might well have set his imagination afire. It seems more at home, also, in the valleys of the Teviot, the Ettrick, and the Yarrow than on the Leader, the Gala, 9 and other northern affluents of the Tweed. Accident and propinquity may have helped to determine his choice of scene and theme; but old associations and affinities may have done still more. The nearer the Border line of the Cheviots, the thicker are footprints of the clan and national frays of old-

nd several of them are buried in the Abbey Aisle. His great-grandfather and namesake, the Jacobite "Beardie" who had 10 fought at Killiecrankie, had occupied a house in the Coalmarket; his kindly Aunt Janet resided in what is now called Waverley Lodge; his un

annually for holidays. Everyone remembers the lines that record the impression made on his youthful mind by his "barren scene and wild"-by the tall, grey, weather-beaten tower looking down from its rock upon the lone lochan, and out and away over m

his master by his recitation of the "Speech of Galgacus", and beguiled his school companions from their lessons by his tales of old romance. He read, in the arbour of his aunt's old-fashioned garden, or under the ancient elm that still survives, Bishop Percy's Reliques, the identical copy of which is in Kelso Library. Among his fellow-pupils were the Ballantynes, James and John, a fateful conjunction, for out of a hint dro