A preciouser villain my tree ne'er adorned; Hang a rogue when he's young, he'll steal nane when he's auld."

"O sir, but 'tis hard to dash me in eternity

Wi' as little time to consider my state."— "I swear, then, this hour shall my daughter be married t' ye,

Or else the next minute submit to your fate."

But Wattie now fand he was fairly warang,

That marriage to death was a different case.― "What matter," quo' he, "though her nose it be lang?

It will ay keep her a bieldly side of a face.

"To fondle, or kiss her, I'll never be fain,
Or lie down beside her wi' nought but my sark;
But the first, if I please, I can let it alane;
And cats they are all alike gray in the dark.

"What though she has twa little winkling een?

They're better than nane, and my life it is sweet: And what though her mou' be the maist I ha'e

seen?

Faith, muckle mou'd fock ha'e a luck for their meat."

That day they were wedded, that night they were

bedded,

And Juden has feasted them gaily and free; But aft the bridegroom has he rallied and bladded, What faces he made at the big hanging tree.

He swore that his mou' was grown wider than Meg's;

That his face frae the chin was a half a yard

high;

That it struck wi' a palsy his knees and his legs; For a' that a Scott thought it naething to die!

"There's naething," he said, "I more highly

approve

Than a rich forest laird to come stealing my kye; Wad Branxholm and Thirlestane come for a drove, I wad furnish them wives in their bosoms to lie."

So Wattie took Meg to the forest sae fair,

And they lived a most happy and peaceable life: The langer he kend her, he lo'ed her the mair, For a prudent, a virtuous, and sensible wife.

And muckle good blood frae that union has flowed, And mony a brave fellow, and mony a brave feat; I darna just say they are a' muckle mou'd,

But they rather have a' a good luck for their

meat.

NOTES TO THE FRAY OF ELIBANK.

NOTE.

O wha hasna heard o' the bauld Juden Murray,
The Lord o' the Elibank castle, sae high?

P. 42, v. 1.

Sir Gideon Murray was ancestor of the present Lord Elibank. The ruins of this huge castle still stand on the side of a hill, overhanging the Tweed, in the shire of Selkirk. Lovel Traquair, who was then Murray, Philliphaugh, Plora, and Sundhope, were all kinsmen of his; and there is a tradition extant, that all the land betwixt Tweed and Yarrow once pertained to the potent name of Murray. If so, their possessions must have bordered a great way with Harden's. The castle of Aekwood, or Oakwood, the baronial residence of the latter, stands on the Ettrick, about eight miles south of Elibank. The other places mentioned are all in that neighbourhood.

NOTE II.

Stout Willie o' Fauldshop ae night he did cry on,
Frae danger or peril wha never wad fly.

P. 42, v. 3.

This man's name was William Hogg, better known by the epithet of "The Wild Boar of Fauldshop." Tradition reports him as a man of unequalled strength,

courage and ferocity. He was Harden's chief champion, and in great favour with his master, until once, by his temerity, he led him into a scrape that had well nigh cost him his life. It was never positively said what this scrape was, but there is reason to suppose it was the Fray of Elibank.

NOTE III,

The Hoggs and the Brydens have brought him to dare P. 44, v. 5.

you.

The author's progenitors possessed the lands of Fauldshop, under the Scotts of Harden, for ages; until the extravagance of John Scott occasioned the family to part with them. They now form part of the extensive estates of Buccleuch. Several of their wives were supposed to be rank witches.

NOTE IV.

So Wattie took Meg to the forest sae fair,

P. 53, v. 4.

Though Elibank is in the shire of Selkirk, as well as Oakwood, yet, originally, by Ettrick Forest, was meant only the banks and environs of the two rivers, Ettrick and Yarrow.