and Dryburgh claims allegiance no more--but to its dead. You notice the phrase, "good borderers against England." Lest I should have to put it off, too long, I may as well, in this place, let you know the origin of the tune which Scott's uncle was so fond of. From the letter of one of his friends to Dr. Brown I gratefully take the following passage:-- "In the fourteenth century some English riders were slaking their thirst on the banks of the Tweed, nearly opposite Cartley Hole,--now Abbotsford,--where wild plums grew. The borderers came down upon them unexpectedly, and annihilated them, driving some into the Tweed, at a place called the Englishman's Dyke. The borderers accordingly thought their surprise sourer fruit to the invaders than the plums they went to pluck, and christened themselves by the soubriquet of 'Sour Plums in Galashiels,' which gave a text for the song and tune, and a motto for the arms of the town of Galashiels." There is something to think of for you, when next you see the blackthorn blow, or the azure bloom spread on its bossed clusters of fruit. I cannot find any of the words of the song; but one beautiful stanza of the ballad of Cospatrick may at least serve to remind you of the beauty of the Border in its summer time:-- "For to the greenwood I maun gae To pu' the red rose and the slae, To pu' the red rose and the thyme, To deck my mother's bour and mine." "Meekness itself," and yet possibly with some pride in her also, this Barbara, with the ruins of her Dryburgh still seen grey above the woods, from the tower at whose foot her grandchild was playing. So short the space he had to travel, when his lameness should be cured,--the end of all travel already in sight! Some pride in her, perhaps: you need not be surprised her grandchild should have a little left. "Many a tale" (she told him) "of Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood (Oakwood), Jamie Tellfer of the fair Dodhead, and other heroes--merry men, all of the persuasion and calling of Robin Hood and Little John. A more recent hero, but not of less note, was the celebrated De'il of Little Dean, whom she well remembered, as he had married her mother's sister. Of this extraordinary person I learned many a story--grave and gay, comic and warlike"--(dearest, meek, grandmamma!) "Two or three old books which lay in the window-seat were explored for my amusement in the tedious winter days. Automathes [80] and Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany were my favourites, although, at a later period, an odd volume of Josephus's Wars of the Jews divided my partiality."