“Accordingly, during seven successive years, Scott made a raid, as he called it, into Liddesdale with Mr. Shortreed for his guide, exploring every rivulet to its source, and every ruined peel from foundation to battlement. At this time no wheeled carriage had ever been seen in the district; the first, indeed, that ever appeared there was a gig, driven by Scott himself for a part of his way, when on the last of these seven excursions. There was no inn nor public-house of any kind in the whole valley; the travellers passed from the shepherd’s hut to the minister’s manse, and again from the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the homestead; gathering, wherever they went, songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangible relics of antiquity—even such ‘a rowth of auld nicknackets’ as Burns ascribes to Captain Grose. To these rambles Scott owed much of the materials of his ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’; and not less of that intimate acquaintance with the living manners of these unsophisticated regions, which constitutes the chief charm of the most charming of his prose works. But how soon he had any definite object before him in his researches seems very doubtful. ‘He was makin’ himsel’ a’ the time,’ said Mr. Shortreed; ‘but he didna ken maybe what he was about, till years had passed. At first he thought o’ little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun.’ ‘It was that same season, I think,’ says Mr. Shortreed, ‘that Sir Walter got from Dr. Elliot the large old border war horn, which ye may still see hanging in the armoury at Abbotsford. How great he was when he was made master o’ that! I believe it had been found in Hermitage Castle—and one of the doctor’s servants had used it many a day as a grease-horn for his scythe before they had discovered its history. When cleaned out, it was never a hair the worse; the original chain, hoop, and mouthpiece of steel were all entire, just as you now see them. Sir Walter carried it home all the way from Liddesdale to Jedburgh slung about his neck like Johnny Gilpin’s bottle, while I was entrusted with an ancient bridle-bit, which we had likewise picked up. “‘The feint o’ pride—nae pride had he, ... A lang kail-gully hung down by his side, And a great meikle nowt-horn to rout on had he.’ And meikle and sair we routed on’t, and ’hotched and blew wi’ micht and main.’ O what pleasant days! and then a’ the nonsense we had cost us nothing. We never put hand in pocket for a week on end. Toll-bars there were none, and indeed I think our haill charges were a feed o’ corn to our horses in the gangin’ and comin’ at Riccartoun mill.’”