says Sir Walter, but what was the cause of the quarrel? I have a hypothesis. The famous ballad of _Jamie Telfer_ exists in two {178}versions. In one the Scotts are covered with laurels, while Martin Eliott plays the part of a cur. In the other, the Eliotts gain all the glory, while Scott of Buccleuch acts like a mean dastard. One of these versions is the original, the other is a perversion. The ballad itself, which takes us all through the Border, from Bewcastle on the English side, to the fair Dodhead on Upper Ettrick, is not of the period of the incidents described. As far as these are historical, the date is about 1596. The author of the ballad does not know the facts, and makes incredible statements. Consequently he is late, writes years after the Union of the Crowns (1603) and the end of Border raids. I guess that either Will Henderson was the author of the ballad in favour of the Scotts, and that Robin, the minstrel of the Eliotts, perverted it into the Eliott version, or _vice versa_, Robert was the original author, Will the perverter. Here, in any case, was infringement of copyright and deadly insult. The poets fought. Certainly, Robin fell, and the Eliotts hanged Will, gave him "Jeddart justice." To the ballad we shall return; it is, though inaccurate, full of the old Border spirit, and is in itself an itinerary of the Marches. These high powers, the Scott and Eliott clans, like the States of Europe, were now allies, cementing their federacy by intermarriages; and again were bitter foes. The strength of the chief of the Eliotts was in Liddesdale, of the Scotts, in Teviotdale. They were allies for young James V against his Keepers, the Douglases, "When gallant Cessford's life-blood dear Reeked on dark Eliott's Border spear" at "Turn Again," a spot on Scott's estate of Abbotsford. They were foes in 1564-66, in Queen Mary's reign, when Martin Eliott, chief of his clan, plotted with the Armstrongs to betray her strong fortress of Hermitage to the English. In this feud the Eliotts attacked Scott of Hassendean in his tower on Hassendean burn, the next tributary of Teviot, but {179}the ballad of _Kinmont Willie_ makes Gilbert Eliott of Stobs ride with the bold Buccleuch to the rescue of Willie from Carlisle Castle (1596). Unluckily, in 1596 Gilbert Eliott was not yet the Laird of Stobs. [Illustration: 0199] This Gilbert, at all events, married the daughter of the Flower of Yarrow, the wife of Auld Wat Scott of Harden, himself the neighbour and foremost fighting man of the laird of Branksome in Teviot, the bold Buccleuch. His descendant, Sir Walter, has made Auld Wat's name immortal, and, in Jamie Telftr, has certainly interpolated a spirited stanza.