This legend is more of Surtees’ fun. “The most singular tale of this kind,” says Sir Walter, “is contained in an extract communicated to me by my friend Mr. Surtees, of Mainsforth, who copied it from a MS. note in a copy of Burthogge “On the Nature of Spirits, 1694, 8vo,” which had been the property of the late Mr. Gill. It was not in Mr. Gill’s own hand: but probably an hundred years older, and was said to be “E libro Convent. Dunelm. per T. C. extract.;” this T. C. being Thomas Cradocke, Esq. Scott adds, that the passage, which he gives in the Latin, suggested the introduction of the tourney with the Fairy Knight in “Marmion.” Well, _where_ is Cradocke’s extract? The original was “lost” before Surtees sent his “copy” to Sir Walter. “The notes had been carelessly or injudiciously shaken out of the book.” Surtees adds, another editor confirms it, that no such story exists in any MS. of the Dean and Chapter of Durham. No doubt he invented the whole story, and wrote it himself in mediæval Latin. Not content with two “whoppers,” as Mr. Jo Gargery might call them, Surtees goes on to invent a perfectly incredible heraldic bearing. He found it in a MS. note in the “Gwillim’s Heraldry” of Mr. Gyll or Gill—the name is written both ways. “He beareth per pale or and arg., over all a spectre passant, _shrouded sable_”—“he” being Newton, of Beverley, in Yorkshire. Sir Walter actually swallowed this amazing fib, and alludes to it in “Rob Roy” (1818). But Mr. Raine, the editor of Surtees’ Life, inherited or bought his copy of Gwillim, that of Mr. Gill or Gyll; “and I find in it no trace of such an entry.” “Lord Derwentwater’s Good-Night” is probably entirely by Surtees. “A friend of Mr. Taylor’s” gave him a Tynedale ballad, “Hey, Willy Ridley, winna you stay?” which is also “aut Diabolus aut Robertus.” As to “Barthram’s Dirge,” “from Ann Douglas, a withered crone who weeds my garden,” copies with various tentative verses in Surtees’ hand have been found. Oddly enough, Sir Walter had once discovered a small sepulchral cross, upset, in Liddesdale, near the “Nine Stane Rig;” and this probably made him more easily deceived. Surtees very cleverly put some lines, which _could_ not have been original, in brackets, as his own attempt to fill up lacunæ. Such are [When the dew fell cold and still, When the aspen grey forget to play, And the mist clung to the hill.] Any one reading the piece would say, “It must be genuine, for the _confessed_ interpolations are not in the ballad style, which the interpolator, therefore, could not write.” An attempt which Surtees made when composing the song, and which he wisely rejected, could not have failed to excite Scott’s suspicions. It ran— They buried him when the bonny may Was on the flow’ring thorn; And she waked him till the forest grey Of every leaf was lorn;