Among other consequences of the revived fame of the place, a yearly festival was instituted for the celebration of _The St. Ronan's Border Games_. A club of _Bowmen of the Border_, arrayed in doublets of Lincoln green, with broad blue bonnets, and having the Ettrick Shepherd for Captain, assumed the principal management of this exhibition; and Sir Walter was well pleased to be enrolled among them, and during several years was a regular attendant, both on the Meadow, where (besides archery) leaping, racing, wrestling, stone-heaving, and hammer-throwing, went on opposite to the noble old Castle of Traquair, and at the subsequent banquet, where Hogg, in full costume, always presided as master of the ceremonies. In fact, a gayer spectacle than that of the _St. Ronan's Games_, in those days, could not well have been desired. The Shepherd, even when on the verge of threescore, exerted himself lustily in the field, and seldom failed to carry off some of the prizes, to the astonishment of his vanquished juniors; and the _bon-vivants_ of Edinburgh mustered strong among the gentry and yeomanry of Tweeddale to see him afterwards in his glory filling the president's chair with eminent success, and commonly supported on this--which was in fact the grandest evening of his year--by Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Sir Adam Ferguson, and _Peter_ Robertson. The Earl of Traquair was patron of the club, and among the members not mentioned by Lockhart, occur the names of the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Napier, Robert Gladstone of Liverpool, William Blackwood, James Ballantyne, and Adam Wilson, captain of the Six-Feet Club.[5] At a later date, Glassford Bell, sheriff of Lanarkshire, took great interest in these sports.