A TALE OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER

ADAPTED FROM

Scott’s “Marmion”

BY

SARA D. JENKINS

Ithaca, N.Y.

Author of the Prose “Lady of the Lake,” etc.

1903

[Illustration:  Sir Walter Scott. (Bust.)]

[Illustration:  Sir Walter Scott. (From painting by Wm. Nicholson.)]

INTRODUCTION.

Sir Walter Scott, poet and novelist, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, five years before the Declaration of Independence in America.  Unlike most little Scotch boys, he was not sturdy and robust, and in his second year, a lameness appeared that never entirely left him.  Being frail and delicate, he received the most tender care from parents and grandparents.  Five consecutive years of his life, from the age of three to the age of eight, were spent on his grandfather’s farm at Sandyknow.  At the end of this period, he returned to Edinburgh greatly improved in health, and soon after, entered the high school, where he remained four years.  A course at the university followed the high school, but Scott never gained distinction as a scholar.  He loved romances, old plays, travels, and poetry too well, ever to become distinguished in philosophy, mathematics, or the dry study of dead languages.

In his early years, he had formed a taste for ballad literature, which very significantly influenced, if it did not wholly determine, the character of his writings.  The historical incidents upon which the ballads were founded, their traditional legends, affected him profoundly, and he wished to become at once a poet of chivalry, a writer of romance.  His father, however, had other plans for his son, and the lad was made a lawyer’s apprentice in the father’s office.  Continuing, as recreation, his reading, he gave six years to the study of law, being admitted to the bar when only twenty-one.  For years, he cultivated literature as a relaxation from business.

At the age of twenty-six he married, and about this time accepted the office of deputy sheriff of Selkirkshire, largely moved to do so by his unwillingness to rely upon his pen for support.  Nine years later, 1806, through family influence he was appointed, at a good salary, to one of the chief clerkships in the Scottish court of sessions.  The fulfillment of his long-cherished desire of abandoning his labors as an advocate, in order to devote himself to literature, was now at hand.  He had already delighted the public by various early literary efforts, the most important being the “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,” parts of which had occupied him since childhood.  This was followed by “Sir Tristrem” and the “Lay of the Last Minstrel.”  Scott was now enrolled among the poets of the day, and while never neglecting the duties of office, he entered upon his literary career with unflagging industry.  “Marmion,” “The Lady of the Lake,” “Don Roderick,” and “Rokeby” reflected his romantic fervor.