in the presence of Jane Nicholson and John Bird on December 29th, 1797.  Sir Walter was touring in the Lake District in July of that year, and while staying at Gilsland Wells he first saw a fascinating and elegant young lady, the daughter of Jean Charpentier of Lyons, then under the charge of the Rev. John Bird, a Minor Canon of Carlisle Cathedral.  She was described, possibly by Sir Walter himself, as being rich in personal attractions, with a form fashioned as light as a fairy’s, a complexion of the clearest and finest Italian brown, and a profusion of silken tresses as black as the raven’s wing.  A humorous savant wrote the following critique on this description of the beauty of Sir Walter’s fiancee: 

   It is just possible the rascal had been reading some of the old Welsh
   stories collected in the twelfth century and known as the Mabinogion
   stories.  In one Oliven is described so—­

“More yellow was her head than the yellow of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the sprays of the meadow fountain.  The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the three-mewed falcon was not brighter than hers.  Her bosom was more snowed than the heart of the white swan; her cheek was redder than the reddest roses.”

[Illustration:  THE “POPPING STONE,” GILSLAND.]

Or again, both of the love-stricken swains may have dipped, into the Arabian Nights, where imagination and picture painting runs riot.

There was no doubt that Scott fell deeply in love with her, so much so that a friend whom he visited in 1797 wrote that “Scott was ‘sair’ beside himself about Miss Carpenter and that they toasted her twenty times over and raved about her until one o’clock in the morning.”  Sir Walter seemed to have acted in his courtship on the old north-country adage, “Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing,” for he was married to her three months afterwards.  The whole details are carefully preserved in local tradition.  The River Irthing runs through Gilsland, and at the foot of the cliffs, which rise go feet above the river, were the Sulphur Wells.  Near these, on the bank of the river, was a large stone named the “Popping Stone,” where it was said that Sir Walter Scott “popped the question,” and all who can get a piece of this stone, which, by the way, is of a very hard nature, and place it under the pillow at night, will dream of their future partners.  The hotel people tell a good story of a gentleman, an entire stranger to the district, who went in company with a lady who knew the neighbourhood to see the famous stone.  After walking for some distance they were passing a stone, when the gentleman asked, “Is this the popping stone?” “No,” answered his fair companion, “but any large stone will do.”

Near the stone there was a bush called the “Kissing Bush,” where Sir Walter was said to have sealed the sweet compact when the temperature was only “two in the shade.”