“They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye something; they were just decent bien bodies.  Ony poor creature that had face to beg got an awmous and welcome; they that were shamefaced gaed by, and twice as welcome.  But they keepit an honest walk before God and man, the Croftangrys, and as I said before, if they did little good, they did as little ill.  They lifted their rents and spent them; called in their kain and eat them; gaed to the kirk of a Sunday, bowed civilly if folk took aff their bannets as they gaed by, and lookit as black as sin at them that keepit them on.”

[67] Mrs. Wilson, landlady of the inn at Fushie, one stage from Edinburgh,—­an old dame of some humour, with whom Sir Walter always had a friendly colloquy in passing.  I believe the charm was, that she had passed her childhood among the Gipsies of the Border.  But her fiery Radicalism latterly was another source of high merriment.—­J.G.L.

[68] The “new hare” was this:  “It transpired in the very nick of time, that a suspicion of usury attached to these Israelites without guile, in a transaction with Hurst and Robinson, as to one or more of the bills for which the house of Ballantyne had become responsible.  This suspicion, upon investigation, assumed a shape sufficiently tangible to justify Ballantyne’s trustees in carrying the point before the Court of Session; but they failed to establish their allegation.”—­Life, vol. ix. pp. 178-9.

[69] A favourite domestic at Abbotsford, whose name was never to be mentioned by any of Scott’s family without respect and gratitude.—­Life, vol. x. p. 3.

[70] Lady Jane Stuart’s house was No. 12 Maitland Street, opposite Shandwick Place.  Mrs. Skene told Mr. Lockhart that at Sir Walter’s first meeting with his old friend a very painful scene occurred, and she added—­“I think it highly probable that it was on returning from this call that he committed to writing the verses, To Time, by his early favourite.”—­Life, vol. ix, p. 183.

The lines referred to are given below—­

Friend of the wretch oppress’d with grief.  Whose lenient hand, though slow, supplies The balm that lends to care relief, That wipes her tears—­that checks her sighs!

’Tis thine the wounded soul to heal That hopeless bleeds for sorrow’s smart, From stern misfortune’s shaft to steal The barb that rankles in the heart.

What though with thee the roses fly, And jocund youth’s gay reign is o’er; Though dimm’d the lustre of the eye, And hope’s vain dreams enchant no more.

Yet in thy train come dove-eyed peace, Indifference with her heart of snow; At her cold couch, lo! sorrows cease, No thorns beneath her roses grow.

O haste to grant thy suppliant’s prayer, To me thy torpid calm impart:  Rend from my brow youth’s garland fair, But take the thorn that’s in my heart.

Ah! why do fabling poets tell That thy fleet wings outstrip the wind?  Why feign thy course of joy the knell, And call thy slowest pace unkind?