Ancient and Royal Burgh of Lauder where he was born and where his mother continued to reside, and he ultimately came to regard with scarcely less affection the classic town of Melrose, whither he went while still in his 'teens to find employment. He was, too, a great lover of nature from his earliest youth. Hence it came about that while many of us, from one cause and another, have had to turn our backs upon the Borderland, however much we were bound up in it, the several interests and affections which actuated the subject of these notes caused him to put aside the glamour of great cities and made him to remain a "citizen" of the Scottish Borders. His abilities and character were such as would have carried him far had ambition led him into the wider world, but if he was ever attracted further afield, as doubtless he was, the combined sentiments to which reference has been already made apparently prevailed to keep him in the valley of the Tweed. And so, having served his apprenticeship in the law office of Messrs Curle & Erskine, Melrose, he continued uninterruptedly in the service of the firm until his death on fourth November last, a period of some thirty-five years. When a mere youth he had been put in charge of one of the departments of the business, and the passing years but added to the esteem which he was regarded by his employers. It is nearly twenty years since I left the banks of Tweed and ceased to be in close association with my friend "G.H.," as he was generally spoken of by his familiars. I am not, therefore, in a position to write an account of his life, but his character was already formed before I set my face to the South, and as I had the advantage of his companionship for many years I am glad to have this opportunity of writing a few sentences of appreciation of the virtues of one whose name well deserves to be recorded in the pages of the "Border Magazine." The qualities of which George Hunter's character was compounded call to mind the saying of Confucius that faithfulness and sincerity are the highest things; the remark of our Own great countryman, Thomas Carlyle, that it is not our works which are mortal, but only the spirit in which we work that can have any worth or continuance; and again, the observation of Ruskin, that it is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy. Certainly George Hunter pursued his work, whether inside or outside his office, with faithfulness and sincerity, and with a zest that was at all times closely akin to the most perfect happiness. He looked out upon life keenly, and acknowledged its serious responsibilities, but there was a twinkle about his eyes which was the outward manifestation of a rich vein of humour that added to the interest of his personality and made him a good story-teller. This trait in his character found play in the lecture which he delivered from time to time on the subject of "Lauder and Its Worthies." He had a keen appreciation of humour of the kind exemplified in "Leo Ross," otherwise Dr Moxey's skit on the rural educational authorities of some thirty or more years agoSandy Jamieson and the Skule Board." Well do I recall, after all these years, the gusto with which he impersonated Mrs Sandy: "An' if ye're a Board, what'll I be?" asks the good lady. "Jist the same auld fule ye aye were, answers the gallant and learned Chairman of the Board, whom My Lords of Dover House, Whitehall, were wont to designate, Alexander Jamieson, Esq., &c., &c. But more important than his humour was nis fidelity and his kindness of heart. He was ever ready to help those in trouble. I recall the assiduity with which he sought, in the interest of the bereaved sister, to realise to the best advantage the pictures and sketches of the late William Heatlie, that picturesque and almost pathetic Border artist, who, never at any time strong, was carried off in a more than usually virulent epidemic of influenza that swept over the locality with disastrous results about twenty years ago. And now the indefatigable and kind-hearted George Hunter has himself crossed the bar, reminding us of the mutability of things here, and leaving behind a widow-the wife who nursed him with such tender care during his long illness. Our sympathy goes out to her ; and not least the sympathy of this writer, who, with his youngest sister-now, alas! no more--was the companion of her childhood in the old Abbey town. The parish church of Yetholm, which, with its tower, is a conspicuous object in the vale of Bowmount, was reopened early in December after the complete renovation of the interior. The Rev, Dr Mitford Mitchell preached the sermon. THE VERNACULAR OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS, OME time ago there appeared in the "Glasgow Herald" the following interesting article from the pen of F. T. Henderson : The pre-eminence of Scott as Scottish novelist is analogous to that of Burns as Scottish bard. Not merely were both pre-eminently gifted; each was the founder or model of a variety of literature which, as practised by their successors, could hardly but manifest a diminishing vitality. This was almost as inevitable in the case of the successors of Scott as in that of the successors of Burns. For his particular task Scott, like Burns, was peculiarly favoured by the period of his birth and the nature of his environment. Had he been born at a later period, had he not been a native of Edinburgh, had his early associations and training not been what they were, his literary achievement might have been, in another way, equally remarkable, but it could hardly have been so comprehensively and uniquely national. True, in the fiction of Scott the vernacular is hardly so considerable, so idiosyncratic an element as it is in the verse of Burns. If the allurements of fiction are not so transplendent as those of poetry, they may be made much more various; and in the novels of Scott the variety of charm is quite exceptional. They are the product of a remarkable diversity of gifts, graces, and accomplishments. Some of his romances have nothing to do with Scotland; in the case of others the vernacular forms but an inconsiderable portion of the dialect; and when it specially prevails it is used partly for the sake of contrast and variety, in order that the other portions may "Show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off." Yet no Scottish reader would be disposed to deny that the most amusing and entertaining portions of the novels are those in which we are introduced to the Scots of other days, who express themselves in their homely native Doric. Ostensibly these Scots are with almost the sole exception of Jeanie Deans in "The Heart of Midlothian "-the subordinate personages of the story. They are made to serve very much the same artistic purpose as the fool and other comic personages of the Elizabethan drama; but proportionately they bulk more largely in most of the novels than the comic personages in the average play. Also, while the dramatic comic personages often wear a mental as well as a bodily motley, the Scots characters in the novels of Scott are revealed to us, mentally and morally, in " puris naturalibus." They are genuinely real and Scottish in everything they do, and in every word they utter. Indeed, their individualities are generally much more definite and distinct than those of the chief personalities-the hero or heroine, or the great historic characters. Lesser men than Scott have depicted some of the great historic personages with a veri-similitude quite as convincing; but such individualities of everyday life as Andrew Fairservice, Edie Ochiltree, the Laird of Dumbiedykes, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Wandering Willie, Caleb Balderstone, Dominie Sampson, Peter Peebles, and Cuddie Headrigg and his mother Mause are the immortal creations of a great master. Scott made use of the vernacular mainly as one of his methods of conjuring up the past. Each of his Scottish novels is meant to depict a certain aspect or period of the old Scottish world, not the contemporary life of any particular class or coterie or district. On this account, and for other reasons, he makes little or no attempt to reproduce special dialectical peculiarities. The vernacular he has recourse to is, for the most part, not a provincial dialect at all. In "The Heart of Midlothian" he represents the Duke of Argyll as referring to that "pure Court-Scotch, which was common in my younger days; but it is so generally disused now that it sounds like a different dialect, entirely distinct from our modern 'patois.' This pure "Court-Scotch" of the earlier eighteenth century must have been a very mild form of Scots, Scots in little more than the accent; for in the letters of Maitland of Lethington and in the "Memoirs" of Sir James Melville we have evidence that already in the latter half of the sixteenth century English had begun to affect the language of the Scottish diplomatists; and after the accession of James VI. to the Scottish throne the intercourse at the English Court must have rapidly transformed the Scots of the Scottish courtiers. But whether Scott meant the Duke's account of "Court-Scotch " to represent merely the Duke's opinion or also his own, he, as matter of fact, never makes an attempt to represent Court-Scotch as the Duke supposed it to be talked. Thus Lady Bellenden and Claverhouse are represented as conversing not even in the mildest variety of Scots but in pure and very ceremonious English; and when Lady Bellenden addresses the Covenanting cottager, Mause Headrigg, she does so in a variety of the vernacular that in the mere wording differs but slightly from that of the heroic Mause. Here is the style in which she gives expression to her aristocratic loyalty :-"I had rather that the rigs of Tillietudlem bare naething but windle-straes and sandy lavrocks than that they were ploughed by rebels to the King." Similarly the Laird of Milnwood, who converses with Bothwell in finely stilted English, addresses his recalcitrant nephew in a form of Scots that does not differ essentially from that of his housekeeper :-"You pretend to gie entertainments that canna come by a dinner except by sorning on a carefu' man like me. But if ye put me to charges, I'se work it out o' ye. I seena why ye shouldna haud the pleugh, now that the pleughman has left us; it wad set ye better than wearing thae green duds, and wasting your siller on powther and lead." 66 وو Both the accent and dialect of the sixteenth century Scots, as spoken by the educated classes, is mirrored with much greater accuracy in contemporary letters than in, say, the writings of Knox, which were meant for perusal by English as well as Scottish readers. Here, for example, is a quotation from a letter of Sir James Balfour:-"I have desyrit, my lord ambassador, to write this in his cipher; for gif I had ane of my awin, I wald have twicht sindrie thingis which I have omittit, but sall write heir eftir as things sall happin to fall furth." Even the Scots of this quotation is influenced by contemporary English, but it sufficiently shows that in the sixteenth century the Scots of the educated classes was in various respects dissimilar in accent and pronunciation from the Scots of the Waverley novels. Yet the latter, if neither the "Court-Scotch" of the seventeenth or early eighteenth century, is certainly not what the Duke of Argyll is supposed to describe as "the broad coarse Scotch that is spoken in the Cowgate of Edinburgh or the Gorbals." It is rarely, if at all, tinged with vulgarity. Its basis is evidently the Scots which, even in Scott's time, was very commonly spoken by the educated Edinburgh citizens in their more familiar intercourse. The Mr Saunders Fairford of "Redgauntlet "-modelled partly, we may suppose, on Scott's own fathertalks English or Scots as the mood moves him or as the character of his company suggests; and his ordinary speech is a very hybrid English, as thus in his mournful musings caused by the disappearance of his hopeful son Alan, the budding advocate, after the sudden interruption of his telling address in the case of Peter Peebles versus Dumbiedykes "-" To think that the lad should have made so able an appearance, and then bolted off this gate, after a glaiket ne'er-do-weel, like a hound upon a false scent! Las-a-day, it's a sore thing to see a stunkard cow knock down the pail when it's reaming fou." And while in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a Scots of this character was a common conversational medium amongst the better educated citizens-lawyers as well as clergymen and doctors, and advocates and judges as well as solicitors and writers to the signet-in less highly educated but still comparatively genteel circles a more unalloyed Scots, like that of Provost Crosbie of Dumfries and his spouse, universally prevailed. In Scott's time manners and modes of speech were undergoing rapid change; but even in his later years there were still survivals of the oldfashioned Scot of the previous century; and during his earlier years the Doric, or a modification of it, was in general use amongst all classes of the Edinburgh citizens. His opportunities for mastering the niceties of a still very definite and idiomatic Scots were thus much more considerable than they are now; and his knowledge of different varieties of the vernacular was greatly extended during his tours, especially in the South of Scotland, and his familiar intercourse in Scots with Scotsmen of every class and calling. He thus acquired an exceptionally wide command of Scottish words, idioms, phrases, and every-day proverbs, and in his artistic use of them he is as superior to his Scottish successors as he is in most other respects. If his English be occasionally loose and careless, his Scots is as concise and terse as it is rich and various. But, at the same time, he is, as has already been indicated, at no special pains to represent the peculiarities and accent of particular districts. The addiction in Lothian and the Southern counties to the use of "y" before a vowelalmost as characteristic as the partiality of the superfluous "h" in certain parts of Englandis only denoted in one instance, in the "Yerastian" for "Erastian" of douce Davie Deans. The common "yin" for "ane" is not adopted. He is concerned mainly with essentials-his main aim being to portray individualities, he shows but a minor interest in merely local variations of the vernacular. Such peculiarities of the pronunciation as those of Cuddie Headrigg in, for example, the case of "sir" and "necessity"-e.g., "Troth, stir, just what gars the auld wives trot, neshessity stir "are evidently meant to indicate certain characteristic traits of the individual. Again, in Dandie Dinmont, the special Scots of the Border farmer is faintly bodied forth; but this rather by the introduction of certain mecial words and phrases 5 than by any attempt to reproduce the local methods of pronunciation. If also Bailie Nicol Jarvie manifests not a little of the frankness and volubility of the Glasgow citizen, he does not talk with the characteristic Glasgow accent; his accent is not made to differ from that of Provost Crosbie or Peter Peebles. It would not be correct to affirm that the vernacular which the characters of Scott talk is of a quite uniform kind. Each talks Scots after his own individual fashion; and in the methods of its use, differences of rank and station, as well as traits of character, are subtly suggested; but the Scots of each is a vernacular contrived by Scott as the result of a wide and varied observation, and adapted by him to each particular case. To represent character being his primary aim, he does not hesitate for artistic purposes to do violence to strict historic as well as local truth. As we have seen, Lady Margaret Bellenden and Claverhouse are made to address each other in very ceremonious English; and similarly in "The Abbot" the historic personages of Mary Stuart's time are make to talk neither "Court" nor any other Scots, but undiluted English; had they talked Scots it would have tended, owing to modern associations, to detract from their dignity. But one of the most striking instances of Scott's disregard of actual fact in the use of the vernacular is that of Rob Roy. At one time Scott makes him talk English without a trace of any kind of Scottish or Highland accent, at another as idiomatic a Lowland Scots as that of Bailie Nicol Jarvie, "A Scottish brogue," so Scott gravely affirms, after representing Rob as talking not Gaelic but perfect English-" with its corresponding dialect and imagery, which, although he had the power at times of laying them aside, recurred at every moment of emotion, and gave pith to his sarcasm or vehemence to his expostulation." But can Rob, notwithstanding his frequent reiving feats in the Scottish Lowlands, and his occasional droving tours in England, be really credited with-in addition, we must suppose, to Gaelic-the double linguistic accomplishment of perfect English and thorough Lowland Scots? Was not Gaelic rather than Lowland Scots the language that in his case would be apt to recur "at every moment of emotion?" If his Lowland vernacular was a shade less absurd than that of the Dougal Cratur-the Lowland lingo, doubtless, of the Highland town guard of Edinburgh-can he be credited with the possession of any kind of Sassenach language, Scots or English, that differed greatly from that of Duncan Campbell, the Duke of Argyll's factor at Roseneath? Why, then, does Scott not represent Rob as changing his "b's" into "p's" and his "d's" into "t's," and indulging in other Celtic obliquities in the use of English or Scots, after this Knockdunder fashion :- And ye had petter tell your father, puir body, to get his beasts a' in order and put his tamn'd Cameronian nonsense out o' his head for twa or three days, if he can pe so opliging; for fan I speak to him apout prute pestial he answers me out o' the Piple, which is not using a shentleman weel, unless it pe a person of your cloth, Mr Putler?" The explanation, of course, is that Scott wished to exhibit the heroic outlaw in the very opposite of a ludicrous light. Another equally striking instance, but of an entirely different kind, of the sacrifice of linguistic veri-similitude to art is supplied in "Wandering Willie's Tale." Much of the effect of this remarkable narrative is produced by a masterly blending of Eng lish and Scots. Wandering Willie himself could not have uttered this splendid example of English-" And there was Claverhouse as beautiful as when he lived, with his long, dark, curled locks streaming down over his laced buff coat, and his left hand always on his right spule-blade to hide the wound that the silver bullet had made." Such a sentence was quite beyond the linguistic gifts of the strolling fiddler, but Scott secures the effect he desires; and the supremacy of his artistry is seen in the fact that we do not feel the English to be an intrusion. It was as necessary for Scott's artistic purpose as was, in its own place, the graphic and weird vernacular. In fine, Scott in his manner of using the vernacular displays the consummate skill, not of the imitative, but of the creative realist. 溪 THOMAS PRINGLE. HOMAS PRINGLE was certainly one of the most remarkable men the Scottish Border has produced. Born with a hatred of tyranny in every shape and form, he fought it with undaunted courage to the last, dying only a few months after the abolition of slavery, to the famous Society for the suppression of which he had for the last few years of his life acted as secretary. Such a man, we can readily conceive, could hardly have been a "persona grata" to the politicians and litterateurs of his day, and might well have brought down upon himself the wrath of even the kindly Sir Walter Scott. But posterity is the final arbiter in such cases, and Pringle seems at length to have attained to that niche in the Temple of Fame to which, by his achievements, he is justly entitled. I have before me a book which is entitled "A Treasury of South African Poetry and Verse: collected and arranged by E. H. Crouch," second edition, 1909; published by Fifield, London. While this book gives specimens of upwards of fifty authors, and is therefore of great interest as indicating the present position and probable future trend of the literature of the great South African Union, it is pleasing to note that the post of honour is assigned to Thomas Pringle; his well-known portrait, which is subscribed "The Father of South African Poetry," appearing as the frontispiece, while the first eighteen pages are devoted to specimens of his work, conspicuous among which, of course, is his world-famous poem, Afar in the desert I love to ride." The book also contains the following beautiful tribute to his memory by A. Vine Hall, the inclusion of which in the columns of the "B.M." will, I have no doubt, be highly appreciated. ALEX. PRINGLE, THOMAS PRINGLE, Post and Reformer, With glory of poetic light The century dawned whose night Is deepening around us. Joyful rang The earth when all those morning stars together sang. Our Ocean-Mother gave to us One, not least luminous, Pringle, the poet of the parched Karoo. From thraldom of the "glittering eye" his music drew. Coleridge, who loved its magic well; E'en Scott beneath it fell, Forgetful of the Gael and Saxon feud While listening to that weird romance of solitude. Thine the flung gauntlet of a righteous hate, And thine a flower of song to consecrate. Thou singest; we behold the band Of exiles leave their land: lone ways The fair dear hills of Scotland fade away For ever! eyes unused to weeping weep that day. But hallowed page, and David's lyre, And thine their hearts inspire. And now they tread the hot and barren shore; And now, by floods bereft of all their humble store, Thy pen it is that wins relief. But soon they lose their chief The conquest of the desert has begun, And a far fiercer fight must by his blade be won: Fainting with wounds he quits the well-fought field, But not before the shout telling the foemen yield. The world beholds him: on Oppression's grave His hand doth plant the flag that frees the trembling slave. Hard seems the fate that once again The cup. to feast and grace the board with song, Death beckons him: he glides from that illustrious throng. Then Calumny, once timorous-tame, With the vile brood that haunts her loathsome cave; They gibber round and spill their venom on his grave. "Therefore his life was failure!" say Those who but count the pay. Fools even thus: from the world's poor renown God ever saveth some for His own hand to crown. Pringle, we love thy hate of wrong, Thy simple, heart-felt song! A knightly soul, unbought, and unafraid; This country oweth much to thy two-edged blade: And when the crowds of meanly great And sordidly elate Are dust long since forgotten, Afric's page Will boast thy name as now-a light from age to A. VINE HALL, age, BORDER NOTES AND QUERIES. FAMOUS OLD BORDER TREES. This was the subject of an interesting article by "A. G." which appeared in the BORDER MAGAZINE for December. It may not be out of place to add that the venerable Capon Tree near Jedburgh was referred to by Gilpin in his "Forest Scenery," and it is further described in "Smail's Guide to Jedburgh." By the road-side near Brampton in Cumberland there is a Capon Tree; and a Coban or Capon Tree may have stood near Alnwick Castle (see Berwickshire Naturalists' Club's Proceedings for 1862, pp. 331-2). In the name King of the Forest" which "A. G." applies to the other oak near Ferniherst Castle, and perhaps forming with the Capon Tree the "sole relics of the ancient Jed Forest," there is a slight mistake-the precise title being The King of the Wood." There is an interesting parallel in the poetical works of William Cowper, where he addresses "Yardley Oak" thus: "Time made thee what thou wast-king of the woods." From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable it appears that the term King of the Forest" is an epithet of the oak-tree. G. WATSON. CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Byron and Meredith held the field on 1st December, 1910, at Sotheby's London saleroom, and on the following day their places were taken by Scott and Burns. The chief lot was the correspondence of Sir Walter Scott with John Wilson Croker, who was an old friend of the novelist. In the first letter of the series, Scott praises Croker's poem, "The Battle of Talavera," characterising it as highspirited and martial." Later he writes hoping that Wellington will not be crippled in the great contest in the Peninsula. "The recall of his Army," he says, "would be quenching the smoking flax of Continental liberty with a vengeance." In an amusing letter, he asks Croker to take charge of the first copy of "A Collection of Scottish Music," intended for presentation to the Prince Regent, who, he thought, would perhaps deign to receive the Highland muse in her undress : "High kilted was she As she gaed ower the lea." Scott's opinion of Byron is recorded thus:-"I enclose a packet for Murray, a review on Lord Byron, whom I would fain bring back to sound politics and sound sense, as his talents are really of such an extraordinary description. I have no great confidence in the power of my eloquence, but, nevertheless, in sincere goodwill to him and to the country he belongs to, I have done my best to give him a rally." These letters end with an account given by Sir Walter of the examination of the chest containing the famous Scottish regalia in 1817, after having been unopened since 1707. For this correspondence Mr Maggs paid £285. Mr Sabin paid £11 10s for a letter of Scott's dated 4th November, 1827, dealing with his life of Napoleon and the assertion by Gourgand that some of the documents he used were forged, and £8 15s for another of his letters, 14th March, 1808, to Anna Seward, with regard to negotiations with Constable on publishing her literary works. W. Brown, of Edinburgh, gave £4 4s for a Scott letter to Miss Smith, in which he writes:-" We shall be in the agony of removing from Ashiestiel to the little cottage Lady Douglas mentioned, and Charlotte has so much crockery, and I have so many guns, pistols, broadswords, and targes to remove, that one or other of us must be constantly on the spot." The Burns item was a MS. song entitled "Wilt thou be my dearie?"; tune, "The Sutor's Dochter." This went to Mr Spencer at £41. A third Scott lot was an interesting document in which Alexander Selkirk, the prototype of "Robinson Crusoe," states that while serving as master pilot in the Cinque Port he was put ashore on the island of Juan Fernandez, where he remained for four years, four months, four days, subsisting on fish and goats' flesh, and that afterwards, being rescued by Captain Wood Rogers, he assisted in the capture of twenty-six vessels, besides the town of Guayaquil. A pencil note states:-"This appears to have been the original memorial presented to George I. It was found in the .repositories of the Duke of Roxburghe, Secretary of State for Scotland." some "J. McW.," writing in the "Scotsman" time ago, says :-A few months ago all the Border Angling Associations had their attention drawn to the systematic manner in which trouting streams are netted. Unfortunately the work of depletion does not cease with the end of the open season. For centuries there has been no more favourite winter sport in the outlying districts of Tweedside than "burning the water." "Guy Mannering," it will be recalled, contains a graphic account of a leistering expedition, and since the days of Scott there has been little change in the mode of procedure, though, thanks to the bicycle, the " sportsmen are able to extend their operations to some tributaries formerly looked upon as inaccessible. From ten to fifteen ploughmen and shepherds usually arrange to meet at a stream on a certain night. Some members of the company are provided with gaff hooks or old scythe blades. Others carry torches made out of torn racks which have been dipped in tar, and then tightly bound with wire. The torch-bearers keep to the banks, while those who carry weapons take to the water. When the stream is low and clear, no fish of average size can hope to escape the eagle eye of the expert wielder of the gaff; and in many instances a sack load of salmon and trout is secured in the course of a single night. Illegal as the pastime is, it is followed by many peasants whose habits are otherwise most reputable. A passage from Sir Archibald Geikie's "Scottish Reminiscences" shows that it possesses a picturesque element well fitted to appeal to an adventurous youth :-"In boy hood I used sometimes to assist at a 'burning o' the water,' when all the shepherds, poachers, and idlers of the district assembled to take part in the fun and excitement of spearing salmon or grilse. The Gala Water on these nights presented a singularly picturesque sight-the lurid glare and smoke of the torches, the cautious movements of the men in the river, the shouts of those on the bank as a successful leister,' that had transfixed a fish, was handed over to them, and the chorus of shepherds' dogs, that were among the most active and excited of the spectators." An inherited instinct which is as old as the days of raid and foray lends an additional interest to the pastime, and there is every likelihood that the "burning o' the water" will be the |