argers of the two troopers, that they might join
their companions at Dalkeith. The author was very much struck by the
answer made to him by the last-mentioned lady, when he paid her some
compliment on the readiness which she showed in equipping her son with
the means of meeting danger, when she might have left him a fair excuse
for remaining absent. "Sir," she replied, with the spirit of a Roman
matron, "none can know better than you that my son is the only prop by
which, since his father's death, our family is supported. But I would
rather see him dead on that hearth, than hear that he had been a horse's
length behind his companions in the defence of his king and country."
The author mentions what was immediately under his own eye, and within
his own knowledge; but the spirit was universal, wherever the alarm
reached, both in Scotland and England.

The account of the ready patriotism displayed by the country on this
occasion, warmed the hearts of Scottishmen in every corner of the world.
It reached the ears of the well-known Dr. Leyden, whose enthusiastic
love of Scotland, and of his own district of Teviotdale, formed a
distinguished part of his character. The account which was read to him
when on a sick-bed, stated (very truly) that the different corps, on
arriving at their alarm-posts, announced themselves by their music
playing the tunes peculiar to their own districts, many of which have
been gathering-signals for centuries. It was particularly remembered,
that the Liddesdale men, before mentioned, entered Kelso playing the
lively tune--

O wha dare meddle wi' me,
And wha dare meddle wi' me!
My name it is little Jock Elliot,
And wha dare meddle wi' me!

The patient was so delighted with this display of ancient Border spirit,
that he sprung up in his bed, and began to sing the old song with such
vehemence of action and voice, that his attendants, ignorant of the
cause of excitation, concluded that the fever had taken possession
of his brain; and it was only the entry of another Borderer, Sir John
Malcolm, and the explanation which he was well qualified to give, that
prevented them from resorting to means of medical coercion.

The circumstances of this false alarm and its consequences may be now
held of too little importance even for a note upon a work of fiction;
but, at the period when it happened, it was hailed by the c