The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prose Marmion, by Sara D. Jenkins

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Prose Marmion
A Tale of the Scottish Border

Author: Sara D. Jenkins

Release Date: January 22, 2004 [EBook #10778]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROSE MARMION ***

Produced by PG Distributed Proofreaders

THE PROSE MARMION

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. F