royalty, and chivalry, and beauty of both kingdoms. At a little distance
to the east of Fleurs, the neat quaint abbey-town of Kelso, with its
magnificent bridge, nestles amid greenery, close to the river. And afar
to the south, the eye, tired at last with so vast a prospect, and with
such richness and variety of scenery, rests itself on the cloud-capt
range of the Cheviots, in amplitude and grandeur not unmeet to sentinel
the two ancient and famous lands.

Upwards of thirty years ago, the ducal coronet of Roxburghe was worn by
a nobleman who was then known, and is still remembered on Tweedside, as
the "Good Duke James." The history of his life, were there any one now
to tell it correctly, would be replete with interest. I cannot pretend
to authentic knowledge of it; but I know the outline as I heard it when
a child--as it used to be recited, like a minstrel's tale, by the
gray-haired cottager sitting at his door of a summer evening, or by some
faithful old servant of the castle, on a winter's night, over his flagon
of ale, at the rousing hall-fire. And from all I have ever learned
since, I judge that these country stories in the main were accurate.

He was not by birth a _Ker_--the family name of the house of
Roxburghe--descended of the awful "Habbie Ker" in Queen Mary's troublous
time, the Taille-Bois of the Borders, the Ogre-Baron of tradition, whose
name is still whispered by the peasant with a kind of _eeriness_, as if
he might start from his old den at Cessford, and pounce upon the rash
speaker. Duke James was an Innes of the "north countrie;" Banff or
Cromarty. He was some eight years of age in the dismal '45. Though his
father was Hanoverian, the "Butcher" Cumberland shewed him but little
favour in the course of his merciless ravages after Culloden. A troop of
dragoons lived at free quarters on his estate; and one of them, in mere
wanton cruelty, fired at the boy when standing at his father's door, and
the ball grazed his face. Seventy years afterwards, when he was duke,
the Ettrick Shepherd happened to dine at Fleurs. He was then collecting
his "Jacobite Relics," and the Duke asked him what was his latest
ballad? The Shepherd answered, it was a version of "Highland Laddie." He
sang it. On coming to the verse,

"Ken ye the news I hae to tell,
Bonnie Laddie, Highland Laddie,
Cumberland's awa' to hell,
Bonnie Laddie, Highland Laddie!"

the Duke burst into one of his ringing laughs--the fine