re
spectators of the combat from an eminence, but peace was soon
after restored, which made the older warriors regret the
effeminacy of the age, as, regularly, it ought to have lasted
till night. Two lives were lost, I mean of horses; indeed, had
you seen them, you would rather have wondered that they were able
to bear their masters to the scene of action, than that they
could not carry them off.[79]

I am ashamed to read over this sheet of nonsense, so excuse
inaccuracies. Remember me to the lads of the Literary, those of
_the club_ in particular. I wrote Irving. Remember my most
respectful compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Clerk and family,
particularly James; when you write, let me know how he did when
you heard of him. Imitate me in writing a long letter, but not in
being long in writing it. Direct to me at Miss Scott's, Garden,
Kelso. My letters lie there for me, as it saves their being sent
down to Rosebank. The carrier puts up at the Grassmarket, and
goes away on Wednesday forenoon. Yours,

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 79: Mr. Andrew Shortreed (one of a family often
mentioned in these Memoirs) says, in a letter of November,
1838: "The joke of the _one pair_ of boots to _three pair_ of
legs was so unpalatable to the honest burghers of Jedburgh,
that they have suffered the ancient privilege of 'riding the
Fair,' as it was called (during which ceremony the
inhabitants of Kelso were compelled to shut up their shops as
on a holiday), to fall into disuse. Huoy, the runaway forger,
a native of Kelso, availed himself of the calumny in a clever
squib on the subject:--

'The outside man had each a boot,
The three had but a pair.'"]

The {p.152} next letter is dated from a house at which I have often
seen the writer in his latter days. Kippilaw, situated about five or
six miles behind Abbotsford, on the high ground between the Tweed and
the Water of Ayle, is the seat of an ancient laird of the clan Kerr,
but was at this time tenanted by the family of Walter's
brother-apprentice, James Ramsay, who afterwards realized a fortune in
the civil service of Ceylon.

TO WILLIAM CLERK, ESQ.

KIPPILAW, September 3, 1790.

DEAR CLERK,--I am now writin