days of hard
living, a measured and orderly hospitality as respected liquor. Soon
after supper, at which a bottle of elderberry wine alone had been
produced, a young student of divinity, who happened to be in the
house, was called upon to take the "big ha' Bible," {p.180} in the
good old fashion of Burns's Saturday Night; and some progress had been
already made in the service, when the goodman of the farm, whose
"tendency," as Mr. Mitchell says, "was soporific," scandalized his
wife and the dominie by starting suddenly from his knees, and rubbing
his eyes, with a stentorian exclamation of "By ----, here 's the keg at
last!" and in tumbled, as he spake the word, a couple of sturdy
herdsmen, whom, on hearing a day before of the advocate's approaching
visit, he had despatched to a certain smuggler's haunt, at some
considerable distance, in quest of a supply of _run_ brandy from the
Solway Frith. The pious "exercise" of the household was hopelessly
interrupted. With a thousand apologies for his hitherto shabby
entertainment, this jolly Elliot, or Armstrong, had the welcome _keg_
mounted on the table without a moment's delay, and gentle and simple,
not forgetting the dominie, continued carousing about it until
daylight streamed in upon the party. Sir Walter Scott seldom failed,
when I saw him in company with his Liddesdale companion, to mimic with
infinite humor the sudden outburst of his old host, on hearing the
clatter of horses' feet, which he knew to indicate the arrival of the
keg--the consternation of the dame--and the rueful despair with which
the young clergyman closed the book.

"It was in that same season, I think," says Mr. Shortreed, "that
Sir Walter got from Dr. Elliot the large old border war-horn,
which ye may still see hanging in the armory at Abbotsford. How
_great_ he was when he was made master o' _that_! I believe it
had been found in Hermitage Castle--and one of the Doctor's
servants had used it many a day as a grease-horn for his scythe,
before they discovered its history. When cleaned out, it was
never a hair the worse--the original chain, hoop, and mouth-piece
of steel, were all entire, just as you now see them. Sir Walter
carried it home all the way from Liddesdale to Jedburgh, slung
about his neck like Johnny Gilpin's bottle, while I was entrusted
with an ancient bridle-bit, which we had likewise picked up.

'The {p.181} feint o