hey say, with
{p.004} the Campbells of Blythswood. Beardie was a man of some
learning, and a friend of Dr. Pitcairn, to whom his politics probably
made him acceptable. They had a Tory or Jacobite club in Edinburgh, in
which the conversation is said to have been maintained in Latin. Old
Beardie died in a house, still standing, at the northeast entrance to
the Churchyard of Kelso, about ... [November 3, 1729.]

He left three sons. The eldest, Walter, had a family, of which any
that now remain have been long settled in America:--the male heirs are
long since extinct. The third was William, father of James Scott, well
known in India as one of the original settlers of Prince of Wales
Island:--he had, besides, a numerous family both of sons and
daughters, and died at Lasswade, in Mid-Lothian, about....

The second, Robert Scott, was my grandfather. He was originally bred
to the sea; but, being shipwrecked near Dundee in his trial voyage, he
took such a sincere dislike to that element, that he could not be
persuaded to a second attempt. This occasioned a quarrel between him
and his father, who left him to shift for himself. Robert was one of
those active spirits to whom this was no misfortune. He turned Whig
upon the spot, and fairly abjured his father's politics and his
learned poverty. His chief and relative, Mr. Scott of Harden, gave him
a lease of the farm of Sandy-Knowe, comprehending the rocks in the
centre of which Smailholm or Sandy-Knowe Tower is situated. He took
for his shepherd an old man called Hogg, who willingly lent him, out
of respect to his family, his whole savings, about L30, to stock the
new farm. With this sum, which it seems was at the time sufficient for
the purpose, the master and servant set off to purchase a stock of
sheep at Whitsun-Tryste, a fair held on a hill near Wooler in
Northumberland. The old shepherd went carefully from drove to drove,
till he found a _hirsel_ likely to answer their purpose, and {p.005}
then returned to tell his master to come up and conclude the bargain.
But what was his surprise to see him galloping a mettled hunter about
the racecourse, and to find he had expended the whole stock in this
extraordinary purchase!--Moses's bargain of green spectacles did not
strike more dismay into the Vicar of Wakefield's family than my
grandfather's rashness into the poor old shepherd. The thing, however,
was irretrievable, and they returned without the sheep. In the course
of a few day