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, deep _Ho, ho!_
that would drown all our effeminate modern gigglings, the sound of which
lingers amongst the memories of my boyhood. "He well deserves it--he
well deserves it--the wretch! Ho, ho!"--and he shouted with laughter,
and threw himself into all the rough unceremonious humour of the ballad,
finishing off by relating his own dire experience of the doings of
Cumberland and his dragoons in the north. It seems he entered into the
army, and served in the American war. After retiring, I believe he took
up his residence in England--Devonshire, I think; his name at this time
was Sir James Norcliffe Innes. During the once-belauded "good old
times" of George III. he distinguished himself by holding and manfully
avowing opinions which were then branded as Jacobinism; and he was an
intimate friend, and I have heard an active s