n
House.

1814-1815.

By the 11th of November, then, The Lord of the Isles had made great
progress, and Scott had also authorized Ballantyne to negotiate among
the booksellers for the publication of a second novel. But before I go
further into these transactions, I must introduce the circumstances of
Scott's first connection with an able and amiable man, whose services
were of high importance to him, at this time and ever after, in the
prosecution of his literary labors. Calling at Ballantyne's
printing-office while Waverley was in the press, he happened to take
up a proof sheet of a volume entitled "Poems, with notes illustrative
of traditions in Galloway and Ayrshire, by Joseph Train, Supervisor of
Excise at Newton-Stewart." The sheet contained a ballad on an Ayrshire
tradition, about a certain "Witch of Carrick," whose skill in the
black art was, it seems, instrumental in the destruction {p.002} of
one of the scattered vessels of the Spanish Armada. The ballad
begins:--

"Why gallops the palfrey with Lady Dunore?
Who drives away Turnberry's kine from the shore?
Go tell it in Carrick, and tell it in Kyle--
Although the proud Dons are now passing the Moil,[1]
On this magic clew,
That in fairyland grew,
Old Elcine de Aggart has taken in hand
To wind up their lives ere they win to our strand."

[Footnote 1: The Mull of Cantyre.]

Scott immediately wrote to the author, begging to be included in his
list of subscribers for a dozen copies, and suggesting at the same
time a verbal alteration in one of the stanzas of this ballad. Mr.
Train acknowledged his letter with gratitude, and the little book
reached him just as he was about to embark in the lighthouse yacht. He
took it with him on his voyage, and, on returning home again, wrote to
Mr. Train, expressing the gratification he had received from several
of his metrical pieces, but still more from his notes, and requesting
him, as he seemed to be enthusiastic about traditions and legends, to
communicate any matters of that order connected with Galloway which he
might not himself think of turning to account; "for," said Scott,
"nothing interests me so much as local anecdotes; and, as the
applications for charity usually conclude, the smallest donation will
be thankfully accepted."

Mr. Train, in a little narrative with which he has favored me, says,
that for some years before this time he had been enga