364 "Rings of tbe IRofc, Hifle, anfc Gun 



travelled from Berwick to Aberdeen, who had not heard 

 of the "souter Johnny" of St Boswell's whilst in 

 his own neighbourhood John Younger was reverenced 

 as an oracle. 



" I was born," says John, in his Autobiography, " on 

 the 5th day of July, 1785, at Langnewton, in the parish of 

 Ancrum, then a considerable village of the older fashion, 

 now almost swept from the face of the earth, a picture 

 of the Auburn so beautifully described by Goldsmith." 

 But John came of good old stock : his great-grand- 

 father was lineally descended from the Youngers of 

 Haggerstone, Northumberland, an ancient and reputable 

 line, "so that I might," he writes, "trace family as 

 far back as any duke in Christendom were it worth 

 while so to honour men who have had too much world- 

 disqualifying honesty or too little of the Border-raid 

 principle to rob, thieve, and secure to their descendants 

 lands, cattle, and other plunder." From which the 

 reader will gather that John Younger was of those who 

 " smile at the claims of long descent," who would look 

 scornfully at the pedigree of Macallum More himself, 

 and say, in his sturdy, Radical, defiant way: 



Your pride is yet no mate for mine, 

 Too proud to care from whence I came. 



John's grandfather was a gardener in England, and 

 must have had a good berth, for he saved upwards of 

 900, with which he purposed starting a nursery garden 

 at Ancrum, but was unfortunately diverted from what 

 would have proved a lucrative investment, and persuaded 

 by his newly wed English wife to put his money in 





