28 FAMOUS SCOTS 



juvenile verse, which was recited ' with vast applause ' 

 by the handsomest girl at the Cromarty boarding 

 establishment kept by Miss Elizabeth Bond. In her 

 own early days she had known the father and mother 

 of Scott; and, when in 1814 she had published her 

 Letters of a Village Governess^ she had dedicated them 

 to the great novelist, who later on in the midst of his 

 own troubles, living in lodgings away from Abbotsford, 

 could yet remember to send her ten pounds ' to scare 

 the wolf from the door,' as he cheerily remarked, when 

 she had found the truth of her own saying that it was 

 hard for a single woman to get through the world 

 ' without a head ' unmarried. 



His reading at this time received a curious extension 

 through there falling into his hands a copy of Military 

 Medley belonging to a retired officer, and on the shore 

 he would carry out plans of fortification as therein set 

 forth by the great French engineer Vauban. With 

 sand for towers, and variegated shells and limpets for 

 soldiers, he worked his way through the evolutions of 

 troops, and no reader of Scott will fail to remember the 

 similar action by Sir Walter which, in the introduction 

 to the third canto of Marmion, he describes as taking 

 place at Sandy Knowe, in the air of the Cheviots, near 

 the old tower of Smailholme that ' charmed his fancy's 

 waking hour ' : 



' Again I fought each combat o'er, 

 Pebbles and shells in order laid 

 The mimic ranks of war displayed.' 



