Report of the Meetings for 1893. 237 



present house was never occupied by him, as I was informed by an 

 old servant of my father's that the house that Sir Walter resided 

 in was pulled down over 50 years ago to make way for improvements 

 on the steading. The site is now covered by other buildings, and 

 nothing remains to indicate that it had ever been occupied as a , 

 dwelling house. 



Yours faithfully, 



GEORGE HEWEIT. 



The rent paid by old Scott when he entered the farm as 

 a young man was from £60 to £80, but perhaps that was 

 somewhat under its market value, as he was a favoured tenant 

 of his relative, John Scott of Harden, who was then proprietor 

 of the place. About 1840 the rent was £700, with a tenant 

 expending several thousand pounds in improvements. Even 

 at the low rent paid by Scott' he had not the wherewith to 

 stock it, and he took into his employment an old shepherd 

 from whom he borrowed £30 — the savings of a thrifty lifetime 

 — for that purpose. With this sum master and man visited 

 a Border sheep fair near Wooler to purchase a flock of sheep, 

 and the old herd went from hirsel to hirsel to find a lot to 

 his mind. At last he found one, and hastened to seek his 

 master, whom he at last found galloping about on a mettled 

 hunter. The herd stood aghast when he learned that his 

 master had spent the £30 in the purchase of the hunter; but 

 he concluded that he would have to make up his mind to a 

 "bad bargain." Not long afterwards Scott, who was a 

 splendid horseman, rode his hunter at a meeting of hounds, 

 and his "mount" figured so well that it took the fancy of one 

 of the followers of the pack, and a sale was effected at double 

 the amount of the original purchase money, so that enough 

 was obtained to stock the farm and please the herd. 



Scott's grandfather prospered in the place, though it was not 

 cultivating the soil that proved his most prolific source of income. 

 He was among the pioneers of the cattle trade, which at that 

 time (1720 or 1730) sprang up between Scotland and England ; 

 and thus the grandfather's house was a comfortable home 

 for the " Great Unknown " in his infancy and physical 

 infirmity. 



In connection with Sandyknowe, then tenanted by an 

 intelligent Dissenter of the name of Stewart, the fact is worth 

 recalling that here for some years a side school was taught by 



