Stephenson : 



The Ettrick Shepherd 



9 



**We are sent to demand a silver key that is in your possession." 



Will was astounded; and standing still to consider of some old trans- 

 action, he said, without lifting his eyes from the ground — "A silver key? 

 In God's name, where came ye from?" 



There was no answer, on which Will wheeled round, and round, and 

 round; but the tiny beings were all gone and he never saw them more. 

 At the name of God, they vanished in the twinkling of an eye. It is 

 curious that I should never have heard the secret of the silver key, or 

 indeed, whether there was such a thing or not.' 



Except for his lack of literary genius, Will o' Phaup might 

 sit as model for his grandson's portrait. Let us glance at 

 William's daughter, the mother of the poet. 



Margaret Laidlaw, like her son, was a self-taught genius. 

 She lost her mother when she herself was but a child, who, 

 because she was the eldest, was retained at home to take her 

 mother's place and to superintend the household affairs for 

 her father. She saw her younger brothers and sisters grow- 

 ing up under her care, able to enjoy the advantages of school 

 for which she had no time. When but twelve or thirteen 

 years of age, she began to feel the humiliation of their supe- 

 rior knowledge. On Sunday, her only time for rest, she would 

 wander upon the hillsides, alone and dejected. Here, with 

 the Bible under her arm, and, ''humbled by a sense of her 

 ignorance she used to throw herself down on the heath and 

 water the page with her bitter tears". ^ 



Her afternoons on the hillside, however, were not all spent 

 in tears. From the Bible she taught herself to read, and 

 from it she acquired a love of verse that, as we shall see, led 

 her to encourage her son to memorize the metrical version of 

 the Psalms. She soon became enamored with verse of a very 

 different kind, namely, the ballad-lore of Selkirkshire. From 

 an old wandering minstrel, the last of his race, she learned, 

 it is said, no less than ten thousand lines. She dictated to 

 Scott the ballad of Auld Maitland which thus found its way 

 into print for the first time in the pages of the Minstrelsy. 



She knew also the tales in prose, many of which are to be 

 I'ead in the pages written by her son. She hushed her chil- 

 dren to sleep with song and fable, and her native humor made 

 the cottage of Robert Hogg the meeting-place of a famous 

 coterie of shepherds who assembled to hear her tales and 



3 The Shepherd's Calendar, Chapter XVIII, Odd Characters. 



* From an article by Y, "The Life and Writings of James Hos'si". in the Old Scots' 

 Magazine, January, 1818, page 37, 



