Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
their days in the old home of their fathers, but, alas ! that 
the Laird’s blue eyes closed on the London chimney-pots, 
and successive Edinburgh writers battened on the old place, 
men whose grandfathers, had they boasted any, would scarce 
have been deemed worthy of being horse-boys to the Laird’s 
ancestors at Flodden or Bannockburn. But the old order 
changeth, giving place to the new, and it may be this 
upturning of the soil is for some good, though I confess, 
when I see the rag-and-bone merchant who now lords it at 
Corbie Hall in the place of mine old friend, I long for a 
blast of the magic flute which sent every man to his own 
place. 
326 
