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Ballantyne printed for him a few specimens to show to the booksellers; and thus began an experiment which changed the fortunes of both Scott and Ballantyne. Soon after the commencement of the Winter Session, the office of Sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire became vacant, and the Duke of Buccleuch used his influence with Mr. Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville, to procure it for Scott.

He had become in 1799 independent, though not rich, by being appointed Sheriff of Selkirkshire. His beginnings as an author proper were connected, as was all his subsequent career, partly for good but more for ill, with a school friendship he had early formed for two brothers named Ballantyne at Kelso.

But too cheap access to litigation has its evils on the other hand, for the proneness of the lower class to gratify spite and revenge in this way would be a dreadful evil were they able to endure the expense. Very few cases come before the Sheriff-court of Selkirkshire that ought to come anywhere.

Since Sir Walter's appointment to the sheriffdom of Selkirkshire, he had resided at Ashiesteel, on the banks of the Tweed, of which he was but the tenant. He was now desirous to purchase a small estate, and thereon build a house according to his own taste.

The Selkirkshire Yeomanry made a remarkable march, for although some of the individuals lived at twenty and thirty miles' distance from the place where they mustered, they were nevertheless embodied and in order in so short a period, that they were at Dalkeith, which was their alarm-post, about one o'clock on the day succeeding the first signal, with men and horses in good order, though the roads were in a bad state, and many of the troopers must have ridden forty or fifty miles without drawing bridle.

In March, 1799, Mr. and Mrs. Scott visited London, where they were introduced to many distinguished literary men. On their return to Edinburgh, the office of sheriff depute of Selkirkshire having become vacant, worth £300 a year, Scott received the appointment, which increased his income to about £700.

It is only a year or two since an itinerant puppet show-man, who, disdaining to acknowledge the profession of Gines de Passamonte, called himself an artist from Vauxhall, brought a complaint of a singular nature before the author, as Sheriff of Selkirkshire.

Who can journey, now-a-days, along the high parts of Selkirkshire, and hear the mire-snipe whistle in the morass, proclaiming itself, in the silence around, the unmolested occupant of the waste, or descend into the green valley, and see the lazy shepherd lying folded up in his plaid, while his flocks graze in peace around him and in the distance, and not think of the bold spirits that, in the times of Border warfare, sounded the war-horn till it rang in reverberating echoes from hill to hill?

In the meantime, a rich uncle died without children, and Scott's share of the property enabled him, in 1804, to rent from his cousin, Major-General Sir James Russell, the pretty property called Ashestiel, a cottage and farm on the banks of the Tweed, altogether a beautiful place, where he lived when discharging his duties of sheriff of Selkirkshire.

In Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, and Selkirkshire, the volunteers and militia got under arms with a degree of rapidity and alacrity which, considering the distance individuals lived from each other, had something in it very surprising they poured to the alarm-posts on the sea-coast in a state so well armed and so completely appointed, with baggage, provisions, etc., as was accounted by the best military judges to render them fit for instant and effectual service.