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To him I told the same tale, adding that I had heard late of his levying of his men, otherwise I had ridden to join him at his setting forth. "You have seen war?" he asked. "Only a Warden's raid or twain, on the moss-trooping Scots of Liddesdale. Branxholme I have seen in a blaze, and have faced fire at the Castle of the Hermitage."
Then Randal Rutherford, coming to visit me, found me such a lackmirth, he said, and my wits so distraught, that a love-sick wench were better company for a man-at-arms. "Cheer up, man," he said. "Look at me, did I not leave my heart at Branxholme Mains with Mally Grieve, and so in every town where I have been in garrison, and do you see me cast down?
Stewart, "I was at Branxholme myself. It was a pleasant house, well furnished and appointed; fortified, too, as all need to be in that country, with sheaves of pikes in all the lower rooms, and Sir Walter Scott gave me a warm welcome, for I was there on a business that pleased him. He showed me the gardens and orchards, all green and sweet, like these of yours, Lady Maxwell.
From sunrise on the one day until sunset on the next, so the Border law ordained, all Scots and Englishmen who were present at the Wardens' meeting should be free of scathe. Now the Warden of Liddesdale at that time was Sir Walter Scott of Branxholme, laird of Buccleuch.
This accident of a knot on the line has only once befallen me since, with the strongest loch-trout I ever encountered. It was on Branxholme Loch, where the trout run to a great size, but usually refuse the fly. I was alone in a boat on a windy day; the trout soon ran out the line to the knot, and then there was nothing for it but to lower the top almost to the water's edge, and hold on in hope.
It reminds us of the old Scottish ballad, where Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead has seen all his cattle driven out of his stalls by the English; and he runs to Branxholme and warns the water, and they with Harden pursue the English, defeat them, and recover Telfer's kye, with a great spoil out of England.
One waking spectator who sees nothing would make the statements of the others even more worthless than usual. And it is certain that it is not even pretended that all, always, see the same phenomena. 'One saw an arm, and one a hand, and one the waving of a gown, in that seance at Branxholme, where only William of Deloraine beheld all,
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