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however. Are you a South Country Scot?
Ken ye the Liddel? That's my matter gate
& I love its long upland peat haggs & the
bonnie brattling shallows and ugsome
pools of its lower reaches. You talk
of Hermitage & Kershope. Badly it wants
a laureate or a Romancer! It has
none apart from stodgy Dr Armstrong,
and a few far off touches from the
magic fingers of Sir Walter (in Guy
Mannering chiefly).

It sings a prosaic Rime of
True Thomas, does the Liddel, - for it sends
all its sons into towns & cities, whether
to wear corduroys or soul throttling
blacks. "To give space for wandering
was it that the world was made so
wide." But in most cases the Liddel's
Rime loses its witchery within the
limits of this Island. I run across
the dalesmen of the Borders in this
Brick Wen who are tied by the leg or
by wife & weans. But they are not as
bad as some, - for they know they are
tied - & the worst of prisoners is he
who does not know he is in prison.

So God bless you for your waft
of the wider air & your touch of the
sage's magic! Your obliged & grateful
thrall

F.M. Scoone

John Buchan, Esq.