Ch. 5: The Mystery of the Ballad of Jamie Telfer - Page 2

wan! He does not,--she does not,--wish to hear about dusty documents and ancient maps. For him or for her the ballad is enough, and a very good ballad it is. I would shake the faith of no man in the accuracy of the ballad tale, if it were not necessary for me to defend the character of Sir Walter Scott, which, on occasion of this and other ballads, is impugned by Colonel the Hon. FitzWilliam Elliot. He "hopes, though he cannot expect," that I will give my reasons for not sharing his belief that Sir Walter did a certain thing which I could not easily palliate.'

II.

THE BALLAD IMPOSSIBLE

My attempts to relieve Colonel Elliot from his painful convictions about Sir Walter's unsportsmanlike behaviour must begin with proof that the ballad, as it stands, cannot conceivably be other than "a pack o' lees." Here Colonel Elliot, to a great extent and on an essential point, agrees with me. In sketching rapidly the story of the ballad,-- the raid from England into Ettrick, the return of the raiders, the pursuit,--I omitted the clou, the pivot, the central point of dramatic interest. It is this: in one version of the ballad,--call it A for the present,--the unfortunate Telfer runs to ask aid from the laird of Buccleuch, at Branksome Hall, some three and a half or four miles above Hawick, on the Teviot. From the Dodhead it was a stiff run of eight miles, through new-fallen snow. The farmer of Dodhead, in the centre of the Scott country, naturally went for help to the nearest of his neighbours, the greatest chief in the mid-Border. In version A (which I shall call "the Elliot version"), "auld Buccleuch" (who was a man of about thirty in fact) was deaf to Telfer's prayer.

Gae seek your succour frae Martin Elliot, For succour ye's get nane frae me, Gae seek your succour where ye paid blackmail, For, man, ye ne'er paid money to me.

This is impossibly absurd! As Colonel Elliot writes, "I pointed out in my book" (The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads) "that the allegation that Buccleuch had refused to strike a blow at a party of English raiders, who had insolently ridden some twenty-five miles into Scottish ground and into the very middle of his own territory, was too absurd to be believed . . . " {91a}

Certainly; and the story is the more ridiculous as Buccleuch (who has taken Telfer's protection-money, or "blackmail") pretends to believe that Telfer--living in Ettrick, about nine miles from Selkirk--pays protection-money to Martin Elliot, residing at Preakinhaugh, high up the water of Liddel. Martin was too small a potentate, and far too remote to be chosen as protector by a man living near the farm of Singlee on Ettrick, and near the bold Buccleuch.

All this is nonsense. Colonel Elliot sees that, and suggests that all this is not by the original poet, but has been "inserted at some later period." {91a} But, if