CHAPTER II FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD It is scarcely necessary to recall that Scott on both sides of his house was connected with the Border Country-the bold bad Border' of a day happily long dead. He would have been a reiver himself, more than likely, and one of its nameless bards to boot, had he lived before the Border felt the subdued spirit of modern times. In the many-sided story of the Border, however, with its rare wealth of romanticism, Scott found his life-work. So that it was the Border which made him the force he is in the world of letters. No Borderer-no Scotsman, indeed, has taken truer and firmer hold of his countrymen. A descendant of Wat of Harden, linked to the best blood of the Border, and with every phase of his life redolent of the Border feeling, history has had no difficulty in claiming Sir Walter Scott as the most representative Border man the world has seen. He was not born in the Border Country, but practically all his life was |