The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

ROB ROY. 63
of importance adequate to influence them in any way. His nurse, an old
Northumbrian woman, attached to him from his infancy, was the only
person connected with his native province for whom he retained any regard;
and when fortune dawned upon him, one of the first uses which he made'of her favours, was to give Mabel Rickets a place of residence within his
household. After the death of my mother, the care of nursing me during
my childish illnesses, and of rendering all those tender attentions which
infancy exacts from female affection, devolved on old Mabel. Interdicted
by her master from speaking to him on the subjedt of the heaths, glades,
and dales of her beloved Northumberland, she poured herself forth to my
infant ear in descriptions of the scenes of hei youth, and long narratives of
the events which tradition declared to have passed amongst them. To these
I inclined my ear much more seriously than to graver, but less animated
instructors. Even yet, methinks I see old Mabel, her head slightly agitated
by the palsy of age, and shaded by a close cap, as white as the driven snow,
her face wrinkled, but still retaining the healthy tinge which it had
acquired in rural labour-I think I see her look around on the brick walls
and narrow street which presented themselves before our windows, as she
concluded with a sigh the favourite old ditty, which I then preferred, and
- why should I not tell the truth?- which I still prefer to all the opera
airs ever minted by the capricious brain of an Italian Mus. D.Oh, the oak, the ash, and the bonny ivy tree,
They flourish best at home in the North Country!
Now, in the legends of Mabel, the Scottish nation was ever freshly remembered, with all the embittered declamation of which the narrator was
capable. The inhabitants of the opposite frontier served in her narratives
to fill up the parts which ogres and giants with seven-leagued boots occupy
in the ordinary nursery tales. And how could it be otherwise? Was it
not the Black Douglas who slew with his own hand the heir of the Osbaldistone family the day after he took possession of. his estate, surprising him
and his vassals while solemnizing a feast suited to the occasion?'Was it
not Wat the Devil who drove all the year-old hogs off the braes of Lanthorn-side, in the very recent days of my grandfather's father? And had
we not many a trophy, but, according to old Mabel's version of history, far
more honourably gained, to mark our revenge of these wrongs? "'Did not
Sir Henry Osbaldistone, fifth baron of the name) carry off the fair maid of
Fairnington, as Achilles did his Chryseis and Briseis of old, and detain her
in his fortress against all the power of her friends, supported by the most
mighty Scottish chiefs of warlike fame? And had not our swords shone
foremost at most of those fields in which England was victorious over her.
rival? All our family renown was acquiredt —all our family misfortunes
were occasioned-by the northern wars.
Warmed by such tales, I looked upon the Scottish people during my
childhood, as a race hostile by nature to the more southern inhabitants of
this realm; and this view of the matter was not much corrected by the'language which my father sometimes held with respect to them. He had
engaged in some large speculations concerning oak-woods, the property of
Highland proprietors, and alleged, that he found them much more ready to
make bargains, and extort earnest of the purchase-money, than punctual
in complying on their side with the terms of the engagements. The Scotch
mercantile men, whom he was under the necessity of employing as a sort
of middle-men on these occasions, were also suspected by my father of
having secured, by one means or other, more than their own share of the
profit which ought to have accrued. In short, if Mabel complained of the
Scottish arms in ancient times, Mr. Osbaldistone inveighed no less against'the arts of these modern Sinons; and between them, though without any
fixed purpose of doing so, they impressed my youthful mind with a sincere
aversion to the northern inhabitants of Britain, as a people bloodthirsty in