fearless frankness both surprised and pleased the Sheriff." {26a}
Next morning they visited Hogg and his mother at her cottage, and
Hogg tells how the old lady recited Auld Maitland. Hogg gave the
story in prose, with great vivacity and humour, in his Domestic
Manners of Sir Walter Scott (1834).

In an earlier poetical address to Scott, congratulating him on his
elevation to the baronetcy (1818), the Shepherd says -


When Maitland's song first met your ear,
How the furled visage up did clear.
Beaming delight! though now a shade
Of doubt would darken into dread,
That some unskilled presumptuous arm
Had marred tradition's mighty charm.
Scarce grew thy lurking dread the less,
Till she, the ancient Minstreless,
With fervid voice and kindling eye,
And withered arms waving on high,
Sung forth these words in eldritch shriek,
While tears stood on thy nut-brown cheek:
"Na, we are nane o' the lads o' France,
Nor e'er pretend to be;
We be three lads of fair Scotland,
Auld Maitland's sons a' three."


(Stanza xliii. as printed. In Hogg's MS. copy, given to Laidlaw
there are two verbal differences, in lines 1 and 4.)