I heard the dulcet measures float,
In many a liquid winding note,
Along the bank of Teviot's stream.

"Sweet sounds! that oft have soothed to rest
The sorrows of my guileless breast,
And charmed away mine infant tears;
Fond memory shall your strains repeat,
Like distant echoes, doubly sweet,
That on the wild the traveller hears."

Scott went on to expatiate on the popular songs of Scotland. "They are
a part of our national inheritance," said he, "and something that we
may truly call our own. They have no foreign taint; they have the pure
breath of the heather and the mountain breeze. All genuine legitimate
races that have descended from the ancient Britons; such as the Scotch,
the Welsh, and the Irish, have national airs. The English have none,
because they are not natives of the soil, or, at least, are mongrels.
Their music is all made up of foreign scraps, like a harlequin jacket,
or a piece of mosaic. Even in Scotland, we have comparatively few
national songs in the eastern part, where we have had most influx of
strangers. A real old Scottish song is a cairngorm--a gem of our own
mountains; or rather, it is a precious relic of old times, that bears
the national character stamped upon it--like a cameo, that shows what
the national visage was in former days, before the breed was crossed."

While Scott was thus discoursing, we were passing up a narrow glen,
with the dogs beating about, to right and left, when suddenly a
blackcock burst upon the wing.