His father had lived there in the old Smallholm Grange, or farm-house;
and he had been sent there, when but two years old, on account of his
lameness, that he might have the benefit of the pure air of the hills,
and be under the care of his grandmother and aunts. In the introduction
of one of the cantos of Marmion, he has depicted his grandfather, and
the fireside of the farm-house; and has given an amusing picture of
himself in his boyish years:

"Still with vain fondness could I trace
Anew each kind familiar face,
That brightened at our evening fire;
From the thatched mansion's gray-haired sire,
Wise without learning plain and good,
And sprung of Scotland's gentler blood;
Whose eye in age, quick, clear and keen.
Showed what in youth its glance had been;
Whose doom discording neighbors sought,
Content with equity unbought;
To him the venerable priest,
Our frequent and familiar guest,
Whose life and manners well could paint
Alike the student and the saint;
Alas! whose speech too oft I broke
With gambol rude and timeless joke;
For I was wayward, bold, and wild,
A self-willed imp, a grandame's child;
But half a plague, and half a jest,
Was still endured, beloved, carest."

It was, he said, during his residence at Smallholm crags that he first