"Before their eyes the wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day:
His hoary beard in silver rolled,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped him round;
With a wrought Spanish baldrie bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea;
His left hand held his book of might;
A silver cross was in his right:
The lamp was placed beside his knee."

The fictions of Scott had become facts with honest Johnny Bower. From
constantly living among the ruins of Melrose Abbey, and pointing out
the scenes of the poem, the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" had, in a
manner, become interwoven with his whole existence, and I doubt whether
he did not now and then mix up his own identity with the personages of
some of its cantos.

He could not bear that any other production of the poet should be
preferred to the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." "Faith," said he to me,
"it's just e'en as gude a thing as Mr. Scott has written--an' if he
were stannin' there I'd tell him so--an' then he'd lauff."

He was loud in his praises of the affability of Scott. "He'll come here
sometimes," said he, "with great folks in his company, an' the first I
know of it is his voice, calling out 'Johnny!--Johnny Bower!'--and
when I go out, I am sure to be greeted with a joke or a pleasant word.
Hell stand and crack and lauff wi' me, just like an auld wife--and to
think that of a man who has such an awfu' knowledge o' history!"