" Here Colonel Elliot, to a great extent and on an essential
point, agrees with me. In sketching rapidly the story of the ballad,--
the raid from England into Ettrick, the return of the raiders, the
pursuit,--I omitted the clou, the pivot, the central point of dramatic
interest. It is this: in one version of the ballad,--call it A for
the present,--the unfortunate Telfer runs to ask aid from the laird of
Buccleuch, at Branksome Hall, some three and a half or four miles above
Hawick, on the Teviot. From the Dodhead it was a stiff run of eight
miles, through new-fallen snow. The farmer of Dodhead, in the centre
of the Scott country, naturally went for help to the nearest of his
neighbours, the greatest chief in the mid-Border. In version A (which
I shall call "the Elliot version"), "auld Buccleuch" (who was a man of
about thirty in fact) was deaf to Telfer's prayer.
Gae seek your succour frae Martin Elliot,
For succour ye's get nane frae me,
Gae seek your succour where ye paid blackmail,
For, man, ye ne'er paid money to me.
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