Thus, as a corollary from Colonel Elliot's own disbelief in the
Buccleuch incident, the Elliot version of the ballad must be absolutely
false and foolish.
If Colonel Elliot leaves in the verses on Buccleuch's refusal, he
leaves in what he calls "too absurd to be believed." If he cuts out
these verses as an interpolation, then Buccleuch lent aid to Telfer,
and there was no occasion to approach Martin Elliot. Or, by a third
course, the Elliot ballad originally made an Ettrick man, a neighbour
of the great Buccleuch, never dream of appealing to HIM for help, but
run to Coultartcleugh, four miles above Buccleuch's house, and thence
make his way over to distant Liddesdale to Martin Elliot! Yet Colonel
Elliot says that in what I call "the Elliot version," "the story defies
criticism." {93a} Now, however you take it,--I give you three
choices,--the story is absolutely impossible.
This Elliot version was unknown to lovers of the ballads, till the late
Professor Child of Harvard, the greatest master of British ballad-lore
that ever lived, in his beautiful English and Scottish Popular Ballads,
printed it from a manuscript belonging to Mr.
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