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Thus the belief that Gilbert Elliot was laird of Stobs by 1596 was
current in the traditions of a man born seventeen years after 1596.
THE SCOTT VERSION RESTS ON THAT TRADITION, and is not earlier than the
rise of that erroneous belief.
Neither the Scott nor Elliot version is other than historically false.
But the Scott version, if we cut out the reference to auld Gibby
Elliot, offers a conceivable, though not an actual, course of events.
The Elliot version, if we excise the Buccleuch incident, does not.
Cutting out the Buccleuch incident, Telfer goes all the way from
Ettrick to Liddesdale, seeking help in that remote country, and never
thinks of asking aid from Buccleuch, his neighbour and chief. This is
idiotic. In the Scott version, if we cut out the refusal of Gilbert
Elliot of Stobs, Telfer goes straight to his brother-in-law, auld Jock
Grieve, within four miles of Buccleuch at Branksome; thence to another
friend, William's Wat, at Catslockhill (now Branksome-braes), and so to
Buccleuch at Branksome.


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