Sir Walter Scott [antikvár]

CHAPTER J^IFE TILL MARRIAGE Scott's own 'autobiographic fragment', printed in Lockhart's first volume, has made other accounts of his youth mostly superfluous, even to an age which persists in knowing better about everything and everybody than it or they knew about themselves. No one ever recorded his genealogy more minutely, v^ith greater pride, or with a more saving sense of humour than Sir Walter. He was connected, though remotely, with well-born families on both sides. His great-grandfather was the son of the Laird ofRaeburn, who was grandson ofWalter Scott of Harden and the'Flower ofYarrow'.The great-grandson,'Beardie', acquired that nickname by letting his beard grow like General Dalziel, though for the exile of James II, instead of the death of Charles I - 'whilk was the waur reason', as Sir Walter himself might have said. Beardie's second son, being more thoroughly sickened of the sea in his first voyage than Robinson Crusoe, became a farmer and a Whig, and married the daughter of Haliburton of Newmains — there was also Macdougal 9