GUY MANNERING
For the principal scenery of Scott's second novel, we found it
desirable to change our headquarters to the city of Dumfries, a royal
burgh of great antiquity, on the banks of the river Nith. A mile or
more to the north, where the Cluden flows into the Nith, are the
picturesque ruins of Lincluden Abbey, to which Robert Burns made many a
pilgrimage. His favourite walk was along the opposite bank of the
stream, and here, at the close of a summer's day, he would promenade in
the twilight, enjoying the calm of the evening while he composed his
lyrics. Several miles farther north is Ellisland, where Burns
endeavoured to combine the pursuit of farming with the collection of
the king's revenue in the excise service, and incidentally 'met the
Muses' to the extent of producing 'Tam o' Shanter' and several other
well-known poems.
South of the city the Nith is a tidal river, gradually broadening until
it becomes an arm of the Solway Firth. Two fine old ruins guard its
outlet, one on either side. On the west is Sweetheart Abbey, a
beautiful ruin in an excellent state of preservation. Its name comes
from a pretty story. The Lady Devorgilla, mother of John Baliol, who
became King of Scotland, founded the abbey in 1275 and erected a tomb
near the high altar. At her husband's death, six years before, she had
caused his heart to be embalmed and enclosed in a casket adorned {127}
with precious stones, which she ever after carried with her wherever
she went. She gave orders that at her death her body should be laid in
the tomb which she had built and that the precious casket should be
laid on her breast. Thus the two 'sweethearts' were to rest together.
In the opening chapter of the novel, Scott refers to some monastic
ruins which the young English gentleman, Guy Mannering, had spent the
day in sketching. Doubtless Sweetheart Abbey was in his mind, or
possibly Lincluden.
On the opposite side of the river, or of the bay, for it is difficult
to tell where the river ends and the Solway begins, is the fine old
ruin of Caerlaverock Castle, the original of 'Ellangowan Auld Place,'
the ancestral home of the Bertram family and the place around which
revolves the whole plot of 'Guy Mannering.'
The day after our arrival at Dumfries we set out to examine this ruin,
stopping first at Glencaple, a small town on the Nith just below the
place where the river begins to widen into an arm of the sea. It was
low tide, and there was a sandy beach of extraordinary width which the
receding waters had sculptured in waving lines of strange contour. The
sky above was filled with fleecy clouds, and in the distance the summit
of Criffell reared its height in a majestic background. It was on such
a coast that Van Beest Brown, or Harry Bertram, landed when he returned
to Scotland after many years, and found himself at the ruins of the
house of his ancestors. The locality might be taken for the original
of Portanferry, if geographical relations were to be considered.
Caerlaverock Castle is one of the most picturesque ruins in Scotland.
Enough of the original walls remain {128} to show the unusual extent of
the building. It was triangular in form, with two massive round
turrets at one angle, forming the entrance, and a single turret at each
of the others. The two entrance turrets and one of the others are
still intact and well preserved. The turret which once stood at the
third angle has completely disappeared. Between the front towers is a
very tall arched doorway, now reached by a little wooden bridge over
the moat. Many of these old ruins have mounds showing where the moat
used to be, but this is one of the few in which the water still
remains. For centuries the lofty turrets have been appropriated by
rooks, and the moat is now a safe retreat for geese.
The inner court was three stories high, containing a magnificent suite
of apartments, all richly sculptured. Behind these was a great
banqueting-hall, ninety feet long, extending between the two rear
towers along the base of the triangle. There was a great dais and
ample arrangements for the seating of all guests of high and low
degree. Judging from an ancient document, the castle was richly
furnished. According to this inventory, there were eighty-six beds,
five of them so sumptuous that they were valued at £110 sterling each.
There were forty carpets, and a library worth more than £200. These
figures would not, perhaps, seem large to a twentieth-century
millionaire, but they indicate a scale of magnificence almost without
parallel in the period when this castle flourished.
[Illustration: CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE]
Caerlaverock was in existence as early as the sixth century, when it
was founded by Lewarch Og. From him it received the name of Caer
Lewarch Og, which in Gaelic signifies 'the city or fortress of Lewarch
Og.' This {129} was subsequently corrupted to Caer-laverock. In the
beginning of the fourteenth century it was besieged and captured by
Edward I and recovered by Robert Bruce, changing hands twice again
during the wars for independence that ensued. Murdoch, Duke of Albany,
who was arrested for treason on the return of James I from exile, was
imprisoned in one of these towers, and the castle was the residence of
James V when he heard the news that broke his heart, the defeat of his
forces at Solway Moss and the serious disaffection of his nobles.
On the day of our visit the ruin made a charming picture. The sky was
partly filled with cumulus clouds of a foamy, filmy whiteness through
the open spaces of which the sun was shining brightly. The clear water
of the moat reflected the azure tint of the heavens, so that the old
ruin, its turrets and walls thickly covered with the deep green of the
ivy, was clearly defined against a background of white, bordered above
and below with shades of the loveliest blue. The dry, yellow grass of
the field in the foreground, the green rushes bordering the moat, some
purple flowers at the base of the turrets and hundreds of bright golden
wallflowers in the broken interstices of the walls completed a
brilliancy of colour which I have seldom seen equalled in any landscape.
The surroundings of Caerlaverock do not in any way correspond with the
environments of Ellangowan Auld Place. I had already learned, however,
not to depend too much upon geographical considerations. It requires
only a superficial knowledge of Scott's method of work to understand
that while he was a most careful observer of all that interested him
and wrote many accurate descriptions of scenery, he did not hesitate to
use his {130} material with a free hand. It was perfectly simple for
him to transplant an old ruin, which admirably fitted one requirement
of the story, to a rocky coast, thirty or forty miles away, where the
other necessary features were to be found, or even to combine two
different parts of the coast for his purpose.
We found it necessary, therefore, to return to Dumfries, for there is
no bridge below the city, and there, crossing the river, travel again
to the south, this time on the west shore, to the town of
Kirkcudbright, where we stopped long enough to learn to pronounce the
name ('Kir-koo'bry') and to have our lunch. Then, continuing
southward, we stopped our motor at Balmae, the country-seat of Lady
Selkirk, and walked about a mile to the rocky coast of the Solway at
Torr's Point, where we could enjoy a superb view of the Irish Sea, the
English coast far away on the left, and the Isle of Man, faintly
visible in the distance. The coast is high and rocky. It is broken
into many coves or bays, which were a convenient resort for pirates and
smugglers. It would be easy to imagine Ellangowan Auld Place situated
on one of these cliffs, except that some other features have to be
taken from another part of the coast. Scott's description of the
smuggling trade carried on by Dirk Hatteraick and others of his kind
was taken from the local traditions. The coast, to sailors who knew it
well, offered many a haven of refuge, but was an extremely dangerous
place for a stranger ship. There are many stories current regarding
the exploits of Paul Jones, who was a native of Kirkcudbright. After
embracing the American cause in the War of the Revolution, he cruised
in his little ship, the Ranger, along the coasts of England and
Scotland, {131} his familiarity with the Solway enabling him to make
use of its numerous coves to excellent advantage.
To complete the investigation of the scenery which Scott supposed to be
within a mile of Ellangowan, I made another long journey the next day,
taking the train from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright and thence driving
westward by pony-cart, through Gatehouse-of-Fleet to Ravenshall Point
on the coast of Wigtown Bay. Here we put up the horse at a farm and
walked westward along the shore, my driver acting as guide. Chancing
to meet a gentleman whose family are large land-holders in the
neighbourhood, I was conducted to the Gauger's Loup,[1] a cliff on the
rocky coast, beneath which were some huge rocks that had dislodged and
fallen to the shore. At this point a revenue officer was once attacked
by smugglers and thrown over the cliffs, dashing out his brains on the
ragged rocks below. This well-known incident gave Scott the basis for
his account of the death of Kennedy. Standing on this cliff, my
new-found friend pointed out a notch in a distant hill, called the
'Nick of the Doon,' which he said local tradition assigned as the place
where Meg Merrilies pronounced her malediction upon the Laird of
Ellangowan. Not many hundred yards away is the original of Dirk
Hatteraick's Cave, so called because it was once used by smugglers and
particularly by a Dutch skipper named Yawkins, who was the prototype of
Scott's famous character. To reach it by direct line was impossible,
so we walked down the road a quarter of a mile, crossed a field,
climbed a stone wall, and dropped into a thick {132} wood. Here the
land sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees. The ground was thickly
covered with garlic, emitting a strong odour. We finally reached the
rocks and began a scramble worthy of a mountain goat, until at last we
discovered the cave. The entrance is a narrow opening between two
great rocks, barely large enough to admit a man of moderate size. We
could look down a steep incline of about thirty feet, full of dirt and
slime. It would be very easy to enter, for it would be like pushing a
cork into an empty bottle. The difficulty would be to get the cork
out. Having no desire to experiment, I took the guide's word for it,
that the cave is about sixty feet long, from six to twelve feet wide,
and high enough for a man to stand erect. It would, therefore, afford
plenty of room for the crew of a smuggler's boat and a large cargo of
whiskey and other contraband stores.
I asked the driver to impersonate Dirk Hatteraick for a few minutes,
and he, good-naturedly, complied, crawling into the opening, which he
completely filled, and looking out at me with a pipe in his mouth and a
broad grin. I took his picture, but his honest young face and amiable
smile made a very poor pose for the desperate old smuggler. It served,
however, to show the small size of the opening, which might easily have
been concealed by shrubbery or brushwood.
Scott's information regarding this coast came from Joseph Train, a
resident of Newton-Stewart, a town in Galloway on the river Cree, just
above its outlet into Wigtown Bay. He was an excise officer who
performed his duties faithfully. He had early in life developed a
passion for antiquarian research as well as a taste for poetry. With a
friend he had begun the collection {133} of material for a History of
Galloway, when he was surprised and delighted to receive a letter from
Walter Scott, asking for some copies of a poem which he had written.
In a subsequent letter Scott asked for any local traditions or legends
which he did not wish to turn to his own account, adding, 'Nothing
interests me so much as local anecdotes; and, as the applications for
charity usually conclude, the smallest donation will be thankfully
received.'
Train immediately abandoned the idea of attempting any work of original
authorship and determined to devote himself to collecting material for
the benefit of one who could make far better use of it,--a decision in
which his friend acquiesced. 'Upon receiving Mr. Scott's letter,' he
said, 'I became still more zealous in the pursuit of ancient lore, and
being the first person who had attempted to collect old stories in that
quarter with any view to publication, I became so noted, that even
beggars, in the hope of reward, came frequently from afar to
Newton-Stewart, to recite old ballads and relate old stories to me.'
In later years Train often visited Abbotsford; a genuine affection
sprang up between him and the novelist; he became one of the few who
knew the secret of the authorship of 'Waverley'; and no other of the
author's many friends ever did so much in furnishing him material of
the kind he wanted. Not only stories and ballads, but more tangible
objects of antiquarian interest were picked up by him and forwarded to
his patron. One of the most interesting possessions now in the study
at Abbotsford is the Wallace Chair, made from the wood of the house in
which Sir William Wallace
{134}
Was done to death by felon hand
For guarding well his fathers' land.
The chair was made under the direction of Train and presented by him to
Sir Walter 'as a small token of gratitude.'
Besides giving Scott many descriptions of scenery and much local
history, Train supplied a collection of anecdotes of the Galloway
gipsies, and a story about an astrologer which reminded Scott of a
similar story he had heard in his youth. This tale, as related to the
novelist by an old servant of his father's, named John MacKinlay,
appears in full in the Introduction to 'Guy Mannering.' Later Mr.
Train put in writing 'The Durham Garland,' a ballad which was recited
to him by a Mrs. Young, of Castle Douglas, who had been in the habit of
repeating the verses to her family once a year in order not to forget
them. It contains practically the same story. This old tale,
reappearing in several different ways, became the basis of the novel.[2]
In January, 1813, Scott wrote to his friend, Morritt, mentioning a
murder case in Galloway where the identity of the murderer was
discovered by means of a footprint left upon the clay floor of the
cottage where the {135} death struggle took place. The 'old ram-headed
sheriff,' nicknamed 'Leatherhead,' suddenly became sagacious. He
advertised that all persons in the neighbourhood would be expected to
be present at the burial of the victim and to attest their own
innocence. This would be certain to include the murderer. When the
people were assembled in the kirk he caused all the doors to be locked,
and carefully measured the shoes of all present until he found the
guilty man. The method by which the astute Counsellor Pleydell trapped
Dirk Hatteraick was clearly suggested by this incident.
It will be seen from the above that the story was put together from
fragments of Galloway incidents, mostly supplied by Train, and from
various legal experiences known to the author.
Scott himself made a visit to Dumfries in 1807, when he spent several
days visiting Sweetheart Abbey, Caerlaverock Castle, and other ancient
buildings. Mr. Guthrie Wright, who made the trip with him, wrote: 'I
need hardly say how much I enjoyed the journey. Every one who had the
pleasure of his acquaintance knows the inexhaustible store of anecdote
and good humour he possessed. He recited poetry and old legends from
morn until night, and in short it is impossible that anything could be
more delightful than his society.'
When Scott made his visit to the English Lakes in 1797, he became
impressed with the beauty of Westmoreland and Cumberland and
particularly with the grandeur of the chain of mountains of which
Skiddaw and Saddleback are the best known. It was in this pleasant
country that he placed the home of Colonel Mannering. It will be
remembered that Scott returned {136} from that excursion, through
Cumberland to Gilsland. This is the route which he selected for Harry
Bertram on his return to Scotland after many years. Bertram (or Brown,
as he was then called) paused to view the remains of an old Roman wall,
precisely as Scott himself had done. There are many such ruins in the
vicinity of Gilsland, all remnants of the wall which it is believed the
Roman general Agricola built from the Tyne to the Solway Firth about
A.D. 79. One of these suggested to Scott the lines which he addressed
to a lady friend in the year of his first visit:--
Take these flowers, which, purple waving,
On the ruined rampart grew,
Where, the sons of freedom braving,
Rome's imperial standards flew.
Warriors from the breach of danger
Pluck no longer laurels there;
They but yield the passing stranger
Wild-flower wreaths for Beauty's hair.
A few miles from Amboglanna, the most interesting of these remains, in
the village of Gilsland, is a neat little building, occupied by a
store, which is pointed out as 'Mump's Ha'.' It has been so much
rebuilt that it now suggests but little of the disreputable Border inn
which once marked the site, nor does the present well-kept village
suggest much of the scene that was supposed to greet the eyes of
Bertram on his approach. The alehouse was the resort of Border
thieves, and its reputation was so bad that a man known to possess a
fair supply of money dared not remain overnight. Tib Mumps, the
landlady, who was secretly in league with the freebooters who came to
her place, was a real character; or perhaps {137} it would be better to
say there were two women, either of whom might have served for her
prototype. The tavern was kept by Margaret Carrick, who died in 1717
at the age of one hundred years. She was succeeded by her
granddaughter, Margaret Teasdale, who lived to be ninety-eight. Both
are buried in the churchyard of Over-Denton, a mile away. Scott no
doubt heard much about them both at the time of his visit, and also the
story of 'Fighting Charlie of Liddesdale' which suggested some of the
material for the exploits of Dandie Dinmont.
Dandie was one of those 'real characters' who are not 'real' because
there were a dozen of him. In Scott's so-called raids into Liddesdale,
where he 'had a home in every farmhouse,' he met many prototypes of
Dandie. James Davidson, one of these worthy farmers, possessed a large
family of terriers, all of whom he named Mustard and Pepper, according
as they were yellow or greyish black. For this reason and because of
his great passion for fox-hunting, the name of Dandie Dinmont became
fixed upon him. Far from resenting it, Davidson considered that he had
achieved a great honour.
Robert Shortreed, Scott's guide through Liddesdale, fixed upon Willie
Elliott, of Millburnholm, the first of these farmers whom Scott
visited, as the real Dandie. Lockhart, however, gives the honour to
neither, and believes that Scott built up the description of this kind
and manly character and of his gentle wife, Ailie, from his observation
of the early home of William Laidlaw, who later became the novelist's
amanuensis and one of his most affectionate friends.
At 'Mump's Ha', Bertram first met the old witch, {138} Meg Merrilies,
who played so important a part in his destiny. Scott, as a boy
attending school at Kelso, had made several visits to Kirk Yetholm, a
village near the English Border, then known as the capital of the
gipsies. A certain gipsy soldier, having rendered a service to the
Laird of Kirk Yetholm in 1695, was allowed to settle on his estate,
which thereafter was the headquarters of the tribe. Scott remembered
being accosted on one of his visits by a 'woman of more than female
height, dressed in a long red cloak,' who gave him an apple. This
woman was Madge Gordon, who was the Queen of the Yetholm tribes. She
was a granddaughter of Jean Gordon, whom she greatly resembled in
appearance. An interesting story of the latter, who was the real Meg
Merrilies, is told in the Introduction to 'Guy Mannering.'
The royal name of the gipsies was Faa, supposed to be a corruption of
Pharaoh from whom they claimed descent. Gabriel Faa, the nephew of Meg
Merrilies, was a character whom Scott met when on an excursion with
James Skene. 'He was one of those vermin-destroyers,' says Skene, 'who
gain a subsistence among the farmers in Scotland by relieving them of
foxes, polecats, rats, and such-like depredators. The individual in
question was a half-witted, stuttering, and most original-looking
creature, ingeniously clothed in a sort of tattered attire, to no part
of which could any of the usual appellations of man's garb be
appropriately given. We came suddenly upon this crazy sportsman in one
of the wild glens of Roxburghshire, shouting and bellowing on the track
of a fox, which his not less ragged pack of mongrels were tracking
around the rocky face of a hill. He was {139} like a scarecrow run
off, with some half-dozen grey-plaided shepherds in pursuit of him,
with a reserve of shaggy curs yelping at their heels.'
Scott was able to write the vivid description of the salmon-spearing
incident, in which Gabriel lets the torch drop into the water just as
one of the fishermen had speared a thirty-pound fish, because the sport
was one of his own favourite amusements. One night in January, he,
with James Skene, Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, and one or two others,
were out on the Tweed by the side of Elibank. They had a fine, blazing
light and the salmon were plentiful. The boat, however, was a crazy
old craft, and just as they reached the deepest pool in the river she
began to sink. His companions begged him to push for the shore, but
Scott, in great glee, replied, 'Oh, she goes fine,' and began some
verses of an old song:--
An gin the boat war bottomless,
An seven miles to row,--
when the boat suddenly went to the bottom. Nothing worse than a good
drenching happened to any of the party and Scott enjoyed the experience
heartily.
While attending lectures in the University of Edinburgh, it happened
frequently that Scott sat by the side of a modest but diligent student,
whose extreme poverty was quite obvious. This did not deter him from
making a companion of the boy, and they often walked together in the
country. Toward the end of the session, he was strolling alone one day
when he saw his friend talking, in a confidential manner, with an old
beggar to whom he had often given small sums of money. Observing some
confusion on the part of the young man, he made some inquiries, and
learned that the beggar was his friend's {140} father. It was
characteristic of Scott's generous heart that he did not allow this
fact to break the acquaintance, but with great sympathy he kept the
secret. Some time later he called by special request of the old man at
the latter's humble cottage, where he found his fellow student, pale
and emaciated from a recent illness. He learned that the old man had
saved enough for his own maintenance, but had voluntarily subjected
himself to the humiliation of professional mendicancy for no other
purpose than to pay for his son's college expenses. In the course of
the conversation the poor father often expressed the hope that his
bairn 'might wag his pow in a pulpit yet.' These are the words
attributed to the parents of Dominie Sampson, of whom the poor lad was
the earliest suggestion. When the family came to live at Abbotsford, a
tutor for Walter, the eldest son, was required. Scott, always eager to
help the unfortunate, employed George Thomson, 'a gallant son of the
church,' who by accident had lost a leg. He was 'tall, vigorous,
athletic, a dauntless horseman, and expert at the single-stick.' Scott
often said of him, 'In the Dominie, like myself, accident has spoiled a
capital lifeguardsman.' He was a man of many eccentricities and
peculiarities of disposition, among them a remarkable
absent-mindedness, but kind-hearted, faithful, upright, and an
excellent scholar. In these respects he was the prototype of Dominie
Sampson, though the story of the latter's devotion to Lucy Bertram in
the days of her adversity is based upon an incident in the life of
another person.
Counsellor Pleydell, whom Dominie Sampson regarded as 'a very erudite
and fa-ce-ti-ous person,' was generally identified, by those who knew
Edinburgh a century {141} ago, with Mr. Andrew Crosbie,[3] a
flourishing member of the Scottish Bar of that period. Eminent lawyers
were then in the habit of meeting their clients in taverns, where
important business was transacted to the accompaniment of drinking and
revelry. This typical old Scottish gentleman of real life lived in
Lady Stair's Close and later in Advocate's Close, both resembling the
quarters assigned to Counsellor Pleydell. In those days, the extremely
high buildings, crowded closely together in that part of the Old Town
nearest to the Parliament House, were occupied by the elite of
Edinburgh society. They were ten and twelve stories high and reached
by narrow winding stairs. Access from High Street was gained by means
of narrow and often steep alleyways or closes. As a rule the more
aristocratic and exclusive families lived on the top floors, and as
there were no elevators, it might be said, the higher a man's social
position, the more he had to work for his living.
Like his brethren in the profession, Mr. Crosbie had his favourite
tavern, where he could always be found by any of the 'cadies'[4] in the
street. This was Dawny Douglas's tavern in Anchor Close, the
meeting-place of the 'Crochallan Fencibles,' a convivial club of which
William Smellie, a well-known printer and editor of the {142} day, was
the inspiring genius, and where Robert Burns, when in Edinburgh, joined
heartily in the bacchanalian revels which were famous for their
duration and intensity. Smellie's printing-office in this close was
frequented by some of the most eminent literary men of the day.
The game of 'High Jinks' was played on Saturday nights in Douglas's
tavern very much as described in the novel. Clerihugh's, which Scott
mentions as Mr. Pleydell's resort, was a somewhat more respectable
place in Writers' Court.
It is a curious fact that Mr. Crosbie had a clerk very much like
Pleydell's 'Driver,' who could write from dictation just as well,
asleep or awake, drunk or sober, and whose principal recommendation was
that he could always be found at the same tavern, while less 'steady'
fellows often had half a dozen. The incident which Mr. Pleydell
relates to Colonel Mannering, of how certain legal papers were prepared
while both lawyer and clerk were intoxicated, was, we are assured by
the author, no uncommon occurrence. It will be remembered that Mr.
Pleydell had been dining on Saturday night and at a late hour, when he
'had a fair tappit hen[5] under his belt,' was asked to draw up some
papers. Driver was sent for and brought in both speechless and
motionless. He was unable to see the inkstand, and it was necessary
for some one to dip the pen in the ink. Nevertheless he was able to
write as handsomely as ever and the net result of this attempt to
'worship Bacchus and Themis' {143} at the same time, was a document in
which 'not three words required to be altered.'
[Illustration: EDINBURGH FROM THE CASTLE]
Crosbie's clerk, though a dissipated wretch, was well versed in the
law. He had been known to destroy a paper in his employer's writing
and draw up a better one himself. An old Scotchman used to say that
'he would not give ----'s drunken glour at a paper for the serious
opinions of the haill bench.'
Unfortunately, both Crosbie and his clerk gave up the 'steady' habit of
drinking at a single tavern and in later life began to frequent many
places. The result was the complete ruin of both. Scott's highly
amusing account of the convivial habits of Counsellor Pleydell and his
dissipated clerk is a fairly accurate, if not entirely complimentary
picture of the daily life of a certain class of prominent lawyers in
Edinburgh, in the middle of the eighteenth century. The more pleasing
side of Pleydell's character was taken from Adam Rolland, an old friend
of Scott's, who died at the age of eighty-five, four years after 'Guy
Mannering' was published. He was an accomplished gentleman, an
excellent scholar, an eminent lawyer, and a man of the highest probity
and Christian character. He would have been quite incapable of such a
performance as 'high jinks.'
As in many of his other novels, Scott makes the subordinate characters
of 'Guy Mannering' the most interesting. Dominie Sampson, Dandie
Dinmont, Meg Merrilies, Dirk Hatteraick, and Paulus Pleydell are
original creations of strong, dramatic interest. Each had a prototype
in real life, but it was the genius of the novelist that brought them
into existence in the sense that Mr. Pickwick and Becky Sharp are real
people, and {144} conferred upon them a kind of immortality that will
be as sure to delight the generations of the future as they have been
successful in appealing to the readers of the past century.
As to Colonel Mannering himself, I need only repeat the exclamation of
James Hogg when he first read the novel:--'Colonel Mannering is just
Walter Scott painted by himself!' Though doubtless not intended for a
portrait, the fine, dignified, soldierly, and scholarly colonel is the
picture of a perfect gentleman, intended to embody the high ideals
which were a part of Scott's own character and for which we like to
remember him.
[1] A 'Gauger' is an excise officer and 'Loup' is Scottish for 'leap.'
[2] Another story, some of the details of which may have suggested a
part of the plot, concerns the experiences of James Annesley, a full
account of which appeared in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ of July, 1840,
and is reprinted in full in Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, vol. v.
Lockhart says, 'That Sir Walter must have read the record of this
celebrated trial, as well as Smollett's edition of the story in
_Peregrine Pickle_, there can be no doubt.' The trial took place in
1743. It suggested, perhaps, something of the method by which Glossin
undertook to deprive Harry Bertram of his rights. Another legal case,
which came within Scott's own knowledge and may have suggested some of
the details of the novel, was related by him in a letter to Lady
Abercorn. See _Familiar Letters of Sir Walter Scott_, vol. 1, p. 292.
[3] As Crosbie died when Scott was only fourteen, the novelist could
scarcely have known him personally; on the other hand, he could hardly
have failed to hear the stories of such an individual, whose exploits
were well known to the frequenters of Parliament Square.
[4] These cadies (or caddies, a name that has become familiar through
the introduction of the Scotch game of golf) were a class of men and
boys who in the eighteenth century frequented the law courts of
Edinburgh, eager to be employed upon any errand. They knew the
particular haunts of all the lawyers of any consequence, and never
dreamed of looking for anybody at his own home, or in any place other
than the special tavern which he was known to frequent.
[5] The 'Tappit Hen' was a pewter mug, with the figure of a hen on the
lid. It held three quarts of claret, which was drawn from the
tap,--hence the name.
{145}