volcanic rocks and its summit 'a wildering forest feathered o'er': on
the north 'Ben An heaved high his forehead bare.'

The stranger stood enraptured and amazed.  Then, thinking to call some
straggler of his train, he blew a loud blast upon his horn.  To his
great surprise the sound was answered by a little skiff which glided
forth

  From underneath an aged oak
  That slanted from the islet's rock.

The old oak was the supposed landing place of Ellen Douglas on what has
since been known as 'Ellen's Isle.'  The oak, old in Scott's day, is
dead now, but singularly enough it died not of old age but by drowning.
Loch Katrine is now the reservoir that supplies the city of Glasgow.
In preparing it for this service the engineers raised the level of the
lake about twenty-five feet, creating many new islands to keep the
'lone islet' company, and completely submerging the 'Silver Strand' so
often mentioned in the poem.  But the beauty of the lake has not been
marred, and the scenes, though changed, are still as lovely as when
they aroused the poetic fervour of Sir Walter Scott.

[Illustration: GLENFINGLAS]

The visitor who takes the trouble, as we did, to row out to Ellen's
Isle, will find nothing to suggest the imagined home of Roderick Dhu
and the temporary shelter of the Douglas and his daughter.  But he will
have an excellent opportunity to indulge his fancy and call back {77}
to memory the stirring incidents which served to bring together all the
leading people of the tale.  He may stand on the shore of the island
and see the barges, filled with the warriors of Roderick Dhu, bearing
down upon him, their spears, pikes, and axes flashing and their
banners, plaids, and plumage dancing in the air.  He may hear the sound
of the war-pipes and the chorus of the clansmen as they shout their
chieftain's praise.  Then, as the storm of war rises higher and higher,
he may fancy Brian the Hermit with wild incantations calling the clans
to battle and uttering a terrible curse upon any who failed to heed the
summons.  He may see the fiery Cross placed in the hands of the young
Malise, and watch the fleet messenger as he crosses the lake to the
Silver Strand where he lightly bounds ashore.  Then, if he be a real
enthusiast, he may follow the course of the fiery cross.  Malise
carried it through the Trossachs, and along the shore of Loch Achray to
the hamlet of Duncraggan, just beyond the Brig o' Turk, and in sight of
Lanrick Mead, the gathering-place of the clans.  Then young Angus, the
stripling son of Duncan, seized the fatal symbol, and hurried over the
mountains, crossing the southern slopes of Ben Ledi, until, reaching
the river Leny at the outlet of Loch Lubnaig, he swam the stream, and
after a desperate struggle with the swollen torrent, reached the
opposite bank at the chapel of St. Bride.  No chapel now exists, but a
stone wall marks the site where the little church once stood, and
within the enclosure is a single grave.  As Angus arrived, a little
wedding party was issuing from the churchyard gate.  The dreadful sign
of fire and sword was thrust into the hands of Norman, the bridegroom,
and the command given to 'speed {78} forth the signal.'  Not daring to
look a second time upon the tearful face of his lovely bride, Norman
manfully seized the torch and hurried to the north.  He followed the
shores of Loch Lubnaig and the swampy course of the river Balvaig,
then, turning sharply to the left, entered the Braes of Balquhidder and
passed along the northern shores of Loch Voil and Loch Doine, two
lovely little Highland lakes that lie hidden away in the solitude of
the hills.  Thence, turning to the south, he crossed the intervening
mountains until he came to the valley of Strathgartney on the northern
shore of Loch Katrine.

The scene now changes to the slopes of Ben Venue, a rugged mountain
peak, towering high above the south-eastern end of Loch Katrine and
dominating the entire region of the Trossachs.  On the side nearest the
lake is a confused mass of huge volcanic rocks overhung here and there
by scraggly oaks or birches.  Ancient Celtic tradition assigned this
wild spot to the Urisk or shaggy men whose form was part man, part
goat, like the satyrs of Greek mythology.  In later times the Celtic
name of Coir-nan-Uriskin gave way to the more euphonious title of the
Goblin Cave.  To this 'wild and strange retreat,' fit only for wolves
and wild-cats, Douglas brought his daughter for safety.  Roderick Dhu,
hovering about the place like a restless ghost, heard the soft voice of
Ellen, singing her 'Hymn to the Virgin.'  Then, goaded by the thought
that he should never hear that angel voice again, the chieftain strode
sullenly down the mountain-side, and crossing the lake soon rejoined
his men at Lanrick Mead.

In the night Douglas silently departed, resolved to go to Stirling
Castle and give his life as a ransom for his {79} daughter and his
friends.  In the morning Fitz-James found the retreat of Ellen and
offered to carry her away in safety.  But Ellen in simple confidence
told of her love for Malcolm Graeme, and warned the knight that his
life was in danger from his treacherous guide.  Fitz-James then gave a
signet ring to Ellen, telling her to present it to the King, who would
redeem it by granting whatever she might ask.  The wanderer then went
on his way, passing through the Trossachs again, where he met the
half-crazed maid, Blanche of Devon.  The poet actually saw the original
of this strange character in the Pass of Glencoe.  'This poor woman,'
he says, 'had placed herself in the wildest attitude imaginable upon
the very top of a huge fragment of rock: she had scarce any covering
but a tattered plaid, which left her arms, legs, and neck bare to the
weather.  Her long shaggy black hair was streaming backwards in the
wind and exposed a face rather wild and wasted than ugly, and bearing a
very peculiar expression of frenzy.  She had a handful of eagle
feathers in her hand.'

Following the dramatic death of Blanche and the swift justice to her
murderer, the treacherous guide Murdoch, comes the well-remembered
meeting of Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu.  Clan-Alpine's chief extended
to his enemy the hospitality of 'a soldier's couch, a soldier's fare,'
and conducted him safely through countless hordes of his own men
concealed behind every bush and stone until they reached the ford of
Coilantogle, at the extreme limit of the Highland chief's territory.
The place is at the outlet of Loch Vennachar, about two miles west of
Callander, and is readily seen from the main road to the Trossachs.
Here occurred the terrific {80} combat, so vividly painted by the poet,
and Roderick was left upon the field, severely wounded, a prisoner in
the hands of Fitz-James's men, who had responded to the bugle call of
their leader.  The latter, accompanied by two of his knights, rode
rapidly along the shores of the Forth.  They passed 'the bannered
towers of Doune,' now a ruin, which makes a pretty picture seen in the
distance from the bridge over the river.  Pressing on, they were soon
in sight of Stirling Castle, when Fitz-James saw a woodsman 'of stature
tall and poor array,' and at once recognized 'the stately form and
step' of Douglas.

Cambus Kenneth, from which Douglas had just come, is a tall square
tower on the banks of the Forth, west of Stirling.  It was once a large
abbey, founded in the twelfth century and built on the site of the
battle-field, where the Scots under Kenneth MacAlpine defeated the
Picts.  The tower is all that now remains, but the foundations of some
of the walls show the great extent of the structure.  Amid the ruins is
the grave of King James III, over which is a monument erected by Queen
Victoria.  It is supposed to be in exactly the place where King James
was buried, under the high altar, but is so far away from the tower as
to indicate that the original abbey must have been unusually large.

Next to Edinburgh Castle, Stirling is the most imposing fortress in
Scotland.  It stands on a rock four hundred and twenty feet above the
sea, commanding a fine view in every direction.  On the esplanade is a
statue of King Robert the Bruce.  The figure is clad in chain armour
and the king is sheathing his sword, satisfied with his great victory
as he gazes toward the field of {81} Bannockburn.  Across the valley on
the Abbey Craig, two miles away, is a tall tower in memory of that
other great national hero, the mention of whose name still brings a
tingle into the blood of the loyal Scotsman, William Wallace.  The
castle is entered by a gateway between two round towers, beneath one of
which is the dungeon where Roderick Dhu may be supposed to have been
carried after the fatal duel.  Here one may fancy the aged minstrel
Allan-bane, singing to the dying chief the story of the Battle of Beal'
an Duine.  A poem that can hold the attention of a company of soldiers
when actually under fire themselves must be thrilling, indeed; yet this
test was successfully applied to the tale as Scott told it through the
minstrel.  Sir Adam Ferguson received the poem on the day when he was
posted with his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's
artillery.  The men were ordered to lie prostrate on the ground, while
the captain, kneeling at their head, read the description of the
battle.  The soldiers listened attentively, only interrupting
occasionally with a loud huzza, when a shot struck the bank just above
their heads.

On the left of the castle gate is the Royal Palace, built by James III
and a favourite residence of James IV and James V.  All the windows
have heavy iron bars, making the palace look more like a prison than a
king's mansion.  They were placed there for the protection of the
infant James VI, son of Mary, Queen of Scots.  He was born in Edinburgh
Castle; but considered unsafe there, he was lowered over the walls in a
basket and carried to Stirling Castle.  Queen Mary had lived here for
four years in her childhood and it was here that she was secretly
married to Darnley.  Two years later, on a {82} visit to the castle to
see her son, she was intercepted by Bothwell and carried away to
Dunbar, probably with her own connivance, where a month later the two
were married.  James VI, afterward James I of England, spent most of
his boyhood here, and when he left to assume the English crown,
Stirling ceased to be a royal residence.

Among the many strange and much mutilated statues on the exterior of
the palace is one representing King James V as the 'Gudeman of
Ballengeich.'  It was the custom of this king, as it had been of his
father, to disguise himself and mingle with the people, thereby finding
relief from the strain of more serious affairs and doubtless learning
at first hand what the people thought of him.  Their opinions must have
been favourable, for the King enjoyed the experiences and the
intercourse was always friendly and often amusing.  Once on a hunting
expedition, the King became separated from the others of his party and
was obliged to spend the night at a cottage in the moorlands.  The
'gudeman,' like all true Highlanders, was extremely hospitable to the
stranger, and ordered the 'gude wife,' to kill for supper the plumpest
of the hens.  The stranger, departing the next morning, invited the
farmer to call on the 'Gudeman of Ballengeich' when he next visited
Stirling.  The farmer soon accepted the invitation and was much
astonished to find himself received by the King, who enjoyed his
confusion most heartily and gave him the facetious title, 'King of the
Moors.'  This story and others like it gave the idea to Scott which he
so skilfully made the basis of 'The Lady of the Lake.'

[Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE]

Another gateway leads into the upper court, on the right of which is
the old Parliament House, where {83} the last Scottish Parliament met.
At the north end of the court is the Chapel Royal.  A third gateway
leads to the Douglas Garden, at the left of which is the Douglas Room,
where James II treacherously stabbed the Earl of Douglas.  The latter
had visited the castle under a safe-conduct granted by the King
himself.  The body was dragged into an adjoining room and thrown out of
the window.  Later it was buried just where it fell.  Scott makes James
Douglas refer to the incident as he sadly returns to Stirling to
surrender himself and die for his family.

  Ye towers, within those circuit dread
  A Douglas by his sovereign bled.

From the parapet along the walls of this garden, built on a rock three
hundred feet high, a splendid landscape may be seen.  Down below appear
the windings of the river Forth and the old Stirling Bridge, known as
the 'Key to the Highlands,' the only bridge across the Forth during all
the stirring times of Scottish history.  There too is the 'Heading
Hill' to which Douglas also refers:--

  And thou, O sad and fatal mound!
  Thou oft hast heard the death-axe sound,
  As on the noblest of the land
  Fell the stern headsman's bloody hand.

From another place on the wall, far down on the plain below, we could
see the King's Knot, a curiously shaped, octagonal mound of great
antiquity, near the base of the precipitous rock upon which the castle
stands.  This plain, so easily seen from the castle, was the place
where many a knightly tournament was held, and it was to this castle
park that Douglas went to take part in the games, so that

{84}

        King James shall mark
  If age has tamed these sinews stark,
  Whose force so oft in happier days
  His boyish wonder loved to praise.

Here was held the archery contest where Douglas won the silver dart;
here was the wrestling match where he won the golden ring; here his
brave dog Lufra pulled down the royal stag, and Douglas knocked
senseless with a single blow the groom who struck his noble hound; and
from here Douglas was led a captive into the fortress.

Meanwhile Ellen had found her way to the castle determined to see the
King and with his signet ring beg the boon of her father's life.  She
learned to her astonishment that the King and Fitz-James were one, and
that her suit was granted before it was asked, for the genial monarch
announced Lord James of Douglas as 'a friend and bulwark of our throne.'

  The monarch drank, that happy hour,
  The sweetest, holiest draught of Power,--
  When it can say with godlike voice,
  Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice!

Then Ellen blushingly craved, through her father, the pardon of her
lover, and the King in jovial mood commanded Malcolm to stand forth,
exclaiming,--

  'Fetters and warder for the Graeme!'
  His chain of gold the King unstrung,
  The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung,
  Then gently drew the glittering band,
  And laid the clasp on Ellen's hand.

Looking out from Stirling Castle over the delightful scenery of the
Scottish Highlands, made a hundred times more lovely by the romantic
poem, whose magic has {85} seemed to touch every lake and river, hill
and valley, with its influence, we felt a strange reluctance to leave
the scene, akin to that of the poet himself as he bids farewell to the
Harp of the North:--

  Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire,
    Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string!
  'T is now a seraph bold, with touch of fire,
    'T is now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing.
  Receding now, the dying numbers ring
    Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell;
  And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring
    A wandering witch-note of the distant spell,
    And now, 't is silent all!--Enchantress, fare thee well!

{86}

CHAPTER V

ROKEBY

The town of Barnard Castle, where we arrived one evening after a long
tour through Yorkshire, is on the left bank of the river Tees and on
the southern boundary of the county of Durham.  In the morning we were
told by 'Boots,' the one man in an English hotel who knows everything,
that the castle, which gives its name to the town, could be reached
through the stable-yard back of the house.  After travelling far out of
our way to view the setting of Rokeby, which in the natural beauty of
its scenery is unsurpassed by that of any of Scott's other poems,
except 'The Lady of the Lake,' the suggestion of such an entrance to
the locality of the opening stanzas was a rude shock to our sense of
romantic propriety.  The reality was worse than the suggestion and we
began to think that possibly Mr. Boots might have misdirected us,
supposing we wished to see the barnyard instead of Barnard Castle.  We
proceeded on our way, however, soon coming to a small cottage with a
pretty little garden,--nearly every English cottage boasts one of these
delightful little areas of colour and of fragrance,--and passing
through, reached the enclosure where all that is left of the castle, or
nearly all, now stands.  Two impressive ruined towers and a short
connecting wall are practically all that remain of a once splendid
royal residence.  On the left is 'Brackenbury's dungeon-tower,' no
longer 'dismal,' for the ancient stones are partly clothed with {87}
the foliage of fruit trees, trained English fashion against the walls,
while a bed of bright-blooming flowers on the right, the fresh green
leaves of some overhanging branches on the left, and the lawn,
plentifully besprinkled with the dainty little English daisies, each
catching its own ray of sunshine and giving a sparkle to the whole
scene, all spoke eloquently of the change from death to life since the
time when these walls cast only deep shadows of darkness and despair.

On the right of the enclosure is the old Baliol Tower, and in the wall
connecting it with Brackenbury is an oriel window, where the arms of
King Richard III may still be faintly traced in the stone.

Baliol Tower is a heavy round structure of great antiquity.  It has a
remarkable vaulted ceiling composed entirely of keystones arranged in
circles.  A narrow staircase within the walls leads to the battlements
from which we obtained a magnificent view of the valley of the Tees.

  What prospects from his watch-tower high
  Gleam gradual on the warder's eye!
  Far sweeping to the east he sees
  Down his deep woods the course of Tees,
  And tracks his wanderings by the steam
  Of summer vapours from the stream.

If Barnard Castle appeared unromantic, approached from the yard of the
inn, exactly the opposite feeling took possession of us when we viewed
it from the footbridge, just above the dam.  Here the river widens
until it looks like a placid lake.  The castle rises high above the
stream, its base concealed by trees of heavy growth, but not tall
enough to cover the two great towers and {88} the oriel window of King
Richard.  It is no longer a single ruined wall, but the imposing front
of a vast structure, well placed for defence, once strong in war but
now beautiful in peace.

Barnard Baliol, whose father was one of the followers of William the
Conqueror, founded the castle in the beginning of the twelfth century.
He was the grandfather of John Baliol, who contested with Robert Bruce
the claim to the Scottish crown.  The original castle or fortress
covered an extensive area of over six acres, most of which is now given
over to sheep-raising or to the cultivation of fruit trees.  An
extensive domain, comprising much of the surrounding country, was
granted to the descendants of Barnard Baliol in the reign of King
Rufus.  Edward I granted it to Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in whose
family it remained for several generations.  Through the marriage of
the daughter of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, famous as the
king-maker, to the Duke of Gloucester, afterward King Richard III, the
estate came into possession of the Crown.  The castle was a favourite
residence of Richard, who made many additions to it.  In the reign of
Charles I it was purchased by Sir Henry Vane the elder.  When Scott
makes it the property of Oswald Wycliffe, he does not go very far
astray, for John Wycliffe, the great forerunner of the Reformation in
England, was born on the banks of the river Tees and received his
education at Baliol College, Oxford, which was founded by the Baliols
of Barnard Castle, who were the neighbours of his family.

[Illustration: BRACKENBURY TOWER, BARNARD CASTLE]

Barnard Castle, however, interesting as it is, was not the magnet that
drew the poet to this region for his {89} scenery.  In 1808, Scott
began his intimacy with John B. S. Morritt, a man of sterling character
and high literary attainments, for whom he came to entertain a genuine
affection.  Morritt had inherited the estate of Rokeby, situated about
four miles southeast of Barnard Castle.  The Rokebys, like their
neighbours, the Baliols, were descended from one of the followers of
the Conqueror.  The old manor house was destroyed by the Scotch after
the battle of Bannockburn (1314), and the Rokeby of that day built the
Castle of Mortham, much of which still remains standing on the opposite
bank of the Greta.  The present Hall was built in 1724.  It stands in
the midst of an extensive and beautiful park, which Scott, on the
occasion of his first visit, thought 'one of the most enviable places'
he had ever seen.  'It unites,' said he, 'the richness and luxuriance
of English vegetation with the romantic variety of glen, torrent, and
copse, which dignifies our Northern scenery.  The Greta and Tees, two
most beautiful and rapid rivers, join their currents in the demesne.
The banks of the Tees resemble, from the height of the rocks, the Glen
of Roslin, so much and justly admired.'  The letter containing this
enthusiastic praise of his friend's estate was written in 1809.  Two
years later, when the purchase of Abbotsford seemed to require another
poem for its consummation, it was to the one place worthy of comparison
with his beloved Glen of Roslin that the poet instinctively turned for
his backgrounds.

Scott's ambition to be the 'laird' of an estate was gratified in the
summer of 1811 when he became the owner of an unprepossessing farm of
about one hundred acres.  The land was in a neglected state, but little
of it {90} having been under cultivation.  The farmhouse was small and
poor, and immediately in front of it was a miserable duck pond.  The
place, from its disreputable appearance, had been known as 'Clarty
Hole.'  But Scott's prophetic vision could look beyond all this and see
something, if not all, of the transformation which was to be wrought in
the next twelve years.  The farm lay for half a mile along the banks of
the beautiful Tweed, the river which Scott loved.  He knew the
fertility of the soil and saw the possibility of making the place a
beautiful grove.  At first he thought only of 'a cottage and a few
fields,' but as the passion for buying, planting, and building grew
with his apparent prosperity, the farm became a beautifully wooded
estate of eighteen hundred acres, the cottage grew into a castle, and
'Clarty Hole,' its name changed into 'Abbotsford' within less than an
hour after the new owner took possession, became one of the most famous
private possessions in the world.

The farm cost £4000, one half of which was borrowed from the poet's
brother, Major John Scott, and the other half advanced by the
Ballantynes on the security of 'Rokeby,' though the poem was not yet
written.  The plans for the purchase out of the way, Scott wrote to his
friend, Morritt, outlining the new poem, having for its scene the
domain of Rokeby and its subject the civil wars of Charles I.  Morritt
was delighted and immediately responded with a letter full of valuable
information.  The following summer was a busy one.  Until the middle of
July, Scott's duties as Clerk of the Court of Sessions kept him at
Edinburgh five days in the week.  Saturdays and Sundays were spent at
Abbotsford.  He composed poetry while planting trees and wrote down the
verses {91} amid the noise and confusion incident to building his new
cottage.  'As for the house and the poem,' he wrote to Morritt, 'there
are twelve masons hammering at the one and one poor noddle at the
other.'  Both 'Rokeby' and 'The Bridal of Triermain' were written under
these conditions and at the same time, while Scott found opportunity
also to continue his work on the 'Life of Swift,' which eventually
reached nineteen octavo volumes, and to render other literary services
to his publishers, the Ballantynes.

It was not long before Scott found an opportunity to visit Rokeby
again, where he remained about a week.  On the morning after his
arrival, he informed Morritt that he needed 'a good robber's cave and
an old church of the right sort.'  Morritt promptly undertook to supply
both, and to find the former rode with his friend to Brignall Woods,
where the Greta flows through a deep glen, on one side of which are
some perpendicular rocks, the site of an old quarry.  I could not find
any robber's caves, but it was easy enough for Scott to make one in
such a rock formation.  I could, however, form a pretty good idea of
the wild flight of Bertram Risingham as he

  Now clomb the rocks projecting high
  To baffle the pursuer's eye:
  Now sought the stream, whose brawling sound
  The echo of his footsteps drowned.

In all probability, the scene is the same to-day, as it was in Scott's
time, wild and beautiful.  The stream winds around through shady nooks,
here rippling over the rocks and then widening out into a placid pool;
occasionally passing out from beneath the trees into an open glade,
where the well-worn boulders that punctuated its {92} course lay
gleaming in the sun, and presenting at every turn some new and changing
view.

  O, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
  And Greta Woods are green.

In describing the visit to this place Mr. Morritt gives an excellent
idea of Scott's method:--

I observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild flowers and
herbs that accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold crag near
his intended cave of Guy Denzil; and could not help saying that as he
was not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses
would be as poetical as any of the humble plants he was examining.  I
laughed, in short, at his scrupulousness; but I understood him when he
replied, 'that in nature herself no two scenes were ever exactly alike,
and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes would possess
the same variety in his descriptions and exhibit apparently an
imagination as boundless as the range of nature in the scenes he
recorded; whereas whoever trusted to imagination would soon find his
own mind circumscribed, and contracted to a few favourite images, and
the repetition of these would sooner or later produce that very
monotony and bareness which had always haunted descriptive poetry in
the hands of any but the patient worshippers of truth.

The 'old church of the right sort' was found on the other side of
Rokeby Park.  We reached it from Barnard Castle by crossing the high
Abbey Bridge, beneath which the Tees flows in a narrow, rippling,
foaming lane of water, flanked on either side by trees of rich foliage
whose bright green branches wave to each other continually across the
stream in a sort of friendly salute.  The old grey Abbey of Egliston is
pleasantly situated on rising ground near where the Tees is joined by
the rivulet known as Thorsgill.

{93}

  Yet scald or kemper erred, I ween,
  Who gave that soft and quiet scene,
  With all its varied light and shade,
  And every little sunny glade,
  And the blithe brook that strolls along
  Its pebbled bed with summer song,
  To the grim God of blood and scar,
  The grisly King of Northern War.

The abbey was founded in the twelfth century and dedicated to St. Mary
and St. John the Baptist.  It was once a beautiful cruciform building
in the Early English style, but has been allowed to fall into decay and
now only parts of the walls of the choir and nave remain.

  The reverend pile lay wild and waste,
  Profound, dishonoured, and defaced.
  Through storied lattices no more,
  In softened light the sunbeams pour,
  Gilding the Gothic sculpture rich
  Of shrine and ornament and niche.

This was the scene which Scott chose for the culminating tragedy of the
poem.

There are many other places in the neighbourhood to which the poet
refers.  There is 'Raby's battered tower,' a large castle which boasts
the honour of twice entertaining Charles I.  There is the Balder, 'a
sweet brooklet's silver line,' which flows into the Tees a few miles
above Barnard Castle, and farther to the northwest, where the three
counties of York, Durham, and Westmoreland meet, is the place

  Where Tees in tumult leaves his source
  Thundering o'er Cauldron and High-Force.

These two cataracts are most impressive when rainstorms have swelled
the stream to its full capacity.  Just {94} outside the park of Rokeby
is a charming spot where the Greta meets the Tees,--

  Where, issuing from her darksome bed,
  She caught the morning's eastern red,
  And through the softening vale below
  Rolled her bright waves in rosy glow
  All blushing to her bridal bed,
  Like some shy maid in convent bred,
  While linnet, lark, and blackbird gay
  Sang forth her nuptial roundelay.

Half hidden by the trees, the old stone 'dairy bridge' crosses the
Greta, just where the river emerges from the park.  It makes a pretty
picture as you look through the single arch into the cool shades of the
peaceful domain.  Passing over this bridge we came to the old tower of
Mortham.  We did not find it deserted as did Wilfrid and Bertram, for
it is now used as a farm and the tower is almost completely surrounded
by low buildings of comparatively recent construction.  From the
garden, however, a fairly good view can be obtained.

  And last and least, and loveliest still,
  Romantic Deepdale's slender rill.
  Who in that dim-wood glen hath strayed,
  Yet longed for Roslin's magic glade?

The glen which Scott would compare with his favourite Roslin must be
romantic, indeed.  The rill of Deepdale joins the Tees just above
Barnard Castle.  The scenery increases in beauty as the stream is
ascended, to the solitary spot near the Cat Castle rocks--

  Where all is cliff and copse and sky,--

and reaches its climax at the pretty waterfall of Cragg Force.

{95}

[Illustration: THE VALLEY OF THE TEES, FROM BARNARD CASTLE]

The Cavaliers and Roundheads whom Scott introduces into the midst of
this beautiful scenery are not, it must be confessed, particularly
interesting, nor is the villain Bertram, in spite of the fact that the
poet was a little proud of him as a sketch full of dash and vigour.
There are three people, however, who hold the attention.  The first is
Matilda, who, by the poet's faintly veiled admission, was intended to
be the picture of his early love, Williamina Stuart.  In Wilfrid, the
youth of poetic temperament, who loved in vain, and Redmond, his
successful but generous rival, there is a suggestion, which one can
scarcely escape, of the poet himself and Sir William Forbes, who
married Williamina.  Redmond showed his kindly heart and soldierly
strength by fighting desperately over the prostrate figure of his
wounded rival, at length carrying him in his arms from the burning
castle to a place of safety, after his entire train had deserted their
leader.  Sir William Forbes was one of the first to offer aid when
financial misfortune overtook Sir Walter, and when one creditor
undertook to make serious trouble, privately paid the entire claim of
nearly £2000, taking care that Scott should not know how it was
managed.  As a matter of fact, Sir Walter did not learn the truth until
some time after the death of his generous friend.

{96}

CHAPTER VI

THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN

One of Scott's chief delights was the little game of _fooling the
critics_.  No sooner had he arranged for the publication of 'Rokeby'
than he began to _lay a trap for Jeffrey_, whose reviews of the earlier
poems had not been altogether agreeable.  From this innocent little
scheme the poet and his confidant, William Erskine, anticipated great
amusement.  The plan was to publish simultaneously with 'Rokeby,' a
shorter and lighter romance, in a different metre and to 'take in the
knowing ones' by introducing certain peculiarities of composition
suggestive of Erskine.  The poem thus projected, of which fragments had
already been published, was 'The Bridal of Triermain.'  The scheme so
far succeeded that for a long while the public was completely
mystified.  A writer in the 'Quarterly Review,' probably George Ellis,
thought it 'an imitation of Mr. Scott's style of composition,' and
added, 'if it be inferior in vigour to some of his productions, it
equals or surpasses them in elegance and beauty.'  Jeffrey escaped the
trap by the chance of a voyage to America that year, though it may be
doubted whether he would have fallen into it.

I have already referred to the fact (chapter I) that much of the
material for this poem came to Scott in the summer of 1797, when, after
a visit to the English Lakes, he found some weeks of real romance near
the village of {97} Gilsland.  To this period the poet's recollection
turned for his 'light romance.'  In the passage where Arthur derides
the pretensions of his military rival,--

  Who comes in foreign trashery
    Of tinkling chain and spur,
  A walking haberdashery
    Of feathers, lace, and fur,--

Lockhart finds an allusion to some incident of the ball at Gilsland Spa
where Scott first met his future wife.  Whether the walk along the
Irthing River below the 'Spa' was really in the poet's mind, when he
wrote of the 'woodland brook' beside which Arthur and Lucy wandered, is
of course unknown, but I do not doubt that it may have been, since so
much of the poem was suggested by the experiences of that pleasant
summer.  Triermain Castle, or what is left of it, is about three miles
west of Gilsland.  Only a fragment about the size of an ordinary
chimney is now standing, though Scott saw more of it, for a
considerable portion of the ruin fell in 1832.  The Barons of Gilsland
received a grant of land from Henry II sometime in the twelfth century,
and Robert de Vaux, son of the original grantee, was probably the
builder of the castle.  On his tombstone in Lannercost Priory, near by,
is this inscription:--

  Sir Robert Vaux that sometime was the Lord of Triermain,
  Is dead, his body clad in lead, ligs law under this stane;
  Evin as we, evin as he, on earth a levan man,
  Evin as he, evin so maun we, for all the craft of men.

The castle was built of the stones of the old Roman wall which passes
near the place.  From Triermain, Sir Roland de Vaux sent his page to
Ullswater, passing {98} through Kirkoswald, a village of Cumberland on
the river Eden.  He came to Penrith, to the south of which is a
circular mound supposed to have been used for the exercise of feats of
chivalry, which the poet calls 'red Penrith's Table Round.'  In the
same locality near the river Eamont is 'Mayburgh's mound,' a collection
of stones said to have been erected by the Druids.  Continuing to the
southward, he came to the shores of Ullswater, where he found the
wizard of Lyulph's Tower.  The venerable sage then related the story of
King Arthur's adventure in the Valley of St. John.

[Illustration: THE VALLEY OF ST. JOHN, SHOWING TRIERMAIN CASTLE ROCK]

We set out in quest of the mysterious phantom castle and found the
drive through the narrow valley a delightful one.  Nearly everybody who
visits the English Lakes drives over the hills from Ambleside to
Keswick.  After passing Dunmailraise and skirting the shores of
Thirlmere Lake beneath the shadows of Helvellyn, we turned off the main
road near the mouth of St. John's Beck, one of the many pretty brooks
that are found everywhere in the neighbourhood.  A huge pile of rocks,
projecting curiously from the side of a green-coated hill, is called,
from the poem, Triermain Castle Rock.  Following the course of the
streamlet, upward, we found a view much like that which appeared to
King Arthur, after the goblet with its liquid fire had disenchanted him.

  The monarch, breathless and amazed,
  Back on the fatal castle gazed--
  Nor tower nor donjon could he spy,
  Darkening against the morning sky;
  But on the spot where once they frowned,
  The lonely streamlet brawled around
  A tufted knoll, where dimly shone
  Fragments of rock and rifted stone.

{99}

As we proceeded up the valley, looking back time and again for a last
view of the rock, it was easy to fancy that what we saw in the distance
might well be a castle and that under certain atmospheric conditions
the illusion might be heightened.

{100}

CHAPTER VII

THE LORD OF THE ISLES

'The Lord of the Isles,' was another effort to deceive the critics.  A
long poem acknowledged by Walter Scott, following soon after 'Waverley'
and only a month preceding 'Guy Mannering,' was calculated to 'throw
off' those who were trying to identify the mysterious author of the
Waverley Novels with the well-known poet.  It was the result of a
vacation journey of about six weeks in a lighthouse yacht, made in the
summer of 1814 in the company of a party of congenial friends.  The
chief of the expedition was Robert Stevenson, a distinguished civil
engineer in charge of the lighthouse service on the north coast of
Scotland, and the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson.  After
circling the Shetland and Orkney Islands they came down into the Minch
or channel which separates the west coast of Scotland from the
Hebrides, and stopped at Dunvegan, on the Isle of Skye, to see the
ancient castle.  Two days later they stopped to examine Loch Corriskin,
which made a profound impression upon the poet's mind.  'We were
surrounded,' he said in his Diary of the expedition, 'by hills of the
boldest and most precipitous character and on the margin of a lake
which seemed to have sustained the constant ravages of torrents from
these rude neighbours.  The shores consist of huge layers of naked
granite, here and there intermixed with bogs and heaps of gravel and
sand, marking the course of torrents.  Vegetation there was {101}
little or none, and the mountains rose so perpendicularly from the
water's edge that Borrowdale is a jest to them.  We proceeded about one
mile and a half up this deep, dark, and solitary lake, which is about
two miles long, half a mile broad, and, as we learned, of extreme
depth....  It is as exquisite as a savage scene, as Loch Katrine is as
a scene of stern beauty.'  In the poem he gives a little more vivid
description:--

    For rarely human eye has known
  A scene so stern as that dread lake
    With its dark ledge of barren stone.
  Seems that primeval earthquake's sway
  Hath rent a strange and shatter'd way
    Through the rude bosom of the hill,
  And that each naked precipice,
  Sable ravine, and dark abyss,
    Tells of the outrage still.
  The wildest glen but this can show
  Some touch of Nature's genial glow;
  On high Benmore green mosses grow,
  And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe,
    And copse on Cruchan-Ben;
  But here--above, around, below,
    On mountain or in glen,
  Nor tree nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,
  Nor aught of vegetative power
    The weary eye may ken.
  For all is rocks at random thrown,
  Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone,
    As if were here denied
  The summer's sun, the spring's sweet dew,
  That clothe with many a varied hue
    The bleakest mountain-side.

No wonder that the exiled monarch, Bruce, should say:

  A scene so rude, so wild as this,
  Yet so sublime in barrenness,
{102}
  Ne'er did my wandering footsteps press
    Where'er I happed to roam.

Returning to their vessel after an extraordinary walk, the party left
Loch Scavig and, rounding its southern cape, sailed into the Loch of
Sleapin, where they visited Macallister's Cave.  Here they found a
wonderful pool, which, 'surrounded by the most fanciful mouldings in a
substance resembling white marble, and distinguished by the depth and
purity of its waters, might be the bathing grotto of a Naiad.'

In the morning they sailed toward the south and

  Merrily, merrily goes the bark
    On a breeze from the northward free,
  So shoots through the morning sky the lark,
    Or the swan through the summer sea.
  The shores of Mull on the eastward lay,
  And Ulva dark and Colonsay,
  And all the group of islets gay
    That guard famed Staffa round.

They were following the same route, or nearly so, which the poet
afterward laid down for Robert Bruce on his return from the Island of
Skye to his native coast of Carrick.

They stopped at Staffa to view the famous basaltic formation,--

  Where, as to shame the temples decked
  By skill of earthly architect,
  Nature herself, it seemed, would raise
  A minster to her Maker's praise.

'The stupendous columnar side walls,' says the Diary; 'the depth and
strength of the ocean with which the cavern is filled--the variety of
tints formed by stalactites {103} dropping and petrifying between the
pillars and resembling a sort of chasing of yellow or cream-coloured
marble filling the interstices of the roof--the corresponding variety
below, where the ocean rolls over a red, and in some places a
violet-coloured rock, the basis of the basaltic pillars--the dreadful
noise of those august billows so well corresponding with the grandeur
of the scene--are all circumstances unparalleled.'

They also stopped to view 'Old Iona's holy fane,' the ancient
burial-place of kings and abbots and other men of eminence.  It is said
that Macbeth was buried here and before him sixty other Scottish kings
whose names are now unknown.

The vivid descriptions of scenes along the route of Bruce to Scotland,
with which 'The Lord of the Isles' abounds, were gathered on this
memorable journey of the poet.  It was not so, however, with the
arrival of Bruce at his ancestral castle of Turnberry on the coast of
Ayr, the information for which was supplied by Scott's indefatigable
friend, Joseph Train, whose investigations brought to light the ancient
superstition that on each anniversary of the night of Bruce's return a
meteoric gleam reappeared in the same quarter of the heavens.

  The light that seemed a twinkling star
  Now blazed portentous, fierce and far,
  Dark red the heaven above it gleamed,
  Dark red the sea beneath it flowed,
  Red-rose the rocks on ocean's brim,
  In blood-red light her islets swim.

The ruins of Bruce's castle may still be seen close by the lighthouse
at Turnberry.  So little remains that they are scarcely visible from
the land side, and though {104} thousands visit the locality for a run
over the superb golf links, few realize that here was the birthplace of
Robert Bruce, and that the skirmishes here begun, when the future king
returned prematurely from exile, led eventually to the series of
successes which terminated in the great victory of Bannockburn.

The poetic description of this terrific combat lacks nothing of the
vigour and dramatic force that characterize the story of Flodden Field.
The scene where the Bruce, suddenly attacked by Sir Henry de Bohun,
rises in his stirrups and fells the fierce knight with a single blow of
his battle-axe; the stratagem of the concealed ditches into which the
English rode with fearful losses; the kneeling of the Scottish army in
prayer before the battle; the charge of the cavalry against the English
archers; the sudden appearance of the Scottish camp-followers on the
brow of the hill, waving their spears and banners, so that they
resembled a fresh army of reinforcements; the tragic death of De
Argentine and the final triumph of the Scottish cause are vividly
portrayed with all the poet's accustomed power.

'The Lord of the Isles' was the last of Scott's important poems.  Two
other attempts followed, 'The Field of Waterloo' and 'Harold, the
Dauntless,' but neither was considered successful.

[Illustration: TURNBERRY CASTLE, COAST OF AYRSHIRE]

'Rokeby,' 'The Bridal of Triermain,' and 'The Lord of the Isles,'
though well worthy of the genius of the poet, had failed to equal in
popularity the three greater poems by which his fame had been
established.  The brilliant success of Byron was, as Scott feared,
'taking the wind out of his sails.'  Moreover, his own interest in
poetry had waned under the influence of his greater achievements {105}
in prose.  As the author of the Waverley Novels he had stepped into a
new and vastly more important field, where he now stood alone.  So with
the passing of Walter Scott the poet came the rising star of the
novelist, and the world was the richer by the transition.

{106}

CHAPTER VIII

WAVERLEY

One morning during our stay at Melrose, we drove by motor westward
along the Tweed, passing Ashestiel, situated high up on the opposite
bank, but catching only a glimpse of it through the trees.  Here
'Waverley' was begun in 1805 and laid aside because of the criticism of
a close friend.  Here, too, in 1810, it was resumed and again put aside
because of the faint praise of James Ballantyne.  This time the
manuscript was lost and completely forgotten.  It came to light in 1813
when Scott was searching in an old cabinet for some fishing-tackle.  He
was seized with a desire to finish it, and the work was done so fast
that the last two of the original three volumes were written in three
weeks.  It was published on the 7th of July, 1814.

Farther up the stream we could see in the distance on a high elevation
the ruins of Elibank, where Scott's ancestor, young Wat of Harden, came
so near paying the penalty for 'lifting' a few head of his neighbour's
cattle.  Scott always said that the blood of the old cattle-drivers of
Teviotdale still stirred in his veins, and in this way he accounted for
his 'propensity for the dubious characters of borderers, buccaneers,
Highland robbers, and all others of a Robin Hood description.'

Our journey on this particular morning was for the purpose of visiting
an old baronial mansion which Scott no doubt had very much in his mind
during the writing {107} of 'Waverley.'  This was Traquair House,
situated in the village of that name, about two miles south of
Innerleithen.  It presents some striking resemblances to the
description of Tully Veolan.  There is a long and wide avenue, having
an upper and a lower gate.  'This avenue was straight and of moderate
length, running between a double row of very ancient horse-chestnuts,
planted alternately with sycamores, which rose to such huge height, and
flourished so luxuriantly, that their boughs completely overarched the
broad road beneath.'  Two narrow drives, one on each side of the broad
avenue, converge immediately in front of the inner gate.  Between these
is a broad space 'clothed with grass of a deep and rich verdure.'  The
outer entrance to the avenue is barred by a pair of iron gates, hung
between two massive pillars of stone, on each of which is a curious
beast, standing on his hind legs, his fore legs resting on a sort of
scroll-work support.  The animals face each other like a couple of
rival legislators holding a joint debate from behind tall
reading-desks.  Scott says somewhat dubiously that these 'two large
weather-beaten mutilated masses of upright stone ... if the tradition
of the hamlet could be trusted, had once represented, or at least been
designed to represent, two rampant Bears, the supporters of the family
of Bradwardine.'  If any of the village people, who stood around as I
arranged my camera, their wide-stretched eyes and open mouths betraying
their curiosity, had told me that these 'bears' were 'rampant
hippopotami,' I should have rewarded them with my usual credulous nod
and 'thank you.'  There can be little doubt that Scott took the idea of
the Bears of Bradwardine from this gate, although he {108} multiplied
the two and scattered them all over the place.

Like Tully Veolan, the house seems to consist of high, narrow, and
steep-roofed buildings, with numberless windows, all very small, while
the roofs have little turrets, 'resembling pepper-boxes.'  It was built
'at a period when castles were no longer necessary and when the
Scottish architects had not yet acquired the art of designing a
domestic residence.'

Scott no doubt was a frequent visitor here.  In one of his letters he
refers to the owner in connection with a plan to plant some 'aquatic
trees,--willows, alders, poplars, and so forth,'--around a little pond
in Abbotsford and to have a 'preserve of wild ducks' and other
water-fowl.  He says, 'I am to get some eggs from Lord Traquair, of a
curious species of half-reclaimed wild ducks, which abound near his
solitary old château and nowhere else in Scotland that I know of.' This
denotes a somewhat intimate acquaintance with the Earl of Traquair.
The house, indeed, was so near Ashestiel that Scott could hardly fail
to visit so interesting a place many times.  It is doubtful if there is
another inhabited house in Scotland more ancient than Traquair.  The
present owner takes care to preserve its appearance of antiquity.  No
repairs or alterations are made except such as are absolutely
necessary, and then the work is done in such a way as to conceal its
'newness.'  Among the early owners of the estate was James, Lord
Douglas, the friend of Bruce, who attempted to carry his chief's heart
to the Holy Land.  The founder of the family of Traquair was James
Stuart, and his descendants have held the estate for nearly four
centuries.

{109}

The great gate with the grotesque bears has been closed for more than a
century.  One tradition is that the defeat of the young Prince Charles
at the battle of Culloden in 1746 was the direct cause of its final
closing.  The Prince visited the Earl of that day (Charles, the fifth
Earl of Traquair) to persuade him to lend his active support to the
Jacobite cause.  The Earl felt compelled to decline, but in escorting
his visitor from the park, made a vow that the gate should never be
opened again until a Stuart was on the throne.  The defeat of the
Prince was a severe disappointment to the Traquair family and the vow
of the Earl has been kept to this day, even though the earldom is now
extinct.

It is not correct, however, in spite of the striking resemblances, to
speak of Traquair House as the 'original' of Tully Veolan.  Scott
himself says in his note in the edition of 1829, 'There is no
particular mansion described under the name of Tully Veolan; but the
peculiarities of description occur in various old Scottish seats.'
Among these were the house of Sir George Warrender upon Bruntsfield
Links; the old house of Ravelston, owned by Sir Alexander Keith, the
author's friend and kinsman, from which he took some hints for the
garden; and the house of Dean, near Edinburgh.  He adds,'The author
has, however, been informed that the house of Grandtully resembles that
of the Baron of Bradwardine still more than any of the above.'

Acting upon this hint, when we were making the city of Perth our
centre, we took a long journey by motor with Grandtully Castle as the
objective point.  I doubt if there is a more beautiful drive in all
Scotland.  We followed the left bank of the river Tay through a fertile
{110} valley of surpassing loveliness.  In the whole journey of nearly
one hundred miles it seemed as though there was never a blot on the
landscape.  No neglected farms, no rough patches of naked earth, no
tumble-down fences, no unsightly railroad excavations nor bare
embankments, no swamps filled with fallen timber, no hideous
bill-boards, none of the hundreds of unsightly objects which mar the
scenery of so many country drives.  Everything seemed well kept.  The
big estates were filled with beautiful trees and shrubs, many of them
in full bloom, and the humbler places did equally well, though on a
smaller scale.  I remember passing a hedge of beeches, half a mile
long, the trees growing ninety feet high and so close together as to
make a wall impenetrable to the sunlight.  I was told that this hedge
was trimmed once in three years at an expense of fifteen hundred
dollars each time.  This is only one item in the care of a large
estate.  We passed the park and palace of Scone, where the coronation
stone was kept before its removal to Westminster Abbey, and from which
it received its name.  Farther to the north we stopped a few minutes at
Campsie Linn, which I shall mention later in connection with 'The Fair
Maid of Perth.'  A little beyond Cargill our course turned sharply to
the West, although the main road continues to the north until it
reaches Blairgowrie, some two or three miles beyond which is another
'original' of Tully Veolan, the house of Craighall.  Unfortunately lack
of time did not permit a visit to this place, but I must digress long
enough to explain its significance.  It was the seat of the Rattray
family, who were related to William Clerk, one of Scott's most intimate
companions of the early days {111} spent among the law courts of
Edinburgh.  During one of the Highland excursions the friends stopped
at Craighall.  When 'Waverley' came out, twenty-one years later, Mr.
Clerk was so much struck with the resemblance of Tully Veolan to the
old mansion of the Rattrays that he immediately said, 'This is
Scott's.'  The reason for the conviction was probably not so much the
similarity of the real house to the fictitious one as the recollection
of a little incident of the early excursion.  Clerk, seeing the smoke
of a little hamlet before them, when they were tired and heated from
their journey, is said to have exclaimed, 'How agreeable if we should
here fall in with one of those signposts where a red lion predominates
over a punch-bowl!'  In spite of the lapse of so many years, Clerk
recognized his own expression (with which he knew Scott had been
particularly amused) in that part of the description of Tully Veolan
where 'a huge bear, carved in stone, predominated over a large stone
basin.'

[Illustration: GRANDTULLY CASTLE]

Following the course of the beautiful river, upstream, we came at
length, far up in the Perthshire hills, to the Castle of Grandtully.
It is a large and stately mansion, situated in one of those beautiful
parks with which the region abounds.  It has the pepper-box turrets and
small windows of Tully Veolan.  It is now, as in Scott's time, the home
of a family of Stewarts, one of whom, Sir George, supported the cause
of 'the Young Chevalier' in 1745.  The gardener, who, in the absence of
the family, did the honours of the place, told me that Scott had
visited the house many years after 'Waverley' appeared and had said
then that it was more nearly like what he had described than any other
castle, and that {112} 'the only mistake he had made was in putting
bears on the gateway instead of bees.'  There is a fine wrought-iron
gate at Grandtully with the figures of two bees, forming a part of the
coat of arms of the Stewart family.  An avenue of limes formerly led to
this gate, but it is no longer used and only two of the trees remain.
Scott was always cautious about admitting any connection of his
writings with definite 'originals,' but was ever ready to humour those
who fancied they saw certain resemblances.  It is curious that he does
not mention either Traquair House or Craighall in his note, though both
were identified as 'originals' during his lifetime.  No doubt,
consciously or unconsciously, he wove into his novel partial
descriptions of both, as well as of Grandtully, while the houses which
he particularly mentions also furnished some of the details.

The historical value of 'Waverley' lies in its picture of the rising of
the Highland clans in favour of Charles Edward Stuart, called the
'Young Pretender' by the supporters of the reigning king, but
affectionately known among his Scottish adherents as 'Bonnie Prince
Charlie.'  The ambitious young man, the grandson of James II, left
France in the summer of 1745 in a small vessel, with only seven
friends, and landed on one of the Hebridean Islands.  Before the end of
August he had raised his standard in the valley of Glenfinnan and found
himself at the head of an army of fifteen hundred men, chiefly of the
clans of MacDonald and Cameron.  He soon made a triumphant march to
Edinburgh, where he established himself in the Palace of Holyrood,
which the Stuart family had already made famous.  On Tuesday, the 17th
of September, he caused the proclamation {113} of his father, 'the Old
Pretender,' as King James VIII, to be read by the heralds at the old
Market Cross in Parliament Square.  The people crowded around the
'Young Chevalier,' eager to kiss his hand or even to touch for a single
instant the Scottish tartan which he wore.  So great was the crowd that
he was compelled to call for his horse, for otherwise he could make no
progress.  It is said that his noble appearance so won the hearts of
all who beheld him that before he reached the palace the polish of his
boots was dimmed by the kisses of the multitude.

That night the old palace reawakened to something of its former
brilliancy, on the occasion of a great ball, given by the Prince.  The
old picture gallery, with its array of queer portraits of
long-forgotten Scottish kings, was a scene of glittering splendour.
The long-deserted halls, now brilliant with a thousand lights, were
crowded with an assembly of men of education and fortune, accompanied
by their ladies in gowns of such elegance as the confusion of the times
might permit.  Mingling with these representations of the Jacobean
gentry of Edinburgh were the handsomely arrayed officers of the clans,
the Highland gentlemen of importance, with their many coloured plaids
and sashes, their broadswords glittering with heavy silver plate and
inlaid work, and all the other elegant appurtenances for which the
picturesque Highland costume offered abundant scope.  In the chapter on
the Ball, Scott merely introduced into an historic assemblage two
handsome women, Flora MacIvor and Rose Bradwardine, and two men, Fergus
MacIvor and Edward Waverley.

The palace is to-day much the same as it was in the {114} time of the
Prince, though the adjoining abbey is now roofless and very much more
of a ruin.  A walk through the Canongate, from Holyrood to the Market
Cross, would give one a very fair idea of the street through which
Fergus MacIvor and Waverley passed to the lodgings of the former in the
house of the buxom Widow Flockhart, where Waverley received his new
Highland costume from the hands of James of the Needle.  At the other
end of the town, beneath the castle, is St. Cuthbert's Church, then
called the West Kirk, where the honest Presbyterian clergyman,
MacVicar, preached every Sunday and prayed for the House of Hanover in
spite of the fact that many of the Jacobites were present.  In one of
those petitions he referred to the fact that 'a young man has recently
come among us seeking an earthly crown' and prayed that he might
speedily be granted a heavenly one!

Much of the material for 'Waverley' was stored up in the retentive
memory of the novelist when he was a mere boy.  At six years of age he
was taken for a visit to Prestonpans.  If the old veteran of the German
wars, Dalgetty, whom he met here and who found a ready listener in the
bright-eyed little boy, was able to tell the story of the battle in
anything like a graphic manner, it must have made a profound impression
upon the mind of a lad who had already learned to fight the battles of
Scotland with miniature armies of pebbles and shells.  On one side was
an army of Highlanders, the chief men of each clan proudly dressed in
their distinctive tartans.  They were tall, vigorous, hardy men, all
proud of their ancestry, each capable of deeds of individual daring and
courage, but all loyal to their chiefs and to their temporary leader,
{115} Prince Charles Edward Stuart.  They were not only well dressed
but well armed, each man having a broadsword, target, dirk, and fusee,
or flintlock gun, and perhaps a steel pistol.  These were the gentlemen
of the Highlands.  Contrasting strangely with them and forming the
larger part of the army was the rear guard, a motley crowd, bearing
every appearance of extreme poverty.  They were rough, uncouth,
half-naked men of savage aspect, armed with whatever weapon could be
most easily obtained.  Some had pole-axes; some carried scythes,
securely fastened to the ends of poles; a few had old guns or swords;
while many had only dirks and bludgeons.  But all had the fighting
spirit and a keen desire for plunder.  To complete this curious but
formidable array, there was an old iron cannon, dragged along by a
string of Highland ponies.  This constituted the entire artillery of
the army and it could only be used for firing signals, yet the leaders
allowed it to be retained because of the belief on the part of the men
in the ranks that it would in some miraculous way contribute to their
expected victory.

On the English side a complete army of infantry, cavalry, and
artillery, well equipped and disciplined, confronted the Highland
hordes.  As they wheeled into line the fixed bayonets of the infantry
glistened in the sun like 'successive hedges of steel.'  These, with
the trains of artillery and troop after troop of well-equipped
dragoons, presented a formidable appearance.  But they struck no terror
into the hearts of the wild 'petticoat-men.'  With terrific yells the
forces of the rebellious Scotchmen rushed into battle.  Discipline and
order gave way before the impact of savage zeal, and panic {116} seized
the English army.  The result was what the child Scott always contrived
to accomplish in his mimic battles of pebbles,--the complete victory of
the Scots and the utter rout of their enemy.  There is now little to be
seen on the battle-field.  The old thorn tree, which was once the
central landmark, has almost disappeared.  The fertile fields, once
trampled by hostile armies, have given way to railroad tracks and
unsightly collieries.  Colonel Gardiner's house, however, where that
hero died after receiving a mortal wound upon the battle-field, still
remains standing, and in front, at the end of a fine avenue of trees,
is a plain but dignified monument to his memory.

The principal incident of the battle, as told in 'Waverley,' is based
upon a true story, which Scott heard from Alexander Stewart of
Invernahyle, on one of his early visits to the Highlands.  When the
Highlanders in 1745 attacked the army of Sir John Cope at Prestonpans,
Stewart was one of the leaders in charge.  Noticing an officer of the
English army standing alone, sword in hand, too proud to fly with the
others, he called on him to surrender.  The officer answered by a
thrust of his sword which Stewart received in his target, breaking the
blade.  A huge Highlander rushed up to the defenceless man with lifted
battle-axe, and in another moment would have killed his victim but for
the chivalrous interference of Stewart, who protected him from injury,
took care of his personal property, and finally secured his release on
parole.  This officer was a Scotch gentleman, serving in the King's
army, whose name was Colonel Whitefoord.  Stewart later paid him a
visit at his home in Ayrshire.  After the battle of Culloden had put an
end to the hopes of Prince Charles and his loyal Scottish {117}
friends, when those who had supported the rebellion were in grave
danger of death and the confiscation of their property, Colonel
Whitefoord took occasion to repay the debt to Mr. Stewart.  He called
in person on the Duke of Cumberland to plead for his friend's life, or
at least for the protection of his family and property.  On receiving a
positive refusal, he took his commission from his pocket, and laying it
on the table before the Duke, with great emotion begged leave to retire
from the service of a king who did not know how to be merciful to a
vanquished enemy.  The Duke was deeply affected and granted the desired
protection.  It was none too soon, for the troops were even then
beginning to plunder the country in the immediate vicinity of
Invernahyle's home.  That unfortunate gentleman had lain for many days
concealed in a cave, his food being brought by one of his daughters, a
child so young that she was not suspected by the soldiers.

The rescue of Colonel Talbot by Waverley and the subsequent friendly
assistance of that officer, upon which so much of the plot of the novel
depends, was founded upon this incident, which the old soldier related
to Walter Scott, a boy of fifteen.  It will be remembered that Scott's
first Highland visit took place in 1786, so that Stewart, who was 'out'
in the rebellion of 1715, must have been a very old man when he told
the story.  The lad, who no doubt listened eagerly, absorbing every
detail into his extraordinary memory, did not use the tale until nearly
a quarter of a century later.

An example of Scott's remarkable way of remembering and reproducing the
little details of the stories he heard is the use he made of Stewart's
experience in {118} hiding in a cave.  The Baron of Bradwardine is
supposed to have concealed himself in similar manner and to have had
important assistance from 'Davie Gellatley,' the Baron's 'natural' or
fool, who was 'no sae silly as folk tak him for.'  Colonel Stewart, a
grandson of Stewart of Invernahyle, in his book on the Highlands,
points out that while some gentlemen 'who had been out' in the
rebellion were obliged to conceal themselves in the woods near his
grandfather's house, they were supplied with food and other necessaries
by one of these poor, half-witted creatures, who showed an
extraordinary sagacity as well as fidelity in protecting the friends of
his patron.

'Davie Gellatley' was a type common enough, especially in the country
districts of Scotland, a century ago.  These rustic fools were usually
treated with kindness, the good people feeling a sense of duty to help
those to whom Providence had denied their full share of mental power.
They frequently possessed a certain sagacity or cunning, combined with
sly humour, which enabled them at times to make quick and unexpected
answers, causing much amusement and wonder.  Such a man was Daft Jock
Gray, who lived on a farm in Ettrick and was well known to all the
Border people.  He was a frequent visitor at Ashestiel, where he
entertained the family with his wild snatches of songs and ballads and
his eccentric performances.  Jock was once travelling with a man of his
own type, Jamie Renwick.  When night came, they lodged in a convenient
barn.  Jock could not sleep and got up and walked about singing his
wild and incoherent songs.  This so irritated Jamie that he shouted,
'Come to your bed, ye skirlin' deevil!  I canna get a wink o' sleep for
ye; I daur say the folk will think us daft!  Od, if ye {119} dinna come
and lie down this instant, I'll rise and _bring ye to your senses_ wi'
my rung!'  'Faith,' says Jock, 'if ye do that, it will be mair than ony
ither body has ever been able to do.'[1]

The visit of Waverley to the cave of Donald Bean Lean was based upon
another incident, told to Scott on a later excursion to the Highlands
in 1793, when he stopped for a time at Tullibody, the residence of Mr.
Abercrombie, the grandfather of his intimate friend and companion,
George Abercrombie.  The old gentleman related how he had been
compelled to make a visit to the wild retreats of Rob Roy, where he was
entertained with great courtesy by that Highland chief in a cave very
much like that described in Waverley.  He was treated to a dinner of
'collops' or steaks, cut from his own cattle, which he recognized
hanging by the heels in the cavern.  He found it necessary to arrange
for the payment of blackmail to the cateran, which insured the
protection of his herds against not only Rob Roy himself, but all other
freebooters.

We found just such a cave on the east shore of Loch Lomond in the heart
of the Rob Roy country.  It is reached by rowing from Inversnaid about
a mile up the lake, and clambering over some rough rocks to the
opening.  It is known as Rob Roy's Cave and gave an excellent idea of
the place where Waverley was entertained by Donald Bean Lean and the
good-natured Highland girl, his daughter, who thought nothing of
walking four miles to 'borrow' enough eggs for his breakfast.  From the
rocks we enjoyed a superb view of Loch Lomond, {120} strongly
suggesting the Highland loch of 'Waverley,' 'surrounded by heathy and
savage mountains, on the crests of which the morning mist was still
sleeping.'  I was fortunate enough to get a good photograph of these
mists as they rose above the summit of Ben Vorlich on the opposite side
of the lake.

On this same excursion to the Highlands, Scott learned from another old
gentleman something of the history of Doune Castle, the ruins of which
now stand on the banks of the Ardoch, a tributary of the Tieth, some
ten miles or more north of Stirling.  We found the most beautiful view
from the bridge on the main road, crossing the Tieth.  The ruins show
that the castle was once of great extent.  It was built by Murdoch,
Duke of Albany, while governor of Scotland in the exile of James I.
When James returned in 1423, he took vengeance upon the unfaithful
guardian of his kingdom and beheaded Murdoch on the Heading Hill of
Stirling Castle.  The Scottish monarchs, or several of them, utilized
the castle as a dower-house for their queen consorts.  James II in 1451
bestowed it upon his queen, Mary of Gueldres; James III gave it to his
consort, Margaret of Denmark, in 1471; and James IV presented it to
Queen Margaret in 1503, making it one of his royal residences.  In the
year 1745 it came into the possession of Charles Edward, the Young
Pretender, who used it as a prison.  Scott is quite consistent with the
facts of history, therefore, when he causes Waverley to be detained
there on his way to Holyrood Palace.

[Illustration: DOUNE CASTLE FROM THE TEITH]

One other incident of this same Highland excursion must be mentioned.
It was then that Scott first visited the home of his friend, Buchanan,
the Laird of Cambusmore.  {121} Francis Buchanan, the great uncle of
the young laird, was carried away from this house to Carlisle, where he
was hanged on a charge of treason, this estate and another at Strathyre
being confiscated.  The property was later restored to the family, by
whom it is still owned.  The account of the execution of Fergus MacIvor
at Carlisle Castle was based upon this story, as told to Scott on the
porch of Cambusmore by his friend Buchanan.

Another spot in the Highlands of which Scott was very fond is the
little waterfall of Lediard.  We found the place because we were
looking for it, but the casual tourist would not be likely to see it.
It is reached from the road leading along the north shore of Loch Ard,
west of Aberfoyle and south of the Trossachs.  I found it necessary to
walk through a lane to a near-by farmhouse and then go up a slight
incline by a narrow winding path along a little brook until I came to a
thick wood.  There the rush of the waters could be plainly heard, and
guided by the sound, I was able after some search to find a rock where
I could place my camera for a view of the little cascade.  It is not
remarkable either for the height of the fall or for the volume of
water, but its charm comes from the dense foliage through which the
sunlight dances and sparkles, from the rough rocks clothed in ferns and
moss and wild flowers, except where the fantastic play of the streamlet
keeps them bare, and from the deep pool at the bottom filled to the
brim with pure, cold water.

This exquisite scene was chosen by Scott for one of his most romantic
pictures--the meeting of Waverley and Flora MacIvor, when the graceful
and beautiful daughter of the Highlands, blending her voice with the
music of the waterfall and the accompaniment of the harp, {122} sang
the Celtic verses so full of devotion to her native land and the cause
of the Prince, calling to the clans:--

  For honour, for freedom, for vengeance awake!

It is interesting to compare the character of Flora MacIvor and her
devotion to the fortunes of the exiled Stuarts with that of the famous
Flora MacDonald.  In the circumstances of their environment there is no
similarity between the two heroines, one of fiction and the other of
real life.  Flora MacDonald was born in the Island of South Uist and
brought in infancy to the neighbouring island of Skye.  Except for a
brief visit to Argyleshire, she never left those islands until after
the stirring events which made her famous.  She did not meet the Prince
until she engaged in her efforts to rescue him, after the battle of
Culloden.

In personal characteristics there is a very striking resemblance.
Flora MacDonald, though reared in the solitude of a remote island,
acquired an excellent education, to which she added the natural love of
poetry and romance peculiar to her people.  'There was nothing
unfeminine, either in her form or in her manners, to detract from the
charm of her great natural vivacity, or give a tone of hardness to her
strong good sense, calm judgment, and power of decision.  Her voice was
sweet and low; the harsher accents of the Scottish tongue were not to
be detected in her discourse.'[2]  She always manifested a perfect
modesty and propriety of behaviour coupled with a noble simplicity of
character which led her to regard with surprise the many tributes of
praise which her conduct merited.  These were the characteristics {123}
with which Scott invested his heroine.  Flora MacDonald's family
belonged to the clan of MacDonald of Clanronald, and one of Scott's
most valued friends, Colonel Ronaldson MacDonnel of Glengarry,[3] was a
descendant of the same clan.  He was an eccentric character who tried
to play the chieftain and thought, felt, and acted about as he might
have done a hundred years earlier, but could not do in his own time
without provoking censure and ridicule.  He even attempted to have
himself recognized as the chief of the whole clan of Clanronald, though
his own ancestors had been unable to establish the right.  Scott
regarded him as a treasure, 'full of information as to the history of
his own clan, and the manners and customs of the Highlanders in
general.'  In his effort to make Fergus MacIvor, Vich Ian Vohr, a
typical leader of one of the Highland clans, Scott no doubt received
considerable help from Glengarry, whose castle of Invergarry was on
Loch Oich, in Inverness, in the very heart of the country of the
rebellious chiefs and only a few miles distant from Culloden, the scene
of their final defeat.

Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, Esq., the pompous, tiresome, but laughable
bore, with his endless quotations in Latin, the honourable soldier, the
excellent father and the lovable friend, is one of Scott's most
interesting characters.  Though an original creation, there was more
than one man of his time who might have sat for the portrait of the
brave, honourable, kind-hearted gentleman who spoke Latin as fluently
as his native Scotch dialect and who loved his 'Livy' so much that
{124} after escaping from some soldiers who had arrested him, he risked
recapture in order to return and secure the beloved volume which he had
forgotten in his haste.  The absurd old Baron is represented as
insisting upon his right and duty, under a charter of Robert Bruce, by
which his lands were held, to pull off the boots of the King.  Two
difficulties present themselves:--first that Prince Charles is not the
King, and second that he does not wear boots.  But it is decided that
Charles represents the King, and that a service performed to him is
done for the King; also that brogues are a legitimate substitute for
boots.  So with the good-natured consent of the Prince, the ridiculous
ceremony takes place with due solemnity.  This incident, fantastic as
it seems, is only an example of the way in which certain Scottish
tenures were held.  Mrs. Hughes, of Uffington, says that Scott told her
of a similar tenure under which the Howistons of Braehead held their
lands, namely, by presenting a basin and ewer with water and a towel
for the King to wash whenever he came to Holyrood.

The Laird of Balmawhapple was a purely fictitious character, but the
method of his death at Prestonpans was one of the true stories told to
Scott as a child when he first visited the battle-field.  A brave and
honourable gentleman, one of the few cavalrymen who followed Prince
Charles, was pursuing some fugitive dragoons.  Suddenly discovering
that they were followed only by one man and his two servants, the
soldiers turned and cut down the courageous Highlander.

[Illustration: ULLSWATER (WAVERLEY'S RETREAT AFTER THE DEFEAT OF THE
CHEVALIER)]

As in many of Scott's novels, the hero is less attractive than some of
the subordinate characters.  The author himself characterized Edward
Waverley, somewhat too {125} severely, as a 'sneaking piece of
imbecility' and added, 'if he had married Flora, she would have set him
up upon the chimneypiece, as Count Borowlaski's wife used to do with
him.'  Yet in the third chapter, where the subject is Waverley's
education, he is really giving a bit of autobiography.  He refers to
Edward's power of imagination and love of literature and mentions the
pleasure which his uncle's large library afforded him.  'He had read
and stored, in a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curious though
ill-arranged and miscellaneous information.  In English literature he
was master of Shakespeare and Milton, of our earlier dramatic authors,
of many picturesque and interesting passages from our old historical
chronicles, and was particularly well acquainted with Spenser, Drayton,
and other poets, who have exercised themselves on romantic fiction.'

'Waverley' will always be remembered for its graphic picture of the
Scottish Highlands in the period just before they ceased to have a
distinctive individual existence, and for the portrait of the Young
Pretender, who in 'the affair of 1745' achieved such a remarkable hold
upon the affections of the Scottish people.  Scott pictures the young
Prince in the most brilliant period of his career, and if he does so in
colours more attractive than his character deserves, it must be
remembered that these were the traits which won the love of his
followers and by which alone that affection can be explained.  The
excesses of later years had not yet marred the fine promise of youth,
which, under happier circumstances, might have developed into a higher
type of manhood.

[1] From _Illustrations of the Author of Waverley_, by Robert Chambers.

[2] From a Memoir, by Mrs. Thomson, 1846.

[3] It was to this good friend that Scott was indebted for the gift of
his famous staghound Maida.

{126}

CHAPTER IX

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}

CHAPTER X

THE ANTIQUARY

Washington Irving's story of a week spent with Scott at Abbotsford
always leaves in my mind an indescribable thrill of pleasure.  Partly
because Irving really did have a delightful experience such as falls to
the lot of few men and partly because he knew, better than others, how
to transfer his own pleasurable emotions to the minds of other people,
it is certain that, to my mind at least, there is no single sketch in
all the Scott literature, not even in Lockhart's brilliant work, that
throws a stronger light upon the Great Wizard's character or
illuminates a more attractive picture.

It was a happy week for the American visitor, and I imagine it
contained no happier moment than when the younger author nestled by the
side of his warm-hearted friend, under the lee of a sheltering bank
during a shower, the plaid of the Scotchman closely wrapped around them
both, while the enchanting flow of anecdote, reminiscence, and
whimsical suggestion went merrily on in spite of the Scottish mist.  It
was in the course of their walk on this particular morning that Scott
stopped at the cottage of a labourer on his estate to examine some
tongs that had been dug up in the Roman camp near by.  'As he stood
regarding the relic,' says Irving, 'turning it round and round, and
making comments on it, half grave, half comic, with the cottage group
around him, all joining occasionally in the {146} colloquy, the
inimitable character of Monkbarns was again brought to mind and I
seemed to see before me that prince of antiquarians and humourists,
holding forth to his unlearned and unbelieving neighbours.'  There was
something peculiarly delightful about Scott's antiquarianism.  He
seemed to feel that those who were without his own knowledge of values
were inclined to smile at his enthusiasm, and whenever he talked on his
favourite subject there was an undercurrent of sly humour which gave an
exquisite flavour to his conversation.  The discovery of anything
ancient, whether a ruined castle, a broadsword or sporran from the
Highlands, or a scrap of some old ballad, gave him the greatest
pleasure, and nothing afforded his friends more enjoyment than to be
able to present him with such relics and curiosities as they knew he
would appreciate.  A casual walk through the Entrance Hall and Armory
of Abbotsford, where hundreds of helmets, suits of armour, swords,
guns, pistols, and curiosities of infinite variety are displayed, is
enough to suggest to any one that Sir Walter himself was the real
Jonathan Oldbuck of 'The Antiquary.'  A glance at the Library, with its
collection of twenty thousand rare old volumes, is enough to prove that
Scott, like Monkbarns, was not only an antiquary but a bibliophile as
well.  Who but a genuine enthusiast could have written that chapter in
which the worthy Mr. Oldbuck exhibits the treasures of his sanctum
sanctorum to Mr. Lovel?  'These little Elzevirs are the memoranda and
trophies of many a walk by night and morning through the Cowgate, the
Canongate, the Bow, St. Mary's Wynd,--wherever, in fine, there were to
be found brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in things
{147} rare and curious.  How often have I stood haggling on a half
penny, lest, by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price,
he should be led to suspect the value I set upon the article!--how have
I trembled, lest some passing stranger should chop in between me and
the prize, and regarded each poor student of divinity that stopped to
turn over the books at the stall as a rival amateur, or prowling
bookseller in disguise!--And, then, Mr. Lovel, the sly satisfaction
with which one pays the consideration, and pockets the article,
affecting a cold indifference, while the hand is trembling with
pleasure!'

It was during the visit to Prestonpans, previously mentioned, that
Scott, a child of six, first made the acquaintance of George Constable,
an old friend of his father's, who resided near Dundee.  He must have
learned from this gentleman something which started in him the
antiquarian instincts, for, as he himself has remarked, 'children
derive impulses of a powerful and important kind in hearing things
which they cannot entirely comprehend.'  Certainly he put enough of Mr.
Constable into the description of Jonathan Oldbuck to cause various
friends to recognize him; and as Constable's intimacy with Scott's
father was well known, this gave colour to the suspicion that Scott
himself was the unknown author of 'The Antiquary.'  But even a more
faithful delineation of George Constable than the book contains would
have failed to bring out the real charm of the delightful Oldbuck.  It
is the Scott part of his nature that we really enjoy.

Next to the Antiquary himself, old Edie Ochiltree is the character who
is chiefly responsible for the pleasant {148} flavour of this book.  He
is a mendicant whom it is a real pleasure to meet.  His amiable nature,
his sly good humour, and his genuine friendliness win your affection in
the beginning and hold it to the very end.  He is a picture drawn from
real life, though it is probable that old Andrew Gemmels, his
prototype, did not possess the many endearing qualities with which the
novelist invested Edie.

The 'blue gowns' of the south of Scotland were a class of licensed
beggars, known as the 'King's Bedesmen.'  The number of them was
supposed to be the same as the years of the King's life, so it was
necessary to initiate a new member of the aristocracy of paupers every
year.  At every royal birthday each bedesman received a new light-blue
cloak or gown and a pewter badge, together with a purse containing as
many pennies as the years of the King's life.  Their sole duty was to
pray for long life for the King, which, considering that the older the
sovereign the larger the purse, they might very cheerfully do.  In
return, all laws against beggars were suspended in their favour, and
the 'blue gowns' went about from house to house, fairly assured of food
and lodging and seemingly free from care.

The service of the 'blue gown' to the community is best set forth in
the words of Edie Ochiltree, who apparently considered himself a public
benefactor:--

And then what wad a' the country about do for want o' auld Edie
Ochiltree, that brings news and country cracks frae ae farm-steading to
anither and gingerbread to the lasses, and helps the lads to mend their
fiddles and the gudewives to clout their pans, and plaits rush-swords
and grenadier caps for the weans and busks the lairds' flees, and has
skill o' {149} cow-ills and horse-ills, and kens mair auld sangs and
tales than a' the barony besides, and gars ilka body laugh whereever he
comes?  Troth, my leddy, I canna lay down my vocation; it would be a
public loss.

Andrew Gemmels was well known throughout the Border country of Scotland
for more than half a century as a professional beggar or 'gaberlunzie.'
He had been a soldier in his youth and maintained his erect military
carriage even in old age.  He was very tall and carried a walking-stick
almost as high as himself.  His features were strongly intellectual,
but marked by a certain fierceness and austerity of expression, the
result of his long and peculiar contact with all sorts of hard
experiences.  Scott, who had often met him, comments upon his
remarkable gracefulness.  With his striking attitudes he would have
made a fine model for an artist.  One of his chief assets was an
unusual power of sarcasm, coupled with a keen wit, the fear of which
often gained for him favours which might otherwise have been denied.
He was full of reminiscences of the wars and of adventures in foreign
lands, which he told in a droll fashion, coupled with a shrewd wit,
that always made him an entertaining visitor.  He wandered about the
country at pleasure, demanding entertainment as a right, which was
accorded usually without question.  His preference as to sleeping
quarters was the stable or some outbuilding where cattle were kept.  He
never burdened anybody, usually appearing at the same place only once
or twice a year.  He always had money--frequently more than those of
whom he begged.  When a certain parsimonious gentleman expressed regret
that he had no silver in his pocket or he would have given him
sixpence, Andrew promptly {150} replied, 'I can give you change for a
note, laird.'  In later years he travelled about on his own horse, a
very good one, and carried a gold watch.  He died at the age of a
hundred and six years, leaving enough wealth to enrich a nephew, who
became a considerable landholder.  His tombstone in Roxburgh
Churchyard, near Kelso, contains a quaint carved figure of the
mendicant, above which are the words, 'Behold the end o' it.'  This
refers to an incident related by a writer in the 'Edinburgh Magazine'
in 1817, the year after the publication of the novel:--

Many curious anecdotes of Andrew's sarcastic wit and eccentric manners
are current in the Borders.  I shall for the present content myself
with one specimen, illustrative of Andrew's resemblance to his
celebrated representative.  The following is given as commonly related
with much good humour by the late Mr. Dodds, of the War-Office, the
person to whom it chiefly refers: Andrew happened to be present at a
fair or market somewhere in Teviotdale (St. Boswell's if I mistake not)
where Dodds, at that time a non-commissioned officer in His Majesty's
service, happened also to be with a military party recruiting.  It was
some time during the American War, when they were eagerly beating up
for fresh men--to teach passive obedience to the obdurate and
ill-mannered Columbians; and it was then the practice for recruiting
sergeants, after parading for a due space with all the warlike
pageantry of drums, trumpets, 'glancing blades, and gay cockades,' to
declaim in heroic strains the delights of the soldier's life, of glory,
patriotism, plunder, the prospect of promotion for the bold and the
young, and His Majesty's munificent pension for the old and the
wounded, etc., etc.  Dodds, who was a man of much natural talent, and
whose abilities afterwards raised him to an honourable rank and
independent fortune, had made one of his most brilliant speeches on
this occasion.  A crowd of ardent and anxious {151} rustics were
standing round, gaping with admiration at the imposing mien, and
kindling at the heroic eloquence, of the manly soldier, whom many of
them had known a few years before as a rude tailor boy; and the
sergeant himself, already leading in idea a score of new recruits, had
just concluded, in a strain of more than usual elevation, his oration
in praise of the military profession, when Gemmels, who, in tattered
guise, was standing close behind him, reared aloft his _meal-pocks_ on
the end of his kent or pike-staff, and exclaimed, with a tone and
aspect of the most profound derision, 'Behold the end o' it!'  The
contrast was irresistible--the beau-ideal of Sergeant Dodds, and the
ragged reality of Andrew Gemmels, were sufficiently striking; and the
former, with his red-coat followers, beat a retreat in some confusion,
amidst the loud and universal laughter of the surrounding multitude.

The character of the old 'gaberlunzie,' as revealed in this anecdote,
was so faithfully transferred by the novelist to Edie Ochiltree, that
in spite of some embellishments he was immediately recognized.

To study the scenery of 'The Antiquary,' we went to Arbroath, a town on
the east coast of Scotland, which traces its beginnings back to the
twelfth century.  This is the original of Fairport, and we found all of
the scenery of the novel in the immediate neighbourhood.  In the midst
of a shower which threatened destruction to all photographic attempts,
we made our first visit to the ruins of the Abbey of St. Thomas, the
original of St. Ruth's.  It was a disappointment to find this ruin in
the heart of the city, instead of a 'wild, sequestered spot,' where a
'pure and profound lake' discharged itself into a 'huddling and
tumultuous brook.'  But the Wizard always reserved the right to
transplant his ruined castles and abbeys to suit his taste, and he was
quite justified {152} in transferring St. Ruth's to more romantic
surroundings, particularly as there is a deep ravine known as Seaton
Den, on the coast north of Arbroath, which answers every requirement.

Thanks to the British Government, which took charge of the abbey in
1815, there is still left enough of the walls to make a picturesque
ruin of considerable extent.  For two centuries previously the people
of the village freely used the stones for building purposes.  It is
necessary to go back six centuries to find the church in its full
perfection, when it was one of the richest and most sumptuously
furnished establishments in Scotland.  In the year 1320, a parliament
was held in the abbey by King Robert the Bruce, and a letter, regarded
as one of the most remarkable documents in early British history, was
sent to the Pope, appealing for a recognition of Scottish independence.

The original abbey was founded in the year 1178 by William the Lion, a
Scottish monarch whose name is associated with nearly all of the
principal buildings which form the scenes of 'The Antiquary.'  It was
dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, the famous Thomas à Becket, whom
William had met at the court of the English King, Henry II, when a
young man.  From ancient documents it would seem that the monastery was
maintained in a state of great opulence and that it was open to all
comers, rich and poor alike.

The predominating feature of the ruin, as it stands to-day, is the
south wall, containing what the people of Arbroath call the 'Roond O,'
a window twelve feet in diameter, immediately over the altar of St.
Catharine.  Beneath this opening is a gallery with seven arches of
{153} carved stone, suggesting the scene in 'The Antiquary' where the
impostor, Dousterswivel, and Sir Arthur Wardour are digging for
treasure in the ruins, while Lovel and Edie Ochiltree watch the
performance from just such a place of concealment.  We could almost
smell the fumes of the 'suffumigation' and hear the violent sneezes of
old Edie and the terrified ejaculation of Dousterswivel, 'Alle guten
Geistern, loben den Herrn!'

Monkbarns, the home of Jonathan Oldbuck, is closely associated with the
history of the abbey.  When the fame of that establishment had spread
throughout Scotland and England, there were many pilgrimages to the
shrine of St. Thomas à Becket.  Many of these pilgrims arrived sick and
exhausted.  To provide for them, a rude hospital was ordered built,
about two miles away from the abbey, on lands now occupied by a
handsome building known as Hospitalfield.  In Scott's day this house
was very much less pretentious and might well have corresponded with
his description of an 'irregular and old-fashioned building, some part
of which had belonged to a grange, or solitary farmhouse, inhabited by
the bailiff, or steward of the monastery, when the place was in
possession of the monks.  It was here that the community stored up the
grain which they received as ground-rent from their vassals; ... and
hence, as the present proprietor loved to tell, came the name of
Monkbarns.'  Readers of 'The Antiquary' will remember the altercation
between Oldbuck and his sister when the latter was requested to make a
bed ready for Mr. Lovel.  '"A bed?  The Lord preserve us!" ejaculated
Grizel.  "Why, what's the matter now?  Are there not beds and rooms
enough in the house?  Was it not an ancient _hospitium_ {154} in which,
I am warranted to say, beds were nightly made down for a score of
pilgrims?"'

The property has a beautiful situation and is otherwise so desirable
that it passed from the monks into private hands centuries ago.  It
finally came into the possession of Patrick Allan-Fraser, who made such
extensive additions that whatever is left of the original building
owned by the monks is completely covered up.  This public-spirited
gentleman, who died in 1890, left the estate in trust for the benefit
and encouragement of young men who desired to study painting,
sculpture, wood-carving, architecture, or engraving, and the house is
now occupied by teachers and students.  It has an art gallery
containing some valuable paintings, sculptures, and wood-carvings, and
a library of old documents and rare folios that would delight the soul
of Jonathan Oldbuck himself.

It was the most natural thing in the world for us, after visiting
Monkbarns, to seek the residence of his Tory friend and fellow
antiquarian, Sir Arthur Wardour, although we did not find it within
easy walking distance as might have been inferred.  Ethie Castle has
been generally fixed upon by local writers as the original of
Knockwinnock.  The present building is one of the country-seats of the
Earl of Northesk.  It is a red-stone structure of considerable
antiquity and irregular design, which nevertheless made a pleasing
picture when seen at a distance of several hundred yards from the
front.  A tiny brook crossed by a wooden bridge and flanked by huge
rhododendrons in full bloom made a charming foreground.  Beyond was a
sloping field of tall grass, which had been mown only enough to make a
broad path in {155} the midst of which were countless thousands of
dainty pink-and-white daisies.  On either side were ample groves of
well-foliaged trees, making a vista in which the old red mansion
appeared to excellent advantage.

Ethie Castle was part of the endowment which William the Lion granted