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Chronicles of the Canongate, 1st Series

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #1828 · 517,715 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Chronicles of the Canongate, 1st Series

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: July 1, 1999 [eBook #1828]
                Most recently updated: August 31, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1828

Credits: Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE, 1ST SERIES ***




Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.

By Sir Walter Scott, Bart.



Transcriber’s Note: Footnotes and references to the notes at the end of
the printed book have been inserted in the etext in square brackets
(“[]”) close to the place where they were indicated by a suffix in the
original text. The notes at the end are now numbered instead of using
pages to identify them as was done in the printed text.

Text in italics has been written in capital letters.

The Pound Sterling symbol has been written as “L”.



CONTENTS.

  Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate.
  Appendix to Introduction--The Theatrical Fund Dinner.
  Introductory--Mr. Chrystal Croftangry.
  The Highland Widow.
  The Two Drovers.
  Notes.




INTRODUCTION TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.

The preceding volume of this Collection concluded the last of the pieces
originally published under the NOMINIS UMBRA of The Author of Waverley;
and the circumstances which rendered it impossible for the writer to
continue longer in the possession of his incognito were communicated
in 1827, in the Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the
Canongate, consisting (besides a biographical sketch of the imaginary
chronicler) of three tales, entitled “The Highland Widow,” “The Two
Drovers,” and “The Surgeon’s Daughter.” In the present volume the two
first named of these pieces are included, together with three detached
stories which appeared the year after, in the elegant compilation called
“The Keepsake.” “The Surgeon’s Daughter” it is thought better to defer
until a succeeding volume, than to

  “Begin, and break off in the middle.”

I have, perhaps, said enough on former occasions of the misfortunes
which led to the dropping of that mask under which I had, for a long
series of years, enjoyed so large a portion of public favour. Through
the success of those literary efforts, I had been enabled to indulge
most of the tastes which a retired person of my station might be
supposed to entertain. In the pen of this nameless romancer, I seemed
to possess something like the secret fountain of coined gold and pearls
vouchsafed to the traveller of the Eastern Tale; and no doubt believed
that I might venture, without silly imprudence, to extend my personal
expenditure considerably beyond what I should have thought of, had my
means been limited to the competence which I derived from inheritance,
with the moderate income of a professional situation. I bought, and
built, and planted, and was considered by myself, as by the rest of the
world, in the safe possession of an easy fortune. My riches, however,
like the other riches of this world, were liable to accidents, under
which they were ultimately destined to make unto themselves wings, and
fly away. The year 1825, so disastrous to many branches of industry and
commerce, did not spare the market of literature; and the sudden
ruin that fell on so many of the booksellers could scarcely have been
expected to leave unscathed one whose career had of necessity connected
him deeply and extensively with the pecuniary transactions of that
profession. In a word, almost without one note of premonition, I found
myself involved in the sweeping catastrophe of the unhappy time,
and called on to meet the demands of creditors upon commercial
establishments with which my fortunes had long been bound up, to the
extent of no less a sum than one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

The author having, however rashly, committed his pledges thus largely
to the hazards of trading companies, it behoved him, of course, to
abide the consequences of his conduct, and, with whatever feelings, he
surrendered on the instant every shred of property which he had been
accustomed to call his own. It became vested in the hands of gentlemen
whose integrity, prudence, and intelligence were combined with all
possible liberality and kindness of disposition, and who readily
afforded every assistance towards the execution of plans, in the
success of which the author contemplated the possibility of his ultimate
extrication, and which were of such a nature that, had assistance of
this sort been withheld, he could have had little prospect of carrying
them into effect. Among other resources which occurred was the project
of that complete and corrected edition of his Novels and Romances (whose
real parentage had of necessity been disclosed at the moment of
the commercial convulsions alluded to), which has now advanced with
unprecedented favour nearly to its close; but as he purposed also to
continue, for the behoof of those to whom he was indebted, the exercise
of his pen in the same path of literature, so long as the taste of his
countrymen should seem to approve of his efforts, it appeared to him
that it would have been an idle piece of affectation to attempt getting
up a new incognito, after his original visor had been thus dashed from
his brow. Hence the personal narrative prefixed to the first work of
fiction which he put forth after the paternity of the “Waverley Novels”
 had come to be publicly ascertained; and though many of the particulars
originally avowed in that Notice have been unavoidably adverted to in
the Prefaces and Notes to some of the preceding volumes of the present
collection, it is now reprinted as it stood at the time, because some
interest is generally attached to a coin or medal struck on a special
occasion, as expressing, perhaps, more faithfully than the same artist
could have afterwards conveyed, the feelings of the moment that gave
it birth. The Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the
Canongate ran, then, in these words:--




INTRODUCTION.

All who are acquainted with the early history of the Italian stage are
aware that Arlecchino is not, in his original conception, a mere worker
of marvels with his wooden sword, a jumper in and out of windows, as
upon our theatre, but, as his party-coloured jacket implies, a buffoon
or clown, whose mouth, far from being eternally closed, as amongst us,
is filled, like that of Touchstone, with quips, and cranks, and witty
devices, very often delivered extempore. It is not easy to trace how he
became possessed of his black vizard, which was anciently made in
the resemblance of the face of a cat; but it seems that the mask was
essential to the performance of the character, as will appear from the
following theatrical anecdote:--

An actor on the Italian stage permitted at the Foire du St. Germain, in
Paris, was renowned for the wild, venturous, and extravagant wit, the
brilliant sallies and fortunate repartees, with which he prodigally
seasoned the character of the party-coloured jester. Some critics,
whose good-will towards a favourite performer was stronger than their
judgment, took occasion to remonstrate with the successful actor on
the subject of the grotesque vizard. They went wilily to their purpose,
observing that his classical and Attic wit, his delicate vein of humour,
his happy turn for dialogue, were rendered burlesque and ludicrous by
this unmeaning and bizarre disguise, and that those attributes would
become far more impressive if aided by the spirit of his eye and the
expression of his natural features. The actor’s vanity was easily so
far engaged as to induce him to make the experiment. He played Harlequin
barefaced, but was considered on all hands as having made a total
failure. He had lost the audacity which a sense of incognito bestowed,
and with it all the reckless play of raillery which gave vivacity to
his original acting. He cursed his advisers, and resumed his grotesque
vizard, but, it is said, without ever being able to regain the careless
and successful levity which the consciousness of the disguise had
formerly bestowed.

Perhaps the Author of Waverley is now about to incur a risk of the same
kind, and endanger his popularity by having laid aside his incognito. It
is certainly not a voluntary experiment, like that of Harlequin; for
it was my original intention never to have avowed these works during my
lifetime, and the original manuscripts were carefully preserved (though
by the care of others rather than mine), with the purpose of supplying
the necessary evidence of the truth when the period of announcing
it should arrive. [These manuscripts are at present (August 1831)
advertised for public sale, which is an addition, though a small one,
to other annoyances.] But the affairs of my publishers having,
unfortunately, passed into a management different from their own, I had
no right any longer to rely upon secrecy in that quarter; and thus my
mask, like my Aunt Dinah’s in “Tristram Shandy,” having begun to wax a
little threadbare about the chin, it became time to lay it aside with
a good grace, unless I desired it should fall in pieces from my face,
which was now become likely.

Yet I had not the slightest intention of selecting the time and place in
which the disclosure was finally made; nor was there any concert betwixt
my learned and respected friend LORD MEADOWBANK and myself upon that
occasion. It was, as the reader is probably aware, upon the 23rd
February last, at a public meeting, called for establishing a
professional Theatrical Fund in Edinburgh, that the communication took
place. Just before we sat down to table, Lord Meadowbank [One of the
Supreme Judges of Scotland, termed Lords of Council and Session.] asked
me privately whether I was still anxious to preserve my incognito on the
subject of what were called the Waverley Novels? I did not immediately
see the purpose of his lordship’s question, although I certainly might
have been led to infer it, and replied that the secret had now of
necessity become known to so many people that I was indifferent on the
subject. Lord Meadowbank was thus induced, while doing me the great
honour of proposing my health to the meeting, to say something on the
subject of these Novels so strongly connecting them with me as the
author, that by remaining silent I must have stood convicted, either of
the actual paternity, or of the still greater crime of being supposed
willing to receive indirectly praise to which I had no just title. I
thus found myself suddenly and unexpectedly placed in the confessional,
and had only time to recollect that I had been guided thither by a most
friendly hand, and could not, perhaps, find a better public opportunity
to lay down a disguise which began to resemble that of a detected
masquerader.

I had therefore the task of avowing myself, to the numerous and
respectable company assembled, as the sole and unaided author of these
Novels of Waverley, the paternity of which was likely at one time to
have formed a controversy of some celebrity, for the ingenuity with
which some instructors of the public gave their assurance on the subject
was extremely persevering. I now think it further necessary to say
that, while I take on myself all the merits and demerits attending these
compositions, I am bound to acknowledge with gratitude hints of subjects
and legends which I have received from various quarters, and have
occasionally used as a foundation of my fictitious compositions, or
woven up with them in the shape of episodes. I am bound, in particular,
to acknowledge the unremitting kindness of Mr. Joseph Train, supervisor
of excise at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry I have been indebted
for many curious traditions and points of antiquarian interest. It was
Mr. Train who brought to my recollection the history of Old Mortality,
although I myself had had a personal interview with that celebrated
wanderer so far back as about 1792, when I found him on his usual task.
He was then engaged in repairing the Gravestones of the Covenanters who
had died while imprisoned in the Castle of Dunnottar, to which many of
them were committed prisoners at the period of Argyle’s rising. Their
place of confinement is still called the Whigs’ Vault. Mr. Train,
however, procured for me far more extensive information concerning
this singular person, whose name was Patterson, than I had been able
to acquire during my own short conversation with him. [See, for
some further particulars, the notes to Old Mortality, in the present
collective edition.] He was (as I think I have somewhere already
stated) a native of the parish of Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire; and it
is believed that domestic affliction, as well as devotional feeling,
induced him to commence the wandering mode of life which he pursued
for a very long period. It is more than twenty years since Robert
Patterson’s death, which took place on the highroad near Lockerby, where
he was found exhausted and expiring. The white pony, the companion of
his pilgrimage, was standing by the side of its dying master the whole
furnishing a scene not unfitted for the pencil. These particulars I had
from Mr. Train.

Another debt, which I pay most willingly, I owe to an unknown
correspondent (a lady), [The late Mrs. Goldie.] who favoured me with the
history of the upright and high-principled female, whom, in the Heart
of Mid-Lothian, I have termed Jeanie Deans. The circumstance of her
refusing to save her sister’s life by an act of perjury, and undertaking
a pilgrimage to London to obtain her pardon, are both represented as
true by my fair and obliging correspondent; and they led me to consider
the possibility of rendering a fictitious personage interesting by mere
dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted by unpretending
good sense and temper, without any of the beauty, grace, talent,
accomplishment, and wit to which a heroine of romance is supposed to
have a prescriptive right. If the portrait was received with interest by
the public, I am conscious how much it was owing to the truth and force
of the original sketch, which I regret that I am unable to present to
the public, as it was written with much feeling and spirit.

Old and odd books, and a considerable collection of family legends,
formed another quarry, so ample that it was much more likely that the
strength of the labourer should be exhausted than that materials should
fail. I may mention, for example’s sake, that the terrible catastrophe
of the Bride of Lammermoor actually occurred in a Scottish family of
rank. The female relative, by whom the melancholy tale was communicated
to me many years since, was a near connection of the family in which
the event happened, and always told it with an appearance of melancholy
mystery which enhanced the interest. She had known in her youth the
brother who rode before the unhappy victim to the fatal altar, who,
though then a mere boy, and occupied almost entirely with the gaiety of
his own appearance in the bridal procession, could not but remark that
the hand of his sister was moist, and cold as that of a statue. It
is unnecessary further to withdraw the veil from this scene of family
distress, nor, although it occurred more than a hundred years since,
might it be altogether agreeable to the representatives of the families
concerned in the narrative. It may be proper to say that the events
alone are imitated; but I had neither the means nor intention of copying
the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned in the
real story. Indeed, I may here state generally that, although I have
deemed historical personages free subjects of delineation, I have never
on any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed
impossible that traits proper to persons, both living and dead, with
whom I have had intercourse in society, should not have risen to my
pen in such works as Waverley, and those which followed it. But I have
always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should still
seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though possessing some
resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own my attempts have not
in this last particular been uniformly successful. There are men whose
characters are so peculiarly marked, that the delineation of some
leading and principal feature inevitably places the whole person before
you in his individuality. Thus, the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in
the Antiquary, was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth,
to whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakespeare, and other
invaluable favours; but I thought I had so completely disguised the
likeness that his features could not be recognized by any one now alive.
I was mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired
should be considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned that a
highly-respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my
father, and an acute critic, [James Chalmers, Esq., Solicitor at Law,
London, who (died during the publication of the present edition of these
Novels. Aug. 1831.)] had said, upon the appearance of the work, that
he was now convinced who was the author of it, as he recognized in the
Antiquary of Monkbarns traces of the character of a very intimate friend
of my father’s family.

I may here also notice that the sort of exchange of gallantry which is
represented as taking place betwixt the Baron of Bradwardine and Colonel
Talbot, is a literal fact. The real circumstances of the anecdote, alike
honourable to Whig and Tory, are these:--

Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle--a name which I cannot write without
the warmest recollections of gratitude to the friend of my childhood,
who first introduced me to the Highlands, their traditions, and their
manners--had been engaged actively in the troubles of 1745. As he
charged at the battle of Preston with his clan, the Stewarts of Appin,
he saw an officer of the opposite army standing alone by a battery of
four cannon, of which he discharged three on the advancing Highlanders,
and then drew his sword. Invernahyle rushed on him, and required him to
surrender. “Never to rebels!” was the undaunted reply, accompanied with
a lunge, which the Highlander received on his target, but instead of
using his sword in cutting down his now defenceless antagonist, he
employed it in parrying the blow of a Lochaber axe aimed at the officer
by the Miller, one of his own followers, a grim-looking old Highlander,
whom I remember to have seen. Thus overpowered, Lieutenant-Colonel Allan
Whitefoord, a gentleman of rank and consequence, as well as a brave
officer, gave up his sword, and with it his purse and watch, which
Invernahyle accepted, to save them from his followers. After the affair
was over, Mr. Stewart sought out his prisoner, and they were introduced
to each other by the celebrated John Roy Stewart, who acquainted Colonel
Whitefoord with the quality of his captor, and made him aware of the
necessity of receiving back his property, which he was inclined to leave
in the hands into which it had fallen. So great became the confidence
established betwixt them, that Invernahyle obtained from the Chevalier
his prisoner’s freedom upon parole; and soon afterwards, having been
sent back to the Highlands to raise men, he visited Colonel Whitefoord
at his own house, and spent two happy days with him and his Whig
friends, without thinking on either side of the civil war which was then
raging.

When the battle of Culloden put an end to the hopes of Charles Edward,
Invernahyle, wounded and unable to move, was borne from the field by
the faithful zeal of his retainers. But as he had been a distinguished
Jacobite, his family and property were exposed to the system of
vindictive destruction too generally carried into execution through the
country of the insurgents. It was now Colonel Whitefoord’s turn to exert
himself, and he wearied all the authorities, civil and military, with
his solicitations for pardon to the saver of his life, or at least for
a protection for his wife and family. His applications were for a long
time unsuccessful. “I was found with the mark of the Beast upon me in
every list,” was Invernahyle’s expression. At length Colonel Whitefoord
applied to the Duke of Cumberland, and urged his suit with every
argument which he could think of, being still repulsed, he took his
commission from his bosom, and having said something of his own and
his family’s exertions in the cause of the House of Hanover, begged to
resign his situation in their service, since he could not be permitted
to show his gratitude to the person to whom he owed his life. The duke,
struck with his earnestness, desired him to take up his commission, and
granted the protection required for the family of Invernahyle.

The chieftain himself lay concealed in a cave near his own house, before
which a small body of regular soldiers were encamped. He could hear
their muster-roll called every morning, and their drums beat to quarters
at night, and not a change of the sentinels escaped him. As it was
suspected that he was lurking somewhere on the property, his family were
closely watched, and compelled to use the utmost precaution in supplying
him with food. One of his daughters, a child of eight or ten years
old, was employed as the agent least likely to be suspected. She was an
instance, among others, that a time of danger and difficulty creates a
premature sharpness of intellect. She made herself acquainted among the
soldiers, till she became so familiar to them that her motions escaped
their notice; and her practice was to stroll away into the neighbourhood
of the cave, and leave what slender supply of food she carried for that
purpose under some remarkable stone, or the root of some tree, where her
father might find it as he crept by night from his lurking-place. Times
became milder, and my excellent friend was relieved from proscription by
the Act of Indemnity. Such is the interesting story which I have rather
injured than improved by the manner in which it is told in Waverley.

This incident, with several other circumstances illustrating the Tales
in question, was communicated by me to my late lamented friend,
William Erskine (a Scottish judge, by the title of Lord Kinedder),
who afterwards reviewed with far too much partiality the Tales of my
Landlord, for the Quarterly Review of January 1817. [Lord Kinedder died
in August 1822. EHEU! (Aug. 1831.)] In the same article are contained
other illustrations of the Novels, with which I supplied my accomplished
friend, who took the trouble to write the review. The reader who is
desirous of such information will find the original of Meg Merrilies,
and, I believe, of one or two other personages of the same cast of
character, in the article referred to.

I may also mention that the tragic and savage circumstances which are
represented as preceding the birth of Allan MacAulay in the Legend of
Montrose, really happened in the family of Stewart of Ardvoirlich.
The wager about the candlesticks, whose place was supplied by Highland
torch-bearers, was laid and won by one of the MacDonalds of Keppoch.

There can be but little amusement in winnowing out the few grains of
truth which are contained in this mass of empty fiction. I may, however,
before dismissing the subject, allude to the various localities which
have been affixed to some of the scenery introduced into these Novels,
by which, for example, Wolf’s Hope is identified with Fast Castle in
Berwickshire, Tillietudlem with Draphane in Clydesdale, and the valley
in the Monastery, called Glendearg, with the dale of the river Allan,
above Lord Somerville’s villa, near Melrose. I can only say that, in
these and other instances, I had no purpose of describing any particular
local spot; and the resemblance must therefore be of that general kind
which necessarily exists between scenes of the same character. The
iron-bound coast of Scotland affords upon its headlands and promontories
fifty such castles as Wolf’s Hope; every county has a valley more or
less resembling Glendearg; and if castles like Tillietudlem, or mansions
like the Baron of Bradwardine’s, are now less frequently to be met with,
it is owing to the rage of indiscriminate destruction, which has removed
or ruined so many monuments of antiquity, when they were not protected
by their inaccessible situation. [I would particularly intimate the Kaim
of Uric, on the eastern coast of Scotland, as having suggested an
idea for the tower called Wolf’s Crag, which the public more generally
identified with the ancient tower of Fast Castle.]

The scraps of poetry which have been in most cases tacked to the
beginning of chapters in these Novels are sometimes quoted either from
reading or from memory, but, in the general case, are pure invention. I
found it too troublesome to turn to the collection of the British Poets
to discover apposite mottoes, and, in the situation of the theatrical
mechanist, who, when the white paper which represented his shower of
snow was exhausted, continued the storm by snowing brown, I drew on
my memory as long as I could, and when that failed, eked it out with
invention. I believe that in some cases, where actual names are affixed
to the supposed quotations, it would be to little purpose to seek them
in the works of the authors referred to. In some cases I have been
entertained when Dr. Watts and other graver authors have been ransacked
in vain for stanzas for which the novelist alone was responsible.

And now the reader may expect me, while in the confessional, to explain
the motives why I have so long persisted in disclaiming the works of
which I am now writing. To this it would be difficult to give any other
reply, save that of Corporal Nym--it was the author’s humour or caprice
for the time. I hope it will not be construed into ingratitude to the
public, to whose indulgence I have owed my SANG-FROID much more than
to any merit of my own, if I confess that I am, and have been, more
indifferent to success or to failure as an author, than may be the
case with others, who feel more strongly the passion for literary fame,
probably because they are justly conscious of a better title to it. It
was not until I had attained the age of thirty years that I made any
serious attempt at distinguishing myself as an author; and at that
period men’s hopes, desires, and wishes have usually acquired something
of a decisive character, and are not eagerly and easily diverted into
a new channel. When I made the discovery--for to me it was one--that by
amusing myself with composition, which I felt a delightful occupation,
I could also give pleasure to others, and became aware that literary
pursuits were likely to engage in future a considerable portion of my
time, I felt some alarm that I might acquire those habits of jealousy
and fretfulness which have lessened, and even degraded, the character
even of great authors, and rendered them, by their petty squabbles and
mutual irritability, the laughing-stock of the people of the world.
I resolved, therefore, in this respect to guard my breast--perhaps an
unfriendly critic may add, my brow--with triple brass, [Not altogether
impossible, when it is considered that I have been at the bar since
1792. (Aug. 1831.)] and as much as possible to avoid resting my thoughts
and wishes upon literary success, lest I should endanger my own peace of
mind and tranquillity by literary failure. It would argue either stupid
apathy or ridiculous affectation to say that I have been insensible to
the public applause, when I have been honoured with its testimonies;
and still more highly do I prize the invaluable friendships which
some temporary popularity has enabled me to form among those of my
contemporaries most distinguished by talents and genius, and which I
venture to hope now rest upon a basis more firm than the circumstances
which gave rise to them. Yet, feeling all these advantages as a man
ought to do, and must do, I may say, with truth and confidence, that I
have, I think, tasted of the intoxicating cup with moderation, and
that I have never, either in conversation or correspondence, encouraged
discussions respecting my own literary pursuits. On the contrary, I
have usually found such topics, even when introduced from motives most
flattering to myself, Rather embarrassing and disagreeable.

I have now frankly told my motives for concealment, so far as I am
conscious of having any, and the public will forgive the egotism of the
detail, as what is necessarily connected with it. The author, so long
and loudly called for, has appeared on the stage, and made his obeisance
to the audience. Thus far his conduct is a mark of respect. To linger in
their presence would be intrusion.

I have only to repeat that I avow myself in print, as formerly in words,
the sole and unassisted author of all the Novels published as works of
“The Author of Waverley.” I do this without shame, for I am unconscious
that there is any thing in their composition which deserves reproach,
either on the score of religion or morality; and without any feeling of
exultation, because, whatever may have been their temporary success,
I am well aware how much their reputation depends upon the caprice of
fashion; and I have already mentioned the precarious tenure by which it
is held, as a reason for displaying no great avidity in grasping at the
possession.

I ought to mention, before concluding, that twenty persons, at least,
were, either from intimacy, or from the confidence which circumstances
rendered necessary, participant of this secret; and as there was no
instance, to my knowledge, of any one of the number breaking faith, I
am the more obliged to them, because the slight and trivial character of
the mystery was not qualified to inspire much respect in those entrusted
with it. Nevertheless, like Jack the Giant-Killer, I was fully confident
in the advantage of my “Coat of Darkness;” and had it not been from
compulsory circumstances, I would have, indeed, been very cautious how I
parted with it.

As for the work which follows, it was meditated, and in part printed,
long before the avowal of the novels took place, and originally
commenced with a declaration that it was neither to have introduction
nor preface of any kind. This long proem, prefixed to a work intended
not to have any, may, however, serve to show how human purposes in the
most trifling, as well as the most important affairs, are liable to
be controlled by the course of events. Thus we begin to cross a strong
river with our eyes and our resolution fixed on that point of the
opposite shore on which we purpose to land; but gradually giving way
to the torrent, are glad, by the aid perhaps of branch or bush, to
extricate ourselves at some distant and perhaps dangerous landing-place,
much farther down the stream than that on which we had fixed our
intentions.

Hoping that the Courteous Reader will afford to a known and familiar
acquaintance some portion of the favour which he extended to a disguised
candidate for his applause, I beg leave to subscribe myself his obliged
humble servant,

WALTER SCOTT.

ABBOTSFORD, OCTOBER 1, 1827.

*****

Such was the little narrative which I thought proper to put forth in
October 1827; nor have I much to add to it now. About to appear for the
first time in my own name in this department of letters, it occurred to
me that something in the shape of a periodical publication might carry
with it a certain air of novelty, and I was willing to break, if I may
so express it, the abruptness of my personal forthcoming, by investing
an imaginary coadjutor with at least as much distinctness of individual
existence as I had ever previously thought it worth while to bestow on
shadows of the same convenient tribe. Of course, it had never been in
my contemplation to invite the assistance of any real person in the
sustaining of my quasi-editorial character and labours. It had long been
my opinion, that any thing like a literary PICNIC is likely to end
in suggesting comparisons, justly termed odious, and therefore to
be avoided; and, indeed, I had also had some occasion to know, that
promises of assistance, in efforts of that order, are apt to be more
magnificent than the subsequent performance. I therefore planned a
Miscellany, to be dependent, after the old fashion, on my own resources
alone, and although conscious enough that the moment which assigned to
the Author of Waverley “a local habitation and a name,” had seriously
endangered his spell, I felt inclined to adopt the sentiment of my old
hero Montrose, and to say to myself, that in literature, as in war,--

  “He either fears his fate too much,
     Or his deserts are small,
   Who dares not put it to the touch,
     To win or lose it all.”

To the particulars explanatory of the plan of these Chronicles, which
the reader is presented with in Chapter II. by the imaginary Editor, Mr.
Croftangry, I have now to add, that the lady, termed in his narrative,
Mrs. Bethune Balliol, was designed to shadow out in its leading points
the interesting character of a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Murray Keith,
whose death occurring shortly before, had saddened a wide circle, much
attached to her, as well for her genuine virtue and amiable qualities of
disposition, as for the extent of information which she possessed, and
the delightful manner in which she was used to communicate it. In truth,
the author had, on many occasions, been indebted to her vivid memory for
the SUBSTRATUM of his Scottish fictions, and she accordingly had been,
from an early period, at no loss to fix the Waverley Novels on the right
culprit.

[The Keiths of Craig, in Kincardineshire, descended from John Keith,
fourth son of William, second Earl Marischal, who got from his father,
about 1480, the lands of Craig, and part of Garvock, in that county. In
Douglas’s Baronage, 443 to 445, is a pedigree of that family. Colonel
Robert Keith of Craig (the seventh in descent from John) by his wife,
Agnes, daughter of Robert Murray of Murrayshall, of the family of
Blackbarony, widow of Colonel Stirling, of the family of Keir, had one
son--namely Robert Keith of Craig, ambassador to the court of Vienna,
afterwards to St. Petersburgh, which latter situation he held at the
accession of King George III.--who died at Edinburgh in 1774. He married
Margaret, second daughter of Sir William Cunningham of Caprington, by
Janet, only child and heiress of Sir James Dick of Prestonfield;
and, among other children of this marriage were the late well-known
diplomatist, Sir Robert Murray Keith, K.B., a general in the army, and
for some time ambassador at Vienna; Sir Basil Keith, Knight, captain in
the navy, who died Governor of Jamaica; and my excellent friend, Anne
Murray Keith, who ultimately came into possession of the family estates,
and died not long before the date of this Introduction (1831).]

In the sketch of Chrystal Croftangry’s own history, the author has been
accused of introducing some not polite allusions to respectable
living individuals; but he may safely, he presumes, pass over such an
insinuation. The first of the narratives which Mr. Croftangry proceeds
to lay before the public, “The Highland Widow,” was derived from Mrs.
Murray Keith, and is given, with the exception of a few additional
circumstances--the introduction of which I am rather inclined to
regret--very much as the excellent old lady used to tell the story.
Neither the Highland cicerone Macturk nor the demure washingwoman, were
drawn from imagination; and on re-reading my tale, after the lapse of
a few years, and comparing its effect with my remembrance of my worthy
friend’s oral narration, which was certainly extremely affecting, I
cannot but suspect myself of having marred its simplicity by some of
those interpolations, which, at the time when I penned them, no doubt
passed with myself for embellishments.

The next tale, entitled “The Two Drovers,” I learned from another old
friend, the late George Constable, Esq. of Wallace-Craigie, near Dundee,
whom I have already introduced to my reader as the original Antiquary of
Monkbarns. He had been present, I think, at the trial at Carlisle,
and seldom mentioned the venerable judges charge to the jury, without
shedding tears,--which had peculiar pathos, as flowing down features,
carrying rather a sarcastic or almost a cynical expression.

This worthy gentleman’s reputation for shrewd Scottish sense, knowledge
of our national antiquities, and a racy humour peculiar to himself, must
be still remembered. For myself, I have pride in recording that for many
years we were, in Wordsworth’s language,--

  “A pair of friends, though I was young,
     And ‘George’ was seventy-two.”

W. S.

ABBOTSFORD, AUG. 15, 1831.


*****




APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.

[It has been suggested to the Author that it might be well to reprint
here a detailed account of the public dinner alluded to in the foregoing
Introduction, as given in the newspapers of the time; and the reader
is accordingly presented with the following extract from the EDINBURGH
WEEKLY JOURNAL for Wednesday, 28th February, 1827.]


THE THEATRICAL FUND DINNER.

Before proceeding with our account of this very interesting
festival--for so it may be termed--it is our duty to present to
our readers the following letter, which we have received from the
President:--

TO THE EDITOR OF THE “EDINBURGH WEEKLY JOURNAL.”

Sir,--I am extremely sorry I have not leisure to correct the copy
you sent me of what I am stated to have said at the dinner for the
Theatrical Fund. I am no orator, and upon such occasions as are alluded
to, I say as well as I can what the time requires.

However, I hope your reporter has been more accurate in other instances
than in mine. I have corrected one passage, in which I am made to speak
with great impropriety and petulance, respecting the opinions of those
who do not approve of dramatic entertainments. I have restored what I
said, which was meant to be respectful, as every objection founded in
conscience is, in my opinion, entitled to be so treated. Other errors
I left as I found them, it being of little consequence whether I spoke
sense or nonsense in what was merely intended for the purpose of the
hour.

I am, sir,

Your obedient servant,

EDINBURGH, MONDAY. WALTER SCOTT.

*****

The Theatrical Fund Dinner, which took place on Friday, in the Assembly
Rooms, was conducted with admirable spirit. The Chairman, Sir WALTER
SCOTT, among his other great qualifications, is well fitted to enliven
such an entertainment. His manners are extremely easy, and his style of
speaking simple and natural, yet full of vivacity and point; and he has
the art, if it be art, of relaxing into a certain homeliness of manner,
without losing one particle of his dignity. He thus takes off some of
that solemn formality which belongs to such meetings, and, by his easy,
and graceful familiarity, imparts to them somewhat of the pleasing
character of a private entertainment. Near Sir W. Scott sat the Earl
of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Bart., Admiral Adam,
Baron Clerk Rattray, Gilbert Innes, Esq., James Walker, Esq., Robert
Dundas, Esq., Alexander Smith, Esq., etc.

The cloth being removed, “Non nobis, Domine,” was sung by Messrs.
Thorne, Swift, Collier, and Hartley, after which the following toasts
were given from the chair:--

“The King”--all the honours.

“The Duke of Clarence and the Royal Family.”

The CHAIRMAN, in proposing the next toast, which he wished to be drunk
in solemn silence, said it was to the memory of a regretted-prince, whom
we had lately lost. Every individual would at once conjecture to whom he
alluded. He had no intention to dwell on his military merits. They had
been told in the senate; they had been repeated in the cottage; and
whenever a soldier was the theme, his name was never far distant. But it
was chiefly in connection with the business of this meeting, which
his late Royal Highness had condescended in a particular manner to
patronize, that they were called on to drink his health. To that charity
he had often sacrificed his time, and had given up the little leisure
which he had from important business. He was always ready to attend on
every occasion of this kind, and it was in that view that he proposed to
drink to the memory of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York.--Drunk
in solemn silence.

The CHAIRMAN then requested that gentlemen would fill a bumper as full
as it would hold, while he would say only a few words. He was in the
habit of hearing speeches, and he knew the feeling with which long ones
were regarded. He was sure that it was perfectly unnecessary for him to
enter into any vindication of the dramatic art, which they had come
here to support. This, however, he considered to be the proper time
and proper occasion for him to say a few words on that love of
representation which was an innate feeling in human nature. It was the
first amusement that the child had. It grew greater as he grew up; and
even in the decline of life nothing amuses so much as when a common tale
is told with appropriate personification. The first thing a child does
is to ape his schoolmaster by flogging a chair. The assuming a character
ourselves, or the seeing others assume an imaginary character, is an
enjoyment natural to humanity. It was implanted in our very nature to
take pleasure from such representations, at proper times and on proper
occasions. In all ages the theatrical art had kept pace with the
improvement of mankind, and with the progress of letters and the fine
arts. As man has advanced from the ruder stages of society, the love
of dramatic representations has increased, and all works of this nature
have keen improved in character and in structure. They had only to turn
their eyes to the history of ancient Greece, although he did not pretend
to be very deeply versed in its ancient drama. Its first tragic poet
commanded a body of troops at the battle of Marathon. Sophocles and
Euripides were men of rank in Athens when Athens was in its highest
renown. They shook Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical
works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to France in the time of
Louis the Fourteenth--that era which is the classical history of that
country--they would find that it was referred to by all Frenchmen as the
golden age of the drama there. And also in England in the time of Queen
Elizabeth the drama was at its highest pitch, when the nation began to
mingle deeply and wisely in the general politics of Europe, not only
not receiving laws from others, but giving laws to the world, and
vindicating the rights of mankind. (Cheers.) There have been various
times when the dramatic art subsequently fell into disrepute. Its
professors have been stigmatized, and laws have been passed against
them, less dishonourable to them than to the statesmen by whom they were
proposed, and to the legislators by whom they were adopted. What were
the times in which these laws were passed? Was it not when virtue was
seldom inculcated as a moral duty that we were required to relinquish
the most rational of all our amusements, when the clergy were enjoined
celibacy, and when the laity were denied the right to read their Bibles?
He thought that it must have been from a notion of penance that they
erected the drama into an ideal place of profaneness, and spoke of the
theatre as of the tents of sin. He did not mean to dispute that there
were many excellent persons who thought differently from him, and he
disclaimed the slightest idea of charging them with bigotry or hypocrisy
on that account. He gave them full credit for their tender consciences,
in making these objections, although they did not appear relevant to
him. But to these persons, being, as he believed them, men of worth
and piety, he was sure the purpose of this meeting would furnish some
apology for an error, if there be any, in the opinions of those who
attend. They would approve the gift, although they might differ in other
points. Such might not approve of going to the theatre, but at least
could not deny that they might give away from their superfluity what was
required for the relief of the sick, the support of the aged, and the
comfort of the afflicted. These were duties enjoined by our religion
itself. (Loud cheers.)

The performers are in a particular manner entitled to the support or
regard, when in old age or distress, of those who have partaken of the
amusements of those places which they render an ornament to society.
Their art was of a peculiarly delicate and precarious nature. They
had to serve a long apprenticeship. It was very long before even the
first-rate geniuses could acquire the mechanical knowledge of the stage
business. They must languish long in obscurity before they can avail
themselves of their natural talents; and after that they have but a
short space of time, during which they are fortunate if they can provide
the means of comfort in the decline of life. That comes late, and lasts
but a short time; after which they are left dependent. Their limbs
fail--their teeth are loosened--their voice is lost and they are left,
after giving happiness to others, in a most disconsolate state. The
public were liberal and generous to those deserving their protection.
It was a sad thing to be dependent on the favour, or, he might say, in
plain terms, on the caprice, of the public; and this more particularly
for a class of persons of whom extreme prudence is not the character.
There might be instances of opportunities being neglected. But let
each gentleman tax himself, and consider the opportunities THEY had
neglected, and the sums of money THEY had wasted; let every gentleman
look into his own bosom, and say whether these were circumstances which
would soften his own feelings, were he to be plunged into distress. He
put it to every generous bosom--to every better feeling--to say what
consolation was it to old age to be told that you might have made
provision at a time which had been neglected--(loud cheers)--and to find
it objected, that if you had pleased you might have been wealthy. He
had hitherto been speaking of what, in theatrical language, was called
STARS; but they were sometimes falling ones. There was another class of
sufferers naturally and necessarily connected with the theatre, without
whom it was impossible to go on. The sailors have a saying, Every man
cannot be a boatswain. If there must be a great actor to act Hamlet,
there must also be people to act Laertes, the King, Rosencrantz, and
Guildenstern, otherwise a drama cannot go on. If even Garrick himself
were to rise from the dead, he could not act Hamlet alone. There must
be generals, colonels, commanding-officers, subalterns. But what are the
private soldiers to do? Many have mistaken their own talents, and have
been driven in early youth to try the stage, to which they are not
competent. He would know what to say to the indifferent poet and to the
bad artist. He would say that it was foolish, and he would recommend to
the poet to become a scribe, and the artist to paint sign-posts. (Loud
laughter.) But you could not send the player adrift; for if he cannot
play Hamlet, he must play Guildenstern. Where there are many labourers,
wages must be low and no man in such a situation can decently support a
wife and family, and save something off his income for old age. What is
this man to do in later life? Are you to cast him off like an old hinge,
or a piece of useless machinery, which has done its work? To a person
who had contributed to our amusement, this would be unkind, ungrateful,
and unchristian. His wants are not of his own making, but arise from the
natural sources of sickness and old age. It cannot be denied that there
is one class of sufferers to whom no imprudence can be ascribed, except
on first entering on the profession. After putting his hand to the
dramatic plough, he cannot draw back, but must continue at it, and toil,
till death release him from want, or charity, by its milder influence,
steps in to render that want more tolerable. He had little more to say,
except that he sincerely hoped that the collection to-day, from
the number of respectable gentlemen present, would meet the views
entertained by the patrons. He hoped it would do so. They should not
be disheartened. Though they could not do a great deal, they might do
something. They had this consolation, that everything they parted with
from their superfluity would do some good. They would sleep the better
themselves when they had been the means of giving sleep to others. It
was ungrateful and unkind that those who had sacrificed their youth to
our amusement should not receive the reward due to them, but should be
reduced to hard fare in their old age. We cannot think of poor Falstaff
going to bed without his cup of sack, or Macbeth fed on bones as
marrowless as those of Banquo. (Loud cheers and laughter.) As he
believed that they were all as fond of the dramatic art as he was in his
younger days, he would propose that they should drink “The Theatrical
Fund,” with three times three.

Mr. MACKAY rose, on behalf of his brethren, to return their thanks
for the toast just drunk. Many of the gentlemen present, he said,
were perhaps not fully acquainted with the nature and intention of the
institution, and it might not be amiss to enter into some explanation
on the subject. With whomsoever the idea of a Theatrical Fund might have
originated (and it had been disputed by the surviving relatives of two
or three individuals), certain it was that the first legally constituted
Theatrical Fund owed its origin to one of the brightest ornaments of the
profession, the late David Garrick. That eminent actor conceived that,
by a weekly subscription in the theatre, a fund might be raised among
its members, from which a portion might be given to those of his
less fortunate brethren, and thus an opportunity would be offered for
prudence to provide what fortune had denied--a comfortable provision
for the winter of life. With the welfare of his profession constantly at
heart, the zeal with which he laboured to uphold its respectability, and
to impress upon the minds or his brethren, not only the necessity, but
the blessing of independence, the Fund became his peculiar care. He drew
up a form of laws for its government, procured at his own expense the
passing of an Act of Parliament for its confirmation, bequeathed to it
a handsome legacy, and thus became the father of the Drury Lane Fund. So
constant was his attachment to this infant establishment, that he chose
to grace the close of the brightest theatrical life on record by the
last display of his transcendent talent on the occasion of a benefit for
this child of his adoption, which ever since has gone by the name of
the Garrick Fund. In imitation of his noble example, funds had been
established in several provincial theatres in England; but it remained
for Mrs. Henry Siddons and Mr. William Murray to become the founders
of the first Theatrical Fund in Scotland. (Cheers.) This Fund commenced
under the most favourable auspices. It was liberally supported by the
management, and highly patronized by the public. Notwithstanding,
it fell short in the accomplishment of its intentions. What those
intentions were, he (Mr. Mackay) need not recapitulate, but they failed;
and he did not hesitate to confess that a want of energy on the part
of the performers was the probable cause. A new set of Rules and
Regulations were lately drawn up, submitted to and approved of at a
general meeting of the members of the Theatre, and accordingly the Fund
was remodelled on the 1st of January last. And here he thought he did
but echo the feelings of his brethren, by publicly acknowledging the
obligations they were under to the management for the aid given and
the warm interest they had all along taken in the welfare of the Fund.
(Cheers.) The nature and object of the profession had been so well
treated of by the President that he would say nothing; but of the
numerous offspring of science and genius that court precarious fame,
the actor boasts the slenderest claim of all--the sport of fortune, the
creatures of fashion, and the victims of caprice, they are seen, heard,
and admired, but to be forgot. They leave no trace, no memorial of their
existence--they “come like shadows, so depart.” (Cheers.) Yet humble
though their pretensions be, there was no profession, trade, or
calling where such a combination of requisites, mental and bodily, were
indispensable. In all others the principal may practise after he has
been visited by the afflicting hand of Providence--some by the loss of
limb, some of voice, and many, when the faculty of the mind is on the
wane, may be assisted by dutiful children or devoted servants. Not so
the actor, He must retain all he ever did possess, or sink dejected to
a mournful home. (Applause.) Yet while they are toiling for ephemeral
theatric fame, how very few ever possess the means of hoarding in
their youth that which would give bread in old age! But now a brighter
prospect dawned upon them, and to the success of this their infant
establishment they looked with hope, as to a comfortable and peaceful
home in their declining years. He concluded by tendering to the meeting,
in the name of his brethren and sisters, their unfeigned thanks for
their liberal support, and begged to propose “The Health of the Patrons
of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund.” (Cheers.)

Lord MEADOWBANK said that, by desire of his Hon. Friend in the chair,
and of his Noble Friend at his right hand, he begged leave to return
thanks for the honour which had been conferred on the Patrons of this
excellent institution. He could answer for himself--he could answer for
them all--that they were deeply impressed with the meritorious
objects which it has in view, and of their anxious wish to promote its
interests. For himself, he hoped he might be permitted to say that he
was rather surprised at finding his own name as one of the Patrons,
associated with so many individuals of high rank and powerful influence.
But it was an excuse for those who had placed him in a situation so
honourable and so distinguished, that when this charity was instituted
he happened to hold a high and responsible station under the Crown, when
he might have been of use in assisting and promoting its objects. His
Lordship much feared that he could have little expectation, situated as
he now was, of doing either; but he could confidently assert that
few things would give him greater gratification than being able
to contribute to its prosperity and support. And indeed, when one
recollects the pleasure which at all periods of life he has received
from the exhibitions of the stage, and the exertions of the meritorious
individuals for whose aid this Fund has been established, he must be
divested both of gratitude and feeling who would not give his best
endeavours to promote its welfare. And now, that he might in some
measure repay the gratification which had been afforded himself, he
would beg leave to propose a toast, the health of one of the Patrons,
a great and distinguished individual, whose name must always stand by
itself, and which, in an assembly such as this, or in any other assembly
of Scotsmen, can never be received, not, he would say, with ordinary
feelings of pleasure or of delight, but with those of rapture and
enthusiasm. In doing so he felt that he stood in a somewhat new
situation. Whoever had been called upon to propose the health of his
Hon. Friend to whom he alluded, some time ago, would have found himself
enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were involved, to
gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which found a responding
chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language, the sincere
language, of panegyric, without intruding on the modesty of the
great individual to whom he referred. But it was no longer possible,
consistently with the respect to one’s auditors, to use upon this
subject terms either of mystification or of obscure or indirect
allusion. The clouds have been dispelled; the DARKNESS VISIBLE has
been cleared away; and the Great Unknown--the minstrel of our native
land--the mighty magician who has rolled back the current of time, and
conjured up before our living senses the men and the manners of days
which have long passed away--stands revealed to the hearts and the eyes
of his affectionate and admiring countrymen. If he himself were capable
of imagining all that belonged to this mighty subject--were he even able
to give utterance to all that, as a friend, as a man, and as a Scotsman,
he must feel regarding it--yet knowing, as he well did, that this
illustrious individual was not more distinguished for his towering
talents than for those feelings which rendered such allusions ungrateful
to himself, however sparingly introduced, he would, on that account,
still refrain from doing that which would otherwise be no less pleasing
to him than to his audience. But this his Lordship, hoped he would be
allowed to say (his auditors would not pardon him were he to say less),
we owe to him, as a people, a large and heavy debt of gratitude. He it
is who has opened to foreigners the grand and characteristic beauties of
our country. It is to him that we owe that our gallant ancestors and the
struggles of our illustrious patriots--who fought and bled in order to
obtain and secure that independence and that liberty we now enjoy--have
obtained a fame no longer confined to the boundaries of a remote
and comparatively obscure nation, and who has called down upon their
struggles for glory and freedom the admiration of foreign countries. He
it is who has conferred a new reputation on our national character, and
bestowed on Scotland an imperishable name, were it only by her having
given birth to himself. (Loud and rapturous applause.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT certainly did not think that, in coming here to-day, he
would have the task of acknowledging, before three hundred gentlemen, a
secret which, considering that it was communicated to more than twenty
people, had been remarkably well kept. He was now before the bar of his
country, and might be understood to be on trial before Lord Meadowbank
as an offender; yet he was sure that every impartial jury would bring in
a verdict of Not Proven. He did not now think it necessary to enter into
the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps caprice might have a consider
able share in it. He had now to say, however, that the merits of these
works, if they had any, and their faults, were entirely imputable to
himself. (Long and loud cheering.) He was afraid to think on what he had
done. “Look on’t again I dare not.” He had thus far unbosomed himself
and he knew that it would be reported to the public. He meant, then,
seriously to state, that when he said he was the author, he was the
total and undivided author. With the exception of quotations, there was
not a single word that was not derived from himself, or suggested in the
course of his reading. The wand was now broken, and the book buried. You
will allow me further to say, with Prospero, it is your breath that has
filled my sails, and to crave one single toast in the capacity of the
author of these novels; and he would dedicate a bumper to the health
of one who has represented some of those characters, of which he had
endeavoured to give the skeleton, with a degree of liveliness which
rendered him grateful. He would propose “The Health of his friend Bailie
Nicol Jarvie”--(loud applause)--and he was sure that when the author of
Waverley and Rob Roy drinks to Nicol Jarvie, it would be received
with that degree of applause to which that gentleman has always been
accustomed, and that they would take care that on the present occasion
it should be PRODIGIOUS! (Long and vehement applause.)

Mr. MACKAY, who here spoke with great humour in the character of Bailie
Jarvie.--My conscience! My worthy father the deacon could not have
believed that his son could hae had sic a compliment paid to him by the
Great Unknown!

Sir WALTER SCOTT.--The Small Known now, Mr. Bailie.

Mr. MACKAY.--He had been long identified with the Bailie, and he was
vain of the cognomen which he had now worn for eight years; and
he questioned if any of his brethren in the Council had given such
universal satisfaction. (Loud laughter and applause.) Before he sat
down, he begged to propose “The Lord Provost and the City of Edinburgh.”

Sir WALTER SCOTT apologized for the absence of the Lord Provost, who had
gone to London on public business.

Tune--“Within a mile of Edinburgh town.”

Sir WALTER SCOTT gave “The Duke of Wellington and the army.”

Glee--“How merrily we live.”

“Lord Melville and the Navy, that fought till they left nobody to fight
with, like an arch sportsman who clears all and goes after the game.”

Mr. PAT. ROBERTSON.--They had heard this evening a toast, which had
been received with intense delight, which will be published in every
newspaper, and will be hailed with joy by all Europe. He had one toast
assigned him which he had great pleasure in giving. He was sure that the
stage had in all ages a great effect on the morals and manners of the
people. It was very desirable that the stage should be well regulated;
and there was no criterion by which its regulation could be better
determined than by the moral character and personal respectability of
the performers. He was not one of those stern moralists who objected to
the theatre. The most fastidious moralist could not possibly apprehend
any injury from the stage of Edinburgh, as it was presently managed,
and so long as it was adorned by that illustrious individual, Mrs. Henry
Siddons, whose public exhibitions were not more remarkable for feminine
grace and delicacy than was her private character for every virtue which
could be admired in domestic life. He would conclude with reciting a few
words from Shakespeare, in a spirit not of contradiction to those stern
moralists who disliked the theatre, but of meekness: “Good, my lord,
will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well
used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.”
 He then gave “Mrs. Henry Siddons, and success to the Theatre Royal of
Edinburgh.”

Mr. MURRAY.--Gentlemen, I rise to return thanks for the honour you have
done Mrs. Siddons, in doing which I am somewhat difficulted, from the
extreme delicacy which attends a brother’s expatiating upon a sister’s
claims to honours publicly paid--(hear, hear)--yet, gentlemen, your
kindness emboldens me to say that, were I to give utterance to all
a brother’s feelings, I should not exaggerate those claims. (Loud
applause.) I therefore, gentlemen, thank you most cordially for the
honour you have done her, and shall now request permission to make an
observation on the establishment of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund. Mr.
Mackay has done Mrs. Henry Siddons and myself the honour to ascribe the
establishment to us. But no, gentlemen, it owes its origin to a higher
source--the publication of the novel of Rob Roy--the unprecedented
success of the opera adapted from that popular production. (Hear,
hear.) It was that success which relieved the Edinburgh Theatre from
its difficulties, and enabled Mrs. Siddons to carry into effect the
establishment of a fund she had long desired, but was prevented from
effecting from the unsettled state of her theatrical concerns. I
therefore hope that in future years, when the aged and infirm actor
derives relief from this fund, he will, in the language of the gallant
Highlander, “Cast his eye to good old Scotland, and not forget Rob Roy.”
 (Loud applause.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT here stated that Mrs. Siddons wanted the means but not
the will of beginning the Theatrical Fund. He here alluded to the great
merits of Mr. Murray’s management, and to his merits as an actor, which
were of the first order, and of which every person who attends the
Theatre must be sensible; and after alluding to the embarrassments with
which the Theatre had been at one period threatened, he concluded by
giving “The Health of Mr. Murray,” which was drunk with three times
three.

Mr. MURRAY.--Gentlemen, I wish I could believe that in any degree I
merited the compliments with which it has pleased Sir Walter Scott to
preface the proposal of my health, or the very flattering manner in
which you have done me the honour to receive it. The approbation of such
an assembly is most gratifying to me, and might encourage feelings of
vanity, were not such feelings crushed by my conviction that no man
holding the situation I have so long held in Edinburgh could have
failed, placed in the peculiar circumstances in which I have been
placed. Gentlemen, I shall not insult your good taste by eulogiums
upon your judgment or kindly feeling, though to the first I owe any
improvement I may have made as an actor, and certainly my success as
a manager to the second. (Applause.) When, upon the death of my dear
brother, the late Mr. Siddons, it was proposed that I should undertake
the management of the Edinburgh Theatre, I confess I drew back, doubting
my capability to free it from the load of debt and difficulty with which
it was surrounded. In this state of anxiety, I solicited the advice of
one who had ever honoured me with his kindest regard, and whose name no
member of my profession can pronounce without feelings of the deepest
respect and gratitude. I allude to the late Mr. John Kemble. (Great
applause.) To him I applied, and with the repetition of his advice I
shall cease to trespass upon your time--(hear, hear)--“My dear William,
fear not. Integrity and assiduity must prove an overmatch for all
difficulty; and though I approve your not indulging a vain confidence in
your own ability, and viewing with respectful apprehension the judgment
of the audience you have to act before, yet be assured that judgment
will ever be tempered by the feeling that you are acting for the widow
and the fatherless.” (Loud applause.) Gentlemen, those words have never
passed from my mind; and I feel convinced that you have pardoned my
many errors, from the feeling that I was striving for the widow and
the fatherless. (Long and enthusiastic applause followed Mr. Murray’s
address.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT gave “The Health of the Stewards.”

Mr. VANDENHOFF.---Mr. President and Gentlemen, the honour conferred upon
the Stewards, in the very flattering compliment you have just paid us,
calls forth our warmest acknowledgments. In tendering you our thanks
for the approbation you have been pleased to express of our humble
exertions, I would beg leave to advert to the cause in which we have
been engaged. Yet, surrounded as I am by the genius--the eloquence--of
this enlightened city, I cannot but feel the presumption which ventures
to address you on so interesting a subject. Accustomed to speak in the
language of others, I feel quite at a loss for terms wherein to clothe
the sentiments excited by the present occasion. (Applause.) The nature
of the institution which has sought your fostering patronage, and the
objects which it contemplates, have been fully explained to you. But,
gentlemen, the relief which it proposes is not a gratuitous relief, but
to be purchased by the individual contribution of its members towards
the general good. This Fund lends no encouragement to idleness or
improvidence, but it offers an opportunity to prudence in vigour and
youth to make provision against the evening of life and its attendant
infirmity. A period is fixed at which we admit the plea of age as an
exemption from professional labour. It is painful to behold the veteran
on the stage (compelled by necessity) contending against physical decay,
mocking the joyousness of mirth with the feebleness of age, when the
energies decline, when the memory fails! and “the big, manly voice,
turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in the sound.”
 We would remove him from the mimic scene, where fiction constitutes the
charm; we would not view old age caricaturing itself. (Applause.) But as
our means may be found, in time of need, inadequate to the fulfilment
of our wishes--fearful of raising expectations which we may be unable to
gratify--desirous not “to keep the word of promise to the ear, and break
it to the hope”--we have presumed to court the assistance of the friends
of the drama to strengthen our infant institution. Our appeal has been
successful beyond our most sanguine expectations. The distinguished
patronage conferred on us by your presence on this occasion, and the
substantial support which your benevolence has so liberally afforded
to our institution, must impress every member of the Fund with the most
grateful sentiments--sentiments which no language can express, no time
obliterate. (Applause.) I will not trespass longer on your attention.
I would the task of acknowledging our obligation had fallen into abler
hands. (Hear, hear.) In the name of the Stewards, I most respectfully
and cordially thank you for the honour you have done us, which greatly
overpays our poor endeavours. (Applause.)

[This speech, though rather inadequately reported, was one of the best
delivered on this occasion. That it was creditable to Mr. Vandenhoff’s
taste and feelings, the preceding sketch will show; but how much it was
so, it does not show.]

Mr. J. CAY gave “Professor Wilson and the University of Edinburgh, of
which he was one of the brightest ornaments.”

Lord MEADOWBANK, after a suitable eulogium, gave “The Earl of Fife,”
 which was drunk with three times three.

Earl FIFE expressed his high gratification at the honour conferred on
him. He intimated his approbation of the institution, and his readiness
to promote its success by every means in his power. He concluded with
giving “The Health of the Company of Edinburgh.”

Mr. JONES, on rising to return thanks, being received with considerable
applause, said he was truly grateful for the kind encouragement he
had experienced, but the novelty of the situation in which he now
was renewed all the feelings he experienced when he first saw himself
announced in the bills as a young gentleman, being his first appearance
on any stage. (Laughter and applause.) Although in the presence of those
whose indulgence had, in another sphere, so often shielded him from the
penalties of inability, he was unable to execute the task which had so
unexpectedly devolved upon him in behalf of his brethren and himself. He
therefore begged the company to imagine all that grateful hearts could
prompt the most eloquent to utter, and that would be a copy of their
feelings. (Applause.) He begged to trespass another moment on their
attention, for the purpose of expressing the thanks of the members
of the Fund to the Gentlemen of the Edinburgh Professional Society of
Musicians, who, finding that this meeting was appointed to take place
on the same evening with their concert, had, in the handsomest manner,
agreed to postpone it. Although it was his duty thus to preface the
toast he had to propose, he was certain the meeting required no further
inducement than the recollection of the pleasure the exertions of those
gentlemen had often afforded them within those walls, to join heartily
in drinking “Health and Prosperity to the Edinburgh Professional Society
of Musicians.” (Applause.)

Mr. PAT. ROBERTSON Proposed “The Health of Mr. Jeffrey,” whose absence
was owing to indisposition. The public was well aware that he was the
most distinguished advocate at the bar. He was likewise distinguished
for the kindness, frankness, and cordial manner in which he communicated
with the junior members of the profession, to the esteem of whom his
splendid talents would always entitle him.

Mr. J. MACONOCHIE gave “The Health of Mrs. Siddons, senior, the most
distinguished ornament of the stage.”

Sir W. SCOTT said that if anything could reconcile him to old age, it
was the reflection that he had seen the rising as well as the setting
sun of Mrs. Siddons. He remembered well their breakfasting near to
the Theatre--waiting the whole day--the crushing at the doors at six
o’clock--and their going in and counting their fingers till seven
o’clock. But the very first step--the very first word which she
uttered--was sufficient to overpay him for all his labours. The house
was literally electrified; and it was only from witnessing the effects
of her genius that he could guess to what a pitch theatrical excellence
could be carried. Those young gentlemen who have only seen the setting
sun of this distinguished performer, beautiful and serene as that was,
must give us old fellows, who have seen its rise and its meridian, leave
to hold our heads a little higher.

Mr. DUNDAS gave “The Memory of Home, the author of Douglas.”

Mr. MACKAY here announced that the subscriptions for the night amounted
to L280, and he expressed gratitude for this substantial proof of their
kindness. [We are happy to state that subscriptions have since flowed in
very liberally.]

Mr. MACKAY here entertained the company with a pathetic song.

Sir WALTER SCOTT apologized for having so long forgotten their native
land. He would now give “Scotland, the land of Cakes.” He would give
every river, every loch, every hill, from Tweed to Johnnie Groat’s
house--every lass in her cottage and countess in her castle--and may her
sons stand by her, as their fathers did before them; and he who would
not drink a bumper to his toast, may he never drink whisky more!

Sir WALTER SCOTT here gave “Lord Meadowbank,” who returned thanks.

Mr. H. G. BELL said that he should not have ventured to intrude himself
upon the attention of the assembly, did he not feel confident that the
toast he begged to have the honour to propose would make amends for the
very imperfect manner in which he might express his sentiments regarding
it. It had been said that, notwithstanding the mental supremacy of the
present age--notwithstanding that the page of our history was studded
with names destined also for the page of immortality--that the genius of
Shakespeare was extinct, and the fountain of his inspiration dried up.
It might be that these observations were unfortunately correct, or it
might be that we were bewildered with a name, not disappointed of the
reality; for though Shakespeare had brought a Hamlet, an Othello, and a
Macbeth, an Ariel, a Juliet, and a Rosalind, upon the stage, were there
not authors living who had brought as varied, as exquisitely painted,
and as undying a range of characters into our hearts? The shape of the
mere mould into which genius poured its golden treasures was surely
a matter of little moment, let it be called a Tragedy, a Comedy, or a
Waverley Novel. But even among the dramatic authors of the present day,
he was unwilling to allow that there was a great and palpable decline
from the glory of preceding ages, and his toast alone would bear him out
in denying the truth of the proposition. After eulogizing the names of
Baillie, Byron, Coleridge, Maturin, and others, he begged to have the
honour of proposing “The Health of James Sheridan Knowles.”

Sir WALTER SCOTT. Gentlemen, I crave a bumper all over. The last toast
reminds me of a neglect of duty. Unaccustomed to a public duty of this
kind, errors in conducting the ceremonial of it may be excused, and
omissions pardoned. Perhaps I have made one or two omissions in the
course of the evening for which I trust you will grant me your pardon
and indulgence. One thing in particular I have omitted, and I would now
wish to make amends for it by a libation of reverence and respect to
the memory of SHAKESPEARE. He was a man of universal genius, and from a
period soon after his own era to the present day he has been universally
idolized. When I come to his honoured name, I am like the sick man who
hung up his crutches at the shrine, and was obliged to confess that he
did not walk better than before. It is indeed difficult, gentlemen, to
compare him to any other individual. The only one to whom I call at all
compare him is the wonderful Arabian dervise, who dived into the body of
each, and in this way became familiar with the thoughts and secrets of
their hearts. He was a man of obscure origin, and, as a player, limited
in his acquirements; but he was born evidently with a universal genius.
His eyes glanced at all the varied aspects of life, and his fancy
portrayed with equal talents the king on the throne and the clown who
crackles his chestnuts at a Christmas fire. Whatever note he takes, he
strikes it just and true, and awakens a corresponding chord in our own
bosoms, Gentlemen, I propose “The Memory of William Shakespeare.”

Glee--“Lightly tread, ‘tis hallowed ground.”

After the glee, Sir WALTER rose and begged to propose as a toast the
health of a lady, whose living merit is not a little honourable to
Scotland. The toast (said he) is also flattering to the national vanity
of a Scotchman, as the lady whom I intend to propose is a native of this
country. From the public her works have met with the most favourable
reception. One piece of hers, in particular, was often acted here of
late years, and gave pleasure of no mean kind to many brilliant and
fashionable audiences. In her private character she (he begged leave
to say) is as remarkable as in a public sense she is for her genius. In
short, he would in one word name--“Joanna Baillie.”

This health being drunk, Mr. THORNE was called on for a song, and sung,
with great taste and feeling, “The Anchor’s Weighed.”

W. MENZIES, Esq., Advocate, rose to propose the health of a gentleman
for many years connected at intervals with the dramatic art in Scotland.
Whether we look at the range of characters he performs, or at the
capacity which he evinces in executing those which he undertakes, he is
equally to be admired. In all his parts he is unrivalled. The individual
to whom he alluded is (said he) well known to the gentlemen present,
in the characters of Malvolio, Lord Ogleby, and the Green Man; and in
addition to his other qualities, he merits, for his perfection in these
characters, the grateful sense of this meeting. He would wish, in
the first place, to drink his health as an actor. But he was not less
estimable in domestic life, and as a private gentleman; and when he
announced him as one whom the chairman had honoured with his friendship,
he was sure that all present would cordially join him in drinking “The
Health of Mr. Terry.”

Mr. WILLIAM ALLAN, banker, said that he did not rise with the intention
of making a speech. He merely wished to contribute in a few words to
the mirth of the evening--an evening which certainly had not passed off
without some blunders. It had been understood--at least he had learnt
or supposed from the expressions of Mr. Pritchard--that it would be
sufficient to put a paper, with the name of the contributor, into the
box, and that the gentleman thus contributing would be called on for
the money next morning. He, for his part, had committed a blunder but
it might serve as a caution to those who may be present at the dinner
of next year. He had merely put in his name, written on a slip of paper,
without the money. But he would recommend that, as some of the gentlemen
might be in the same situation, the box should be again sent round, and
he was confident that they, as well as he, would redeem their error.

Sir WALTER SCOTT said that the meeting was somewhat in the situation
of Mrs. Anne Page, who had L300 and possibilities. We have already got,
said he, L280, but I should like, I confess, to have the L300. He would
gratify himself by proposing the health of an honourable person, the
Lord Chief Baron, whom England has sent to us, and connecting with it
that of his “yokefellow on the bench,” as Shakespeare says, Mr. Baron
Clerk--The Court of Exchequer.

Mr. Baron CLERK regretted the absence of his learned brother. None, he
was sure, could be more generous in his nature, or more ready to help a
Scottish purpose.

Sir WALTER SCOTT,--There is one who ought to be remembered on
this occasion. He is, indeed, well entitled to our grateful
recollection--one, in short, to whom the drama in this city owes much.
He succeeded, not without trouble, and perhaps at some considerable
sacrifice, in establishing a theatre. The younger part of the company
may not recollect the theatre to which I allude, but there are some who
with me may remember by name a place called Carrubber’s Close. There
Allan Ramsay established his little theatre. His own pastoral was not
fit for the stage, but it has its admirers in those who love the Doric
language in which it is written; and it is not without merits of a
very peculiar kind. But laying aside all considerations of his literary
merit, Allan was a good, jovial, honest fellow, who could crack a bottle
with the best. “The Memory of Allan Ramsay.”

Mr. MURRAY, on being requested, sung “‘Twas merry in the hall,” and at
the conclusion was greeted with repeated rounds of applause.

Mr. JONES.--One omission I conceive has been made. The cause of the Fund
has been ably advocated, but it is still susceptible, in my opinion, of
an additional charm--

  “Without the smile from partial beauty won,
   Oh, what were man?--a world without a sun!”

And there would not be a darker spot in poetry than would be the corner
in Shakespeare Square, if, like its fellow, the Register Office,
the Theatre were deserted by the ladies. They are, in fact, our most
attractive stars. “The Patronesses of the Theatre, the Ladies of the
City of Edinburgh.” This toast I ask leave to drink with all the honours
which conviviality can confer.

Mr. PATRICK ROBERTSON would be the last man willingly to introduce any
topic calculated to interrupt the harmony of the evening; yet he felt
himself treading upon ticklish ground when he approached the region of
the Nor’ Loch. He assured the company, however, that he was not about to
enter on the subject of the Improvement Bill. They all knew that if the
public were unanimous--if the consent of all parties were obtained--if
the rights and interests of everybody were therein attended to, saved,
reserved, respected, and excepted--if everybody agreed to it--and,
finally, a most essential point, if nobody opposed it--then, and in
that case, and provided also that due intimation were given, the bill
in question might pass--would pass--or might, could, would, or should
pass--all expenses being defrayed. (Laughter.) He was the advocate of
neither champion, and would neither avail himself of the absence of the
Right Hon. the Lord Provost, nor take advantage of the non-appearance
of his friend, Mr. Cockburn. (Laughter.) But in the midst of these
civic broils there had been elicited a ray of hope that, at some future
period, in Bereford Park, or some other place, if all parties were
consulted and satisfied, and if intimation were duly made at the kirk
doors of all the parishes in Scotland, in terms of the statute in that
behalf provided--the people of Edinburgh might by possibility get a
new Theatre. (Cheers and laughter.) But wherever the belligerent powers
might be pleased to set down this new Theatre, he was sure they all
hoped to meet the Old Company in it. He should therefore propose “Better
Accommodation to the Old Company in the new Theatre, site unknown.”--Mr.
Robertson’s speech was most humorously given, and he sat down amidst
loud cheers and laughter.

Sir WALTER SCOTT.--Wherever the new Theatre is built, I hope it will not
be large. There are two errors which we commonly commit--the one arising
from our pride, the other from our poverty. If there are twelve plans,
it is odds but the largest, without any regard to comfort, or an eye
to the probable expense, is adopted. There was the College projected on
this scale, and undertaken in the same manner, and who shall see the end
of it? It has been building all my life, and may probably last during
the lives of my children, and my children’s children. Let not the
same prophetic hymn be sung when we commence a new Theatre, which was
performed on the occasion of laying the foundation-stone of a certain
edifice, “Behold the endless work begun.” Playgoing folks should attend
somewhat to convenience. The new Theatre should, in the first place,
be such as may be finished in eighteen months or two years; and, in the
second place, it should be one in which we can hear our old friends with
comfort. It is better that a moderate-sized house should be crowded now
and then, than to have a large theatre with benches continually
empty, to the discouragement of the actors and the discomfort of the
spectators. (Applause.) He then commented in flattering terms on the
genius of Mackenzie and his private worth, and concluded by proposing
“The Health of Henry Mackenzie, Esq.”

Immediately afterwards he said:--Gentlemen, it is now wearing late, and
I shall request permission to retire. Like Partridge, I may say, “NON
SUM QUALIS ERAM.” At my time of day I can agree with Lord Ogilvie as to
his rheumatism, and say, “There’s a twinge.” I hope, therefore, you will
excuse me for leaving the chair.--The worthy Baronet then retired amidst
long, loud, and rapturous cheering.

Mr. PATRICK ROBERTSON was then called to the chair by common
acclamation.

Gentlemen, said Mr. Robertson, I take the liberty of asking you to fill
a bumper to the very brim. There is not one of us who will not
remember, while he lives, being present at this day’s festival, and
the declaration made this night by the gentleman who has just left the
chair. That declaration has rent the veil from the features of the Great
Unknown--a name which must now merge in the name of the Great Known.
It will be henceforth coupled with the name of SCOTT, which will become
familiar like a household word. We have heard the confession from his
own immortal lips--(cheering)--and we cannot dwell with too much or
too fervent praise on the merits of the greatest man whom Scotland has
produced.

After which several other toasts were given, and Mr. Robertson left
the room about half-past eleven. A few choice spirits, however, rallied
round Captain Broadhead of the 7th Hussars, who was called to the chair,
and the festivity was prolonged till an early hour on Saturday morning.

The band of the Theatre occupied the gallery, and that of the 7th
Hussars the end of the room, opposite the chair, whose performances were
greatly admired. It is but justice to Mr. Gibb to state that the dinner
was very handsome (though slowly served in), and the wines good. The
attention of the stewards was exemplary. Mr. Murray and Mr. Vandenhoff,
with great good taste, attended on Sir Walter Scott’s right and left,
and we know that he has expressed himself much gratified by their
anxious politeness and sedulity.


*****




CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE--INTRODUCTORY.



CHAPTER I. MR. CHRYSTAL CROFTANGRY’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

Sic itur ad astra.

“This is the path to heaven.” Such is the ancient motto attached to the
armorial bearings of the Canongate, and which is inscribed, with greater
or less propriety, upon all the public buildings, from the church to the
pillory, in the ancient quarter of Edinburgh which bears, or rather
once bore, the same relation to the Good Town that Westminster does
to London, being still possessed of the palace of the sovereign, as it
formerly was dignified by the residence of the principal nobility and
gentry. I may therefore, with some propriety, put the same motto at
the head of the literary undertaking by which I hope to illustrate the
hitherto undistinguished name of Chrystal Croftangry.

The public may desire to know something of an author who pitches at such
height his ambitious expectations. The gentle reader, therefore--for I
am much of Captain Bobadil’s humour, and could to no other extend myself
so far--the GENTLE reader, then, will be pleased to understand that I
am a a Scottish gentleman of the old school, with a fortune, temper,
and person, rather the worse for wear. I have known the world for these
forty years, having written myself man nearly since that period--and I
do not think it is much mended. But this is an opinion which I keep
to myself when I am among younger folk, for I recollect, in my youth,
quizzing the Sexagenarians who carried back their ideas of a perfect
state of society to the days of laced coats and triple ruffles, and
some of them to the blood and blows of the Forty-five. Therefore I am
cautious in exercising the right of censorship, which is supposed to
be acquired by men arrived at, or approaching, the mysterious period
of life, when the numbers of seven and nine multiplied into each other,
form what sages have termed the Grand Climacteric.

Of the earlier part of my life it is only necessary to say, that I swept
the boards of the Parliament-House with the skirts of my gown for the
usual number of years during which young Lairds were in my time expected
to keep term--got no fees--laughed, and made others laugh--drank claret
at Bayle’s, Fortune’s, and Walker’s--and ate oysters in the Covenant
Close.

Becoming my own master, I flung my gown at the bar-keeper, and commenced
gay man on my own account. In Edinburgh, I ran into all the expensive
society which the place then afforded. When I went to my house in the
shire of Lanark, I emulated to the utmost the expenses of men of large
fortune, and had my hunters, my first-rate pointers, my game-cocks, and
feeders. I can more easily forgive myself for these follies, than for
others of a still more blamable kind, so indifferently cloaked over,
that my poor mother thought herself obliged to leave my habitation,
and betake herself to a small inconvenient jointure-house, which she
occupied till her death. I think, however, I was not exclusively to
blame in this separation, and I believe my mother afterwards condemned
herself for being too hasty. Thank God, the adversity which destroyed
the means of continuing my dissipation, restored me to the affections of
my surviving parent.

My course of life could not last. I ran too fast to run long; and when
I would have checked my career, I was perhaps too near the brink of the
precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by my own folly, others came upon
me unawares. I put my estate out to nurse to a fat man of business,
who smothered the babe he should have brought back to me in health and
strength, and, in dispute with this honest gentleman, I found, like a
skilful general, that my position would be most judiciously assumed by
taking it up near the Abbey of Holyrood. [See Note 1.--Holyrood.] It was
then I first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work
will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those magnificent
wilds, through which the Kings of Scotland once chased the dark-brown
deer, but which were chiefly recommended to me in those days, by their
being inaccessible to those metaphysical persons, whom the law of the
neighbouring country terms John Doe and Richard Roe. In short, the
precincts of the palace are now best known as being a place of refuge at
any time from all pursuit for civil debt.

Dire was the strife betwixt my quondam doer and myself; during which my
motions were circumscribed, like those of some conjured demon, within
a circle, which, “beginning at the northern gate of the King’s
Park, thence running northways, is bounded on the left by the King’s
garden-wall, and the gutter, or kennel, in a line wherewith it crosses
the High Street to the Watergate, and passing through the sewer, is
bounded by the walls of the Tennis Court and Physic Gardens, etc. It
then follows the wall of the churchyard, joins the north west wall of St
Ann’s Yards, and going east to the clackmill-house, turns southward to
the turnstile in the King’s Park wall, and includes the whole King’s
Park within the Sanctuary.”

These limits, which I abridge from the accurate Maitland, once marked
the Girth, or Asylum, belonging to the Abbey of Holyrood, and which,
being still an appendage to the royal palace, has retained the privilege
of an asylum for civil debt. One would think the space sufficiently
extensive for a man to stretch his limbs in, as, besides a reasonable
proportion of level ground (considering that the scene lies in
Scotland), it includes within its precincts the mountain of Arthur’s
Seat and the rocks and pasture land called Salisbury Crags. But yet it
is inexpressible how, after a certain time had elapsed, I used to long
for Sunday, which permitted me to extend my walk without limitation.
During the other six days of the week I felt a sickness of heart, which,
but for the speedy approach of the hebdomadal day of liberty, I could
hardly have endured. I experienced the impatience of a mastiff who tugs
in vain to extend the limits which his chain permits.

Day after day I walked by the side of the kennel which divides the
Sanctuary from the unprivileged part of the Canongate; and though the
month was July, and the scene the old town of Edinburgh, I preferred
it to the fresh air and verdant turf which I might have enjoyed in
the King’s Park, or to the cool and solemn gloom of the portico which
surrounds the palace. To an indifferent person either side of the gutter
would have seemed much the same, the houses equally mean, the children
as ragged and dirty, the carmen as brutal--the whole forming the same
picture of low life in a deserted and impoverished quarter of a large
city. But to me the gutter or kennel was what the brook Kidron was to
Shimei: death was denounced against him should he cross it, doubtless
because it was known to his wisdom who pronounced the doom that, from
the time the crossing the stream was debarred, the devoted man’s desire
to transgress the precept would become irresistible, and he would be
sure to draw down on his head the penalty which he had already justly
incurred by cursing the anointed of God. For my part, all Elysium
seemed opening on the other side of the kennel; and I envied the little
blackguards, who, stopping the current with their little dam-dykes of
mud, had a right to stand on either side of the nasty puddle which best
pleased them. I was so childish as even to make an occasional excursion
across, were it only for a few yards, and felt the triumph of a
schoolboy, who, trespassing in an orchard, hurries back again with a
fluttering sensation of joy and terror, betwixt the pleasure of having
executed his purpose and the fear of being taken or discovered.

I have sometimes asked myself what I should have done in case of actual
imprisonment, since I could not bear without impatience a restriction
which is comparatively a mere trifle; but I really could never answer
the question to my own satisfaction. I have all my life hated those
treacherous expedients called MEZZO-TERMINI, and it is possible with
this disposition I might have endured more patiently an absolute
privation of liberty than the more modified restrictions to which my
residence in the Sanctuary at this period subjected me. If, however, the
feelings I then experienced were to increase in intensity according
to the difference between a jail and my actual condition, I must
have hanged myself, or pined to death--there could have been no other
alternative.

Amongst many companions who forgot and neglected me, of course, when my
difficulties seemed to be inextricable, I had one true friend; and
that friend was a barrister, who knew the laws of his country well,
and tracing them up to the spirit of equity and justice in which
they originate, had repeatedly prevented, by his benevolent and manly
exertions, the triumphs of selfish cunning over simplicity and folly.
He undertook my cause, with the assistance of a solicitor of a character
similar to his own. My quondam doer had ensconced himself chin-deep
among legal trenches, hornworks, and covered ways; but my two protectors
shelled him out of his defences, and I was at length a free man, at
liberty to go or stay wheresoever my mind listed.

I left my lodgings as hastily as if it had been a pest-house. I did not
even stop to receive some change that was due to me on settling with my
landlady, and I saw the poor woman stand at her door looking after my
precipitate flight, and shaking her head as she wrapped the silver which
she was counting for me in a separate piece of paper, apart from the
store in her own moleskin purse. An honest Highlandwoman was Janet
MacEvoy, and deserved a greater remuneration, had I possessed the power
of bestowing it. But my eagerness of delight was too extreme to pause
for explanation with Janet. On I pushed through the groups of children,
of whose sports I had been so often a lazy, lounging spectator. I sprung
over the gutter as if it had been the fatal Styx, and I a ghost, which,
eluding Pluto’s authority, was making its escape from Limbo lake. My
friend had difficulty to restrain me from running like a madman up the
street; and in spite of his kindness and hospitality, which soothed me
for a day or two, I was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of
a Leith smack, and, standing down the Firth with a fair wind, might snap
my fingers at the retreating outline of Arthur’s Seat, to the vicinity
of which I had been so long confined.

It is not my purpose to trace my future progress through life. I had
extricated myself, or rather had been freed by my friends, from the
brambles and thickets of the law; but, as befell the sheep in the
fable, a great part of my fleece was left behind me. Something remained,
however: I was in the season for exertion, and, as my good mother used
to say, there was always life for living folk. Stern necessity gave my
manhood that prudence which my youth was a stranger to. I faced danger,
I endured fatigue, I sought foreign climates, and proved that I belonged
to the nation which is proverbially patient of labour and prodigal of
life. Independence, like liberty to Virgil’s shepherd, came late, but
came at last, with no great affluence in its train, but bringing enough
to support a decent appearance for the rest of my life, and to induce
cousins to be civil, and gossips to say, “I wonder whom old Croft will
make his heir? He must have picked up something, and I should not be
surprised if it prove more than folk think of.”

My first impulse when I returned home was to rush to the house of my
benefactor, the only man who had in my distress interested himself in my
behalf. He was a snuff-taker, and it had been the pride of my heart to
save the IPSA CORPORA of the first score of guineas I could hoard,
and to have them converted into as tasteful a snuff-box as Rundell and
Bridge could devise. This I had thrust for security into the breast of
my waistcoat, while, impatient to transfer it to the person for whom it
was destined, I hastened to his house in Brown Square. When the front of
the house became visible a feeling of alarm checked me. I had been long
absent from Scotland; my friend was some years older than I; he might
have been called to the congregation of the just. I paused, and gazed
on the house as if I had hoped to form some conjecture from the outward
appearance concerning the state of the family within. I know not how
it was, but the lower windows being all closed, and no one stirring, my
sinister forebodings were rather strengthened. I regretted now that I
had not made inquiry before I left the inn where I alighted from the
mail-coach. But it was too late; so I hurried on, eager to know the best
or the worst which I could learn.

The brass-plate bearing my friend’s name and designation was still on
the door, and when it was opened the old domestic appeared a good deal
older, I thought, than he ought naturally to have looked, considering
the period of my absence. “Is Mr. Sommerville at home?” said I, pressing
forward.

“Yes, sir,” said John, placing himself in opposition to my entrance, “he
is at home, but--”

“But he is not in,” said I. “I remember your phrase of old, John. Come,
I will step into his room, and leave a line for him.”

John was obviously embarrassed by my familiarity. I was some one, he
saw, whom he ought to recollect. At the same time it was evident he
remembered nothing about me.

“Ay, sir, my master is in, and in his own room, but--”

I would not hear him out, but passed before him towards the well-known
apartment. A young lady came out of the room a little disturbed, as it
seemed, and said, “John, what is the matter?”

“A gentleman, Miss Nelly, that insists on seeing my master.”

“A very old and deeply-indebted friend,” said I, “that ventures to press
myself on my much-respected benefactor on my return from abroad.”

“Alas, sir,” replied she, “my uncle would be happy to see you, but--”

At this moment something was heard within the apartment like the falling
of a plate, or glass, and immediately after my friend’s voice called
angrily and eagerly for his niece. She entered the room hastily, and
so did I. But it was to see a spectacle, compared with which that of my
benefactor stretched on his bier would have been a happy one.

The easy-chair filled with cushions, the extended limbs swathed in
flannel, the wide wrapping-gown and nightcap, showed illness; but the
dimmed eye, once so replete with living fire--the blabber lip, whose
dilation and compression used to give such character to his animated
countenance--the stammering tongue, that once poured forth such floods
of masculine eloquence, and had often swayed the opinion of the sages
whom he addressed,--all these sad symptoms evinced that my friend was in
the melancholy condition of those in whom the principle of animal life
has unfortunately survived that of mental intelligence. He gazed a
moment at me, but then seemed insensible of my presence, and went
on--he, once the most courteous and well-bred--to babble unintelligible
but violent reproaches against his niece and servant, because he himself
had dropped a teacup in attempting to place it on a table at his elbow.
His eyes caught a momentary fire from his irritation; but he struggled
in vain for words to express himself adequately, as, looking from his
servant to his niece, and then to the table, he laboured to explain that
they had placed it (though it touched his chair) at too great a distance
from him.

The young person, who had naturally a resigned Madonna-like expression
of countenance, listened to his impatient chiding with the most humble
submission, checked the servant, whose less delicate feelings would have
entered on his justification, and gradually, by the sweet and soft tone
of her voice, soothed to rest the spirit of causeless irritation.

She then cast a look towards me, which expressed, “You see all that
remains of him whom you call friend.” It seemed also to say, “Your
longer presence here can only be distressing to us all.”

“Forgive me, young lady,” I said, as well as tears would permit; “I am a
person deeply obliged to your uncle. My name is Croftangry.”

“Lord! and that I should not hae minded ye, Maister Croftangry,” said
the servant. “Ay, I mind my master had muckle fash about your job. I hae
heard him order in fresh candles as midnight chappit, and till’t again.
Indeed, ye had aye his gude word, Mr. Croftangry, for a’ that folks said
about you.”

“Hold your tongue, John,” said the lady, somewhat angrily; and then
continued, addressing herself to me, “I am sure, sir, you must be sorry
to see my uncle in this state. I know you are his friend. I have heard
him mention your name, and wonder he never heard from you.” A new cut
this, and it went to my heart. But she continued, “I really do not know
if it is right that any should--If my uncle should know you, which I
scarce think possible, he would be much affected, and the doctor says
that any agitation--But here comes Dr. -- to give his own opinion.”

Dr. -- entered. I had left him a middle-aged man. He was now an elderly
one; but still the same benevolent Samaritan, who went about doing
good, and thought the blessings of the poor as good a recompense of his
professional skill as the gold of the rich.

He looked at me with surprise, but the young lady said a word of
introduction, and I, who was known to the doctor formerly, hastened to
complete it. He recollected me perfectly, and intimated that he was well
acquainted with the reasons I had for being deeply interested in the
fate of his patient. He gave me a very melancholy account of my poor
friend, drawing me for that purpose a little apart from the lady. “The
light of life,” he said, “was trembling in the socket; he scarcely
expected it would ever leap up even into a momentary flash, but more
was impossible.” He then stepped towards his patient, and put some
questions, to which the poor invalid, though he seemed to recognize the
friendly and familiar voice, answered only in a faltering and uncertain
manner.

The young lady, in her turn, had drawn back when the doctor approached
his patient. “You see how it is with him,” said the doctor, addressing
me. “I have heard our poor friend, in one of the most eloquent of his
pleadings, give a description of this very disease, which he compared
to the tortures inflicted by Mezentius when he chained the dead to the
living. The soul, he said, is imprisoned in its dungeon of flesh, and
though retaining its natural and unalienable properties, can no more
exert them than the captive enclosed within a prison-house can act as
a free agent. Alas! to see HIM, who could so well describe what this
malady was in others, a prey himself to its infirmities! I shall
never forget the solemn tone of expression with which he summed up the
incapacities of the paralytic--the deafened ear, the dimmed eye, the
crippled limbs--in the noble words of Juvenal,--

                                    “‘Omni
     Membrorum damno major, dementia, quae nec
     Nomina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici.’”

As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of intelligence seemed to
revive in the invalid’s eye--sunk again--again struggled, and he spoke
more intelligibly than before, and in the tone of one eager to say
something which he felt would escape him unless said instantly. “A
question of death-bed, a question of death-bed, doctor--a reduction EX
CAPITE LECTI--Withering against Wilibus--about the MORBUS SONTICUS. I
pleaded the cause for the pursuer--I, and--and--why, I shall forget my
own name--I, and--he that was the wittiest and the best-humoured man
living--”

The description enabled the doctor to fill up the blank, and the
patient joyfully repeated the name suggested. “Ay, ay,” he said, “just
he--Harry--poor Harry--” The light in his eye died away, and he sunk
back in his easy-chair.

“You have now seen more of our poor friend, Mr. Croftangry,” said the
physician, “than I dared venture to promise you; and now I must take my
professional authority on me, and ask you to retire. Miss Sommerville
will, I am sure, let you know if a moment should by any chance occur
when her uncle can see you.”

What could I do? I gave my card to the young lady, and taking my
offering from my bosom--“if my poor friend,” I said, with accents as
broken almost as his own, “should ask where this came from, name me, and
say from the most obliged and most grateful man alive. Say, the gold of
which it is composed was saved by grains at a time, and was hoarded with
as much avarice as ever was a miser’s. To bring it here I have come a
thousand miles; and now, alas, I find him thus!”

I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with a lingering step. The
eye of the invalid was caught by it, as that of a child by a glittering
toy, and with infantine impatience he faltered out inquiries of his
niece. With gentle mildness she repeated again and again who I was,
and why I came, etc. I was about to turn, and hasten from a scene so
painful, when the physician laid his hand on my sleeve. “Stop,” he said,
“there is a change.”

There was, indeed, and a marked one. A faint glow spread over his pallid
features--they seemed to gain the look of intelligence which belongs
to vitality--his eye once more kindled--his lip coloured--and drawing
himself up out of the listless posture he had hitherto maintained, he
rose without assistance. The doctor and the servant ran to give him
their support. He waved them aside, and they were contented to place
themselves in such a position behind as might ensure against accident,
should his newly-acquired strength decay as suddenly as it had revived.

“My dear Croftangry,” he said, in the tone of kindness of other days, “I
am glad to see you returned. You find me but poorly; but my little niece
here and Dr. -- are very kind. God bless you, my dear friend! We shall
not meet again till we meet in a better world.”

I pressed his extended hand to my lips--I pressed it to my bosom--I
would fain have flung myself on my knees; but the doctor, leaving the
patient to the young lady and the servant, who wheeled forward his
chair, and were replacing him in it, hurried me out of the room. “My
dear sir,” he said, “you ought to be satisfied; you have seen our poor
invalid more like his former self than he has been for months, or than
he may be perhaps again until all is over. The whole Faculty could
not have assured such an interval. I must see whether anything can be
derived from it to improve the general health. Pray, begone.” The last
argument hurried me from the spot, agitated by a crowd of feelings, all
of them painful.

When I had overcome the shock of this great disappointment, I renewed
gradually my acquaintance with one or two old companions, who, though
of infinitely less interest to my feelings than my unfortunate friend,
served to relieve the pressure of actual solitude, and who were not
perhaps the less open to my advances that I was a bachelor somewhat
stricken in years, newly arrived from foreign parts, and certainly
independent, if not wealthy.

I was considered as a tolerable subject of speculation by some, and
I could not be burdensome to any. I was therefore, according to the
ordinary rule of Edinburgh hospitality, a welcome guest in several
respectable families. But I found no one who could replace the loss I
had sustained in my best friend and benefactor. I wanted something more
than mere companionship could give me, and where was I to look for it?
Among the scattered remnants of those that had been my gay friends of
yore? Alas!

  “Many a lad I loved was dead,
   And many a lass grown old.”

Besides, all community of ties between us had ceased to exist, and
such of former friends as were still in the world held their life in a
different tenor from what I did.

Some had become misers, and were as eager in saving sixpence as ever
they had been in spending a guinea. Some had turned agriculturists;
their talk was of oxen, and they were only fit companions for graziers.
Some stuck to cards, and though no longer deep gamblers, rather played
small game than sat out. This I particularly despised. The strong
impulse of gaming, alas! I had felt in my time. It is as intense as it
is criminal; but it produces excitation and interest, and I can conceive
how it should become a passion with strong and powerful minds. But to
dribble away life in exchanging bits of painted pasteboard round a green
table for the piddling concern of a few shillings, can only be excused
in folly or superannuation. It is like riding on a rocking-horse, where
your utmost exertion never carries you a foot forward; it is a kind of
mental treadmill, where you are perpetually climbing, but can never rise
an inch. From these hints, my readers will perceive I am incapacitated
for one of the pleasures of old age, which, though not mentioned by
Cicero, is not the least frequent resource in the present day--the
club-room, and the snug hand at whist.

To return to my old companions. Some frequented public assemblies, like
the ghost of Beau Nash, or any other beau of half a century back, thrust
aside by tittering youth, and pitied by those of their own age. In fine,
some went into devotion, as the French term it, and others, I fear, went
to the devil; a few found resources in science and letters; one or two
turned philosophers in a small way, peeped into microscopes, and became
familiar with the fashionable experiments of the day; some took to
reading, and I was one of them.

Some grains of repulsion towards the society around me--some painful
recollections of early faults and follies--some touch of displeasure
with living mankind--inclined me rather to a study of antiquities, and
particularly those of my own country. The reader, if I can prevail on
myself to continue the present work, will probably be able to judge in
the course of it whether I have made any useful progress in the study of
the olden times.

I owed this turn of study, in part, to the conversation of my kind man
of business, Mr. Fairscribe, whom I mentioned as having seconded the
efforts of my invaluable friend in bringing the cause on which my
liberty and the remnant of my property depended to a favourable
decision. He had given me a most kind reception on my return. He was
too much engaged in his profession for me to intrude on him often, and
perhaps his mind was too much trammelled with its details to permit his
being willingly withdrawn from them. In short, he was not a person of
my poor friend Sommerville’s expanded spirit, and rather a lawyer of the
ordinary class of formalists; but a most able and excellent man. When
my estate was sold! he retained some of the older title-deeds, arguing,
from his own feelings, that they would be of more consequence to the
heir of the old family than to the new purchaser. And when I returned
to Edinburgh, and found him still in the exercise of the profession to
which he was an honour, he sent to my lodgings the old family Bible,
which lay always on my father’s table, two or three other mouldy
volumes, and a couple of sheepskin bags full of parchments and papers,
whose appearance was by no means inviting.

The next time I shared Mr. Fairscribe’s hospitable dinner, I failed not
to return him due thanks for his kindness, which acknowledgment, indeed,
I proportioned rather to the idea which I knew he entertained of the
value of such things, than to the interest with which I myself
regarded them. But the conversation turning on my family, who were old
proprietors in the Upper Ward of Clydesdale, gradually excited some
interest in my mind and when I retired to my solitary parlour, the first
thing I did was to look for a pedigree or sort of history of the family
or House of Croftangry, once of that Ilk, latterly of Glentanner. The
discoveries which I made shall enrich the next chapter.



CHAPTER II. IN WHICH MR. CROFTANGRY CONTINUES HIS STORY.

  “What’s property, dear Swift?  I see it alter
   From you to me, from me to Peter Walter.”

“Croftangry--Croftandrew--Croftanridge--Croftandgrey for sa mony wise
hath the name been spellit--is weel known to be ane house of grit
antiquity; and it is said that King Milcolumb, or Malcolm, being the
first of our Scottish princes quha removit across the Firth of Forth,
did reside and occupy ane palace at Edinburgh, and had there ane
valziant man, who did him man-service by keeping the croft, or
corn-land, which was tilled for the convenience of the King’s household,
and was thence callit Croft-an-ri, that is to say, the King his croft;
quhilk place, though now coverit with biggings, is to this day called
Croftangry, and lyeth near to the royal palace. And whereas that some
of those who bear this auld and honourable name may take scorn that it
ariseth from the tilling of the ground, quhilk men account a slavish
occupation, yet we ought to honour the pleugh and spade, seeing we all
derive our being from our father Adam, whose lot it became to cultivate
the earth, in respect of his fall and transgression.

“Also we have witness, as weel in holy writt as in profane history, of
the honour in quhilk husbandrie was held of old, and how prophets have
been taken from the pleugh, and great captains raised up to defend their
ain countries, sic as Cincinnatus, and the like, who fought not the
common enemy with the less valiancy that their alms had been exercised
in halding the stilts of the pleugh, and their bellicose skill in
driving of yauds and owsen.

“Likewise there are sindry honorable families, quhilk are now of
our native Scottish nobility, and have clombe higher up the brae of
preferment than what this house of Croftangry hath done, quhilk shame
not to carry in their warlike shield and insignia of dignity the tools
and implements the quhilk their first forefathers exercised in labouring
the croft-rig, or, as the poet Virgilius calleth it eloquently, in
subduing the soil, and no doubt this ancient house of Croftangry, while
it continued to be called of that Ilk, produced many worshipful and
famous patriots, of quhom I now praetermit the names; it being my
purpose, if God shall spare me life for sic ane pious officium, or
duty, to resume the first part of my narrative touching the house of
Croftangry, when I can set down at length the evidents and historical
witness anent the facts which I shall allege, seeing that words, when
they are unsupported by proofs, are like seed sown on the naked rocks,
or like an house biggit on the flitting and faithless sands.”

Here I stopped to draw breath; for the style of my grandsire, the
inditer of this goodly matter, was rather lengthy, as our American
friends say. Indeed, I reserve the rest of the piece until I can obtain
admission to the Bannatine Club, [This Club, of which the Author of
Waverley has the honour to be President, was instituted in February
1823, for the purpose of printing and publishing works illustrative of
the history, literature, and antiquities of Scotland. It continues to
prosper, and has already rescued from oblivion many curious materials
of Scottish history.] when I propose to throw off an edition, limited
according to the rules of that erudite Society, with a facsimile of
the manuscript, emblazonry of the family arms surrounded by their
quartering, and a handsome disclamation of family pride, with HAEC NOS
NOVIMUS ESSE NIHIL, or VIX EA NOSTRA VOCO.

In the meantime, to speak truth, I cannot but suspect that, though my
worthy ancestor puffed vigorously to swell up the dignity of his family,
we had never, in fact, risen above the rank of middling proprietors. The
estate of Glentanner came to us by the intermarriage of my ancestor with
Tib Sommeril, termed by the southrons Sommerville, a daughter of that
noble house, but, I fear, on what my great-grandsire calls “the wrong
side of the blanket.” [The ancient Norman family of the Sommervilles
came into this island with William the Conqueror, and established one
branch in Gloucestershire, another in Scotland. After the lapse of seven
hundred years, the remaining possessions of these two branches were
united in the person of the late Lord Sommerville, on the death of his
English kinsman, the well-known author of “The Chase.”] Her husband,
Gilbert, was killed fighting, as the INQUISITIO POST MORTEM has it, “SUB
VEXILLO REGIS, APUD PRAELIUM JUXTA BRANXTON, LIE FLODDDEN-FIELD.”

We had our share in other national misfortunes--were forfeited, like
Sir John Colville of the Dale, for following our betters to the field
of Langside; and in the contentious times of the last Stewarts we were
severely fined for harbouring and resetting intercommuned ministers, and
narrowly escaped giving a martyr to the Calendar of the Covenant, in the
person of the father of our family historian. He “took the sheaf from
the mare,” however, as the MS. expresses it, and agreed to accept of the
terms of pardon offered by Government, and sign the bond in evidence he
would give no further ground of offence. My grandsire glosses over his
father’s backsliding as smoothly as he can, and comforts himself with
ascribing his want of resolution to his unwillingness to wreck the
ancient name and family, and to permit his lands and lineage to fall
under a doom of forfeiture.

“And indeed,” said the venerable compiler, “as, praised be God, we
seldom meet in Scotland with these belly-gods and voluptuaries, whilk
are unnatural enough to devour their patrimony bequeathed to them by
their forbears in chambering and wantonness, so that they come, with the
prodigal son, to the husks and the swine-trough; and as I have the less
to dreid the existence of such unnatural Neroes in mine own family to
devour the substance of their own house like brute beasts out of mere
gluttonie and Epicurishnesse, so I need only warn mine descendants
against over-hastily meddling with the mutations in state and in
religion, which have been near-hand to the bringing this poor house of
Croftangry to perdition, as we have shown more than once. And albeit
I would not that my successors sat still altogether when called on by
their duty to Kirk and King, yet I would have them wait till stronger
and walthier men than themselves were up, so that either they may have
the better chance of getting through the day, or, failing of that,
the conquering party having some fatter quarry to live upon, may, like
gorged hawks, spare the smaller game.”

There was something in this conclusion which at first reading piqued
me extremely, and I was so unnatural as to curse the whole concern, as
poor, bald, pitiful trash, in which a silly old man was saying a great
deal about nothing at all. Nay, my first impression was to thrust it
into the fire, the rather that it reminded me, in no very flattering
manner, of the loss of the family property, to which the compiler of the
history was so much attached, in the very manner which he most severely
reprobated. It even seemed to my aggrieved feelings that his unprescient
gaze on futurity, in which he could not anticipate the folly of one of
his descendants, who should throw away the whole inheritance in a few
years of idle expense and folly, was meant as a personal incivility to
myself, though written fifty or sixty years before I was born.

A little reflection made me ashamed or this feeling of impatience,
and as I looked at the even, concise, yet tremulous hand in which the
manuscript was written, I could not help thinking, according to an
opinion I have heard seriously maintained, that something of a man’s
character may be conjectured from his handwriting. That neat but
crowded and constrained small-hand argued a man of a good conscience,
well-regulated passions, and, to use his own phrase, an upright walk in
life; but it also indicated narrowness of spirit, inveterate prejudice,
and hinted at some degree of intolerance, which, though not natural to
the disposition, had arisen out of a limited education. The passages
from Scripture and the classics, rather profusely than happily
introduced, and written in a half-text character to mark their
importance, illustrated that peculiar sort of pedantry which always
considers the argument as gained if secured by a quotation. Then the
flourished capital letters, which ornamented the commencement of each
paragraph, and the names of his family and of his ancestors whenever
these occurred in the page, do they not express forcibly the pride and
sense of importance with which the author undertook and accomplished
his task? I persuaded myself the whole was so complete a portrait of the
man, that it would not have been a more undutiful act to have defaced
his picture, or even to have disturbed his bones in his coffin, than to
destroy his manuscript. I thought, for a moment, of presenting it to
Mr. Fairscribe; but that confounded passage about the prodigal and
swine-trough--I settled at last it was as well to lock it up in my own
bureau, with the intention to look at it no more.

But I do not know how it was, that the subject began to sit nearer my
heart than I was aware of, and I found myself repeatedly engaged in
reading descriptions of farms which were no longer mine, and boundaries
which marked the property of others. A love of the NATALE SOLUM, if
Swift be right in translating these words, “family estate,” began to
awaken in my bosom--the recollections of my own youth adding little to
it, save what was connected with field-sports. A career of pleasure is
unfavourable for acquiring a taste for natural beauty, and still more so
for forming associations of a sentimental kind, connecting us with the
inanimate objects around us.

I had thought little about my estate while I possessed and was wasting
it, unless as affording the rude materials out of which a certain
inferior race of creatures, called tenants, were bound to produce (in a
greater quantity than they actually did) a certain return called rent,
which was destined to supply my expenses. This was my general view of
the matter. Of particular places, I recollected that Garval Hill was
a famous piece of rough upland pasture for rearing young colts, and
teaching them to throw their feet; that Minion Burn had the finest
yellow trout in the country; that Seggy-cleugh was unequalled for
woodcocks; that Bengibbert Moors afforded excellent moorfowl-shooting;
and that the clear, bubbling fountain called the Harper’s Well was
the best recipe in the world on the morning after a HARD-GO with my
neighbour fox-hunters. Still, these ideas recalled, by degrees, pictures
of which I had since learned to appreciate the merit--scenes of silent
loneliness, where extensive moors, undulating into wild hills, were only
disturbed by the whistle of the plover or the crow of the heathcock;
wild ravines creeping up into mountains, filled with natural wood, and
which, when traced downwards along the path formed by shepherds and
nutters, were found gradually to enlarge and deepen, as each formed a
channel to its own brook, sometimes bordered by steep banks of earth,
often with the more romantic boundary of naked rocks or cliffs crested
with oak, mountain ash, and hazel--all gratifying the eye the more that
the scenery was, from the bare nature of the country around, totally
unexpected.

I had recollections, too, of fair and fertile holms, or level plains,
extending between the wooded banks and the bold stream of the Clyde,
which, coloured like pure amber, or rather having the hue of the
pebbles called Cairngorm, rushes over sheets of rock and beds of gravel,
inspiring a species of awe from the few and faithless fords which it
presents, and the frequency of fatal accidents, now diminished by the
number of bridges. These alluvial holms were frequently bordered by
triple and quadruple rows of large trees, which gracefully marked their
boundary, and dipped their long arms into the foaming stream of the
river. Other places I remembered, which had been described by the
old huntsman as the lodge of tremendous wild-cats, or the spot where
tradition stated the mighty stag to have been brought to bay, or where
heroes, whose might was now as much forgotten, were said to have been
slain by surprise, or in battle.

It is not to be supposed that these finished landscapes became visible
before the eyes of my imagination, as the scenery of the stage is
disclosed by the rising of the curtain. I have said that I had looked
upon the country around me, during the hurried and dissipated period
of my life, with the eyes, indeed, of my body, but without those of my
understanding. It was piece by piece, as a child picks out its lesson,
that I began to recollect the beauties of nature which had once
surrounded me in the home of my forefathers. A natural taste for them
must have lurked at the bottom of my heart, which awakened when I was
in foreign countries, and becoming by degrees a favourite passion,
gradually turned its eyes inwards, and ransacked the neglected stores
which my memory had involuntarily recorded, and, when excited, exerted
herself to collect and to complete.

I began now to regret more bitterly than ever the having fooled away
my family property, the care and improvement of which I saw might have
afforded an agreeable employment for my leisure, which only went to
brood on past misfortunes, and increase useless repining. “Had but
a single farm been reserved, however small,” said I one day to Mr.
Fairscribe, “I should have had a place I could call my home, and
something that I could call business.”

“It might have been managed,” answered Fairscribe; “and for my part, I
inclined to keep the mansion house, mains, and some of the old family
acres together; but both Mr. -- and you were of opinion that the money
would be more useful.”

“True, true, my good friend,” said I; “I was a fool then, and did not
think I could incline to be Glentanner with L200 or L300 a year, instead
of Glentanner with as many thousands. I was then a haughty, pettish,
ignorant, dissipated, broken-down Scottish laird; and thinking my
imaginary consequence altogether ruined, I cared not how soon, or how
absolutely, I was rid of everything that recalled it to my own memory,
or that of others.”

“And now it is like you have changed your mind?” said Fairscribe. “Well,
fortune is apt to circumduce the term upon us; but I think she may allow
you to revise your condescendence.”

“How do you mean, my good friend?”

“Nay,” said Fairscribe, “there is ill luck in averring till one is sure
of his facts. I will look back on a file of newspapers, and to-morrow
you shall hear from me. Come, help yourself--I have seen you fill your
glass higher.”

“And shall see it again,” said I, pouring out what remained of our
bottle of claret; “the wine is capital, and so shall our toast be--‘To
your fireside, my good friend.’ And now we shall go beg a Scots song
without foreign graces from my little siren, Miss Katie.”

The next day, accordingly, I received a parcel from Mr. Fairscribe with
a newspaper enclosed, among the advertisements of which one was marked
with a cross as requiring my attention. I read, to my surprise:--

  “DESIRABLE ESTATE FOR SALE.

“By order of the Lords of Council and Session, will be exposed to sale
in the New Sessions House of Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 25th November,
18--, all and whole the lands and barony of Glentanner, now called
Castle Treddles, lying in the Middle Ward of Clydesdale, and shire of
Lanark, with the teinds, parsonage and vicarage, fishings in the Clyde,
woods, mosses, moors, and pasturages,” etc., etc.

The advertisement went on to set forth the advantages of the soil,
situation, natural beauties, and capabilities of improvement, not
forgetting its being a freehold estate, with the particular polypus
capacity of being sliced up into two, three, or, with a little
assistance, four freehold qualifications, and a hint that the county
was likely to be eagerly contested between two great families. The upset
price at which “the said lands and barony and others” were to be exposed
was thirty years’ purchase of the proven rental, which was about a
fourth more than the property had fetched at the last sale. This, which
was mentioned, I suppose, to show the improvable character of the land,
would have given another some pain. But let me speak truth of myself in
good as in evil--it pained not me. I was only angry that Fairscribe,
who knew something generally of the extent of my funds, should have
tantalized me by sending me information that my family property was in
the market, since he must have known that the price was far out of my
reach.

But a letter dropped from the parcel on the floor, which attracted my
eye, and explained the riddle. A client of Mr. Fairscribe’s, a moneyed
man, thought of buying Glentanner, merely as an investment of money--it
was even unlikely he would ever see it; and so the price of the whole
being some thousand pounds beyond what cash he had on hand, this
accommodating Dives would gladly take a partner in the sale for any
detached farm, and would make no objection to its including the most
desirable part of the estate in point of beauty, provided the price was
made adequate. Mr. Fairscribe would take care I was not imposed on in
the matter, and said in his card he believed, if I really wished to make
such a purchase, I had better go out and look at the premises, advising
me, at the same time, to keep a strict incognito--an advice somewhat
superfluous, since I am naturally of a retired and reserved disposition.



CHAPTER III. MR. CROFTANGRY, INTER ALIA, REVISITS GLENTANNER.

  Then sing of stage-coaches,
  And fear no reproaches
    For riding in one;
  But daily be jogging,
  Whilst, whistling and flogging,
  Whilst, whistling and flogging,
  The coachman drives on.          FARQUHAR.

Disguised in a grey surtout which had seen service, a white castor on
my head, and a stout Indian cane in my hand, the next week saw me on the
top of a mail-coach driving to the westward.

I like mail-coaches, and I hate them. I like them for my convenience;
but I detest them for setting the whole world a-gadding, instead of
sitting quietly still minding their own business, and preserving the
stamp of originality of character which nature or education may have
impressed on them. Off they go, jingling against each other in the
rattling vehicle till they have no more variety of stamp in them than so
many smooth shillings--the same even in their Welsh wigs and greatcoats,
each without more individuality than belongs to a partner of the
company, as the waiter calls them, of the North Coach.

Worthy Mr. Piper, best of contractors who ever furnished four frampal
jades for public use, I bless you when I set out on a journey myself;
the neat coaches under your contract render the intercourse, from
Johnnie Groat’s House to Ladykirk and Cornhill Bridge, safe, pleasant,
and cheap. But, Mr. Piper, you who are a shrewd arithmetician, did it
never occur to you to calculate how many fools’ heads, which might have
produced an idea or two in the year, if suffered to remain in quiet,
get effectually addled by jolting to and fro in these flying chariots
of yours; how many decent countrymen become conceited bumpkins after a
cattle-show dinner in the capital, which they could not have attended
save for your means; how many decent country parsons return critics and
spouters, by way of importing the newest taste from Edinburgh? And how
will your conscience answer one day for carrying so many bonny lasses to
barter modesty for conceit and levity at the metropolitan Vanity Fair?

Consider, too, the low rate to which you reduce human intellect. I do
not believe your habitual customers have their ideas more enlarged
than one of your coach-horses. They KNOWS the road, like the English
postilion, and they know nothing besides. They date, like the carriers
at Gadshill, from the death of Robin Ostler; [See Act II. Scene 1 of the
First Part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.] the succession of guards forms
a dynasty in their eyes; coachmen are their ministers of state; and an
upset is to them a greater incident than a change of administration.
Their only point of interest on the road is to save the time, and see
whether the coach keeps the hour. This is surely a miserable degradation
of human intellect. Take my advice, my good sir, and disinterestedly
contrive that once or twice a quarter your most dexterous whip shall
overturn a coachful of these superfluous travellers, IN TERROREM
to those who, as Horace says, “delight in the dust raised by your
chariots.”

Your current and customary mail-coach passenger, too, gets abominably
selfish, schemes successfully for the best seat, the freshest egg, the
right cut of the sirloin. The mode of travelling is death to all the
courtesies and kindnesses of life, and goes a great way to demoralize
the character, and cause it to retrograde to barbarism. You allow us
excellent dinners, but only twenty minutes to eat them. And what is the
consequence? Bashful beauty sits on the one side of us, timid childhood
on the other; respectable, yet somewhat feeble, old age is placed on our
front; and all require those acts of politeness which ought to put every
degree upon a level at the convivial board. But have we time--we the
strong and active of the party--to perform the duties of the table to
the more retired and bashful, to whom these little attentions are due?
The lady should be pressed to her chicken, the old man helped to his
favourite and tender slice, the child to his tart. But not a fraction of
a minute have we to bestow on any other person than ourselves; and the
PRUT-PRUT--TUT-TUT of the guard’s discordant note summons us to the
coach, the weaker party having gone without their dinner, and the
able-bodied and active threatened with indigestion, from having
swallowed victuals like a Lei’stershire clown bolting bacon.

On the memorable occasion I am speaking of I lost my breakfast, sheerly
from obeying the commands of a respectable-looking old lady, who once
required me to ring the bell, and another time to help the tea-kettle.
I have some reason to think she was literally an OLD-STAGER, who laughed
in her sleeve at my complaisance; so that I have sworn in my secret soul
revenge upon her sex, and all such errant damsels of whatever age and
degree whom I may encounter in my travels. I mean all this without the
least ill-will to my friend the contractor, who, I think, has approached
as near as any one is like to do towards accomplishing the modest wish
cf the Amatus and Amata of the Peri Bathous,--

  “Ye gods, annihilate but time and space,
   And make two lovers happy.”

I intend to give Mr. P. his full revenge when I come to discuss the more
recent enormity of steamboats; meanwhile, I shall only say of both these
modes of conveyance, that--

  “There is no living with them or without them.”

I am, perhaps, more critical on the--mail-coach on this particular
occasion, that I did not meet all the respect from the worshipful
company in his Majesty’s carriage that I think I was entitled to. I must
say it for myself that I bear, in my own opinion at least, not a vulgar
point about me. My face has seen service, but there is still a good set
of teeth, an aquiline nose, and a quick, grey eye, set a little too deep
under the eyebrow; and a cue of the kind once called military may serve
to show that my civil occupations have been sometimes mixed with those
of war. Nevertheless, two idle young fellows in the vehicle, or rather
on the top of it, were so much amused with the deliberation which I used
in ascending to the same place of eminence, that I thought I should have
been obliged to pull them up a little. And I was in no good-humour at
an unsuppressed laugh following my descent when set down at the angle,
where a cross road, striking off from the main one, led me towards
Glentanner, from which I was still nearly five miles distant.

It was an old-fashioned road, which, preferring ascents to sloughs, was
led in a straight line over height and hollow, through moor and dale.
Every object around me; as I passed them in succession, reminded me of
old days, and at the same time formed the strongest contrast with them
possible. Unattended, on foot, with a small bundle in my hand, deemed
scarce sufficient good company for the two shabby-genteels with whom I
had been lately perched on the top of a mail-coach, I did not seem to be
the same person with the young prodigal, who lived with the noblest and
gayest in the land, and who, thirty years before, would, in the same
country, have, been on the back of a horse that had been victor for a
plate, or smoking aloof in his travelling chaise-and-four. My sentiments
were not less changed than my condition. I could quite well remember
that my ruling sensation in the days of heady youth was a mere
schoolboy’s eagerness to get farthest forward in the race in which I had
engaged; to drink as many bottles as --; to be thought as good a judge
of a horse as --; to have the knowing cut of --‘s jacket. These were thy
gods, O Israel!

Now I was a mere looker-on; seldom an unmoved, and sometimes an angry
spectator, but still a spectator only, of the pursuits of mankind.
I felt how little my opinion was valued by those engaged in the busy
turmoil, yet I exercised it with the profusion of an old lawyer retired
from his profession, who thrusts himself into his neighbour’s affairs,
and gives advice where it is not wanted, merely under pretence of loving
the crack of the whip.

I came amid these reflections to the brow of a hill, from which I
expected to see Glentanner, a modest-looking yet comfortable house, its
walls covered with the most productive fruit-trees in that part of the
country, and screened from the most stormy quarters of the horizon by a
deep and ancient wood, which overhung the neighbouring hill. The house
was gone; a great part of the wood was felled; and instead of the
gentlemanlike mansion, shrouded and embosomed among its old hereditary
trees, stood Castle Treddles, a huge lumping four-square pile of
freestone, as bare as my nail, except for a paltry edging of decayed and
lingering exotics, with an impoverished lawn stretched before it, which,
instead of boasting deep green tapestry, enamelled with daisies and with
crowsfoot and cowslips, showed an extent of nakedness, raked, indeed,
and levelled, but where the sown grasses had failed with drought, and
the earth, retaining its natural complexion, seemed nearly as brown and
bare as when it was newly dug up.

The house was a large fabric, which pretended to its name of Castle only
from the front windows being finished in acute Gothic arches (being,
by the way, the very reverse of the castellated style), and each angle
graced with a turret about the size of a pepper-box. In every other
respect it resembled a large town-house, which, like a fat burgess, had
taken a walk to the country on a holiday, and climbed to the top of all
eminence to look around it. The bright red colour of the freestone, the
size of the building, the formality of its shape, and awkwardness of its
position, harmonized as ill with the sweeping Clyde in front, and the
bubbling brook which danced down on the right, as the fat civic form,
with bushy wig, gold-headed cane, maroon-coloured coat, and mottled silk
stockings, would have accorded with the wild and magnificent scenery of
Corehouse Linn.

I went up to the house. It was in that state of desertion which is
perhaps the most unpleasant to look on, for the place was going to decay
without having been inhabited. There were about the mansion, though
deserted, none of the slow mouldering touches of time, which communicate
to buildings, as to the human frame, a sort of reverence, while
depriving them of beauty and of strength. The disconcerted schemes of
the Laird of Castle Treddles had resembled fruit that becomes decayed
without ever having ripened. Some windows broken, others patched, others
blocked up with deals, gave a disconsolate air to all around, and seemed
to say, “There Vanity had purposed to fix her seat, but was anticipated
by Poverty.”

To the inside, after many a vain summons, I was at length admitted by
an old labourer. The house contained every contrivance for luxury and
accommodation. The kitchens were a model; and there were hot closets on
the office staircase, that the dishes might not cool, as our Scottish
phrase goes, between the kitchen and the hall. But instead of the genial
smell of good cheer, these temples of Comus emitted the damp odour of
sepulchral vaults, and the large cabinets of cast-iron looked like the
cages of some feudal Bastille. The eating room and drawing-room, with an
interior boudoir, were magnificent apartments, the ceiling was fretted
and adorned with stucco-work, which already was broken in many places,
and looked in others damp and mouldering; the wood panelling was shrunk
and warped, and cracked; the doors, which had not been hung for more
than two years, were, nevertheless, already swinging loose from their
hinges. Desolation, in short, was where enjoyment had never been; and
the want of all the usual means to preserve was fast performing the work
of decay.

The story was a common one, and told in a few words. Mr. Treddles,
senior, who bought the estate, was a cautious, money-making person. His
son, still embarked in commercial speculations, desired at the same time
to enjoy his opulence and to increase it. He incurred great expenses,
amongst which this edifice was to benumbered. To support these he
speculated boldly, and unfortunately; and thus the whole history is
told, which may serve for more places than Glentanner.

Strange and various feelings ran through my bosom as I loitered in these
deserted apartments, scarce hearing what my guide said to me about the
size and destination of each room. The first sentiment, I am ashamed to
say, was one of gratified spite. My patrician pride was pleased that the
mechanic, who had not thought the house of the Croftangrys sufficiently
good for him, had now experienced a fall in his turn. My next thought
was as mean, though not so malicious. “I have had the better of this
fellow,” thought I. “If I lost the estate, I at least spent the price;
and Mr. Treddles has lost his among paltry commercial engagements.”

“Wretch!” said the secret voice within, “darest thou exult in thy shame?
Recollect how thy youth and fortune was wasted in those years, and
triumph not in the enjoyment of an existence which levelled thee with
the beasts that perish. Bethink thee how this poor man’s vanity gave
at least bread to the labourer, peasant, and citizen; and his profuse
expenditure, like water spilt on the ground, refreshed the lowly herbs
and plants where it fell. But thou! Whom hast thou enriched during
thy career of extravagance, save those brokers of the devil--vintners,
panders, gamblers, and horse-jockeys?” The anguish produced by this
self-reproof was so strong that I put my hand suddenly to my forehead,
and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim to my attendant, in apology
for the action, and a slight groan with which it was accompanied.

I then made an effort to turn my thoughts into a more philosophical
current, and muttered half aloud, as a charm to lull any more painful
thoughts to rest,--

  “NUNC AGER UMBRENI SUB NOMINE, NUPER OFELLI
   DICTUS ERIT NULLI PROPRIUS; SED CEDIT IN USUM
   NUNC MIHI, NUNC ALII.   QUOCIRCA VIVITE FORTES,
   FORTIAQUE ADVERSIS OPPONITE PECTORA REBUS.”

[Horace Sat.II Lib.2. The meaning will be best conveyed to the English
reader in Pope’s imitation:--

  “What’s property, dear Swift?  You see it alter
   From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
   Or in a mortgage prove a lawyer’s share;
   Or in a jointure vanish from the heir.

  *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****

  “Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
   Become the portion of a booby lord;
   And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham’s delight,
   Slides to a scrivener and city knight.
   Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
   Let us be fix’d, and our own masters still.”]

In my anxiety to fix the philosophical precept in my mind, I recited the
last line aloud, which, joined to my previous agitation, I afterwards
found became the cause of a report that a mad schoolmaster had come from
Edinburgh, with the idea in his head of buying Castle Treddles.

As I saw my companion was desirous of getting rid of me, I asked where
I was to find the person in whose hands were left the map of the estate,
and other particulars connected with the sale. The agent who had this in
possession, I was told, lived at the town of --, which I was informed,
and indeed knew well, was distant five miles and a bittock, which may
pass in a country where they are less lavish of their land for two or
three more. Being somewhat afraid of the fatigue of walking so far,
I inquired if a horse or any sort of carriage was to be had, and was
answered in the negative.

“But,” said my cicerone, “you may halt a blink till next morning at the
Treddles Arms, a very decent house, scarce a mile off.”

“A new house, I suppose?” replied I.

“No, it’s a new public, but it’s an auld house; it was aye the Leddy’s
jointure-house in the Croftangry folk’s time. But Mr. Treddles has
fitted it up for the convenience of the country, poor man, he was a
public-spirited man when he had the means.”

“Duntarkin a public-house!” I exclaimed.

“Ay!” said the fellow, surprised at my naming the place by its former
title; “ye’ll hae been in this country before, I’m thinking?”

“Long since,” I replied. “And there is good accommodation at the
what-d’ye-call-’em arms, and a civil landlord?” This I said by way of
saying something, for the man stared very hard at me.

“Very decent accommodation. Ye’ll no be for fashing wi’ wine, I’m
thinking; and there’s walth o’ porter, ale, and a drap gude whisky”
 (in an undertone)--“Fairntosh--if you call get on the lee-side of the
gudewife--for there is nae gudeman. They ca’ her Christie Steele.”

I almost started at the sound. Christie Steele! Christie Steele was
my mother’s body-servant, her very right hand, and, between ourselves,
something like a viceroy over her. I recollected her perfectly; and
though she had in former times been no favourite of mine, her name now
sounded in my ear like that of a friend, and was the first word I had
heard somewhat in unison with the associations around me. I sallied from
Castle Treddles, determined to make the best of my way to Duntarkin,
and my cicerone hung by me for a little way, giving loose to his love
of talking--an opportunity which, situated as he was, the seneschal of a
deserted castle, was not likely to occur frequently.

“Some folk think,” said my companion, “that Mr. Treddles might as weel
have put my wife as Christie Steele into the Treddles Arms; for Christie
had been aye in service, and never in the public line, and so it’s like
she is ganging back in the world, as I hear. Now, my wife had keepit a
victualling office.”

“That would have been an advantage, certainly,” I replied.

“But I am no sure that I wad ha’ looten Eppie take it, if they had put
it in her offer.”

“That’s a different consideration.”

“Ony way, I wadna ha’ liked to have offended Mr. Treddles. He was a wee
toustie when you rubbed him again the hair; but a kind, weel-meaning
man.”

I wanted to get rid of this species of chat, and finding myself near the
entrance of a footpath which made a short cut to Duntarkin, I put half a
crown into my guide’s hand, bade him good-evening, and plunged into the
woods.

“Hout, sir--fie, sir--no from the like of you. Stay, sir, ye wunna find
the way that gate.--Odd’s mercy, he maun ken the gate as weel as I do
mysel’. Weel, I wad like to ken wha the chield is.”

Such were the last words of my guide’s drowsy, uninteresting tone of
voice and glad to be rid of him, I strode out stoutly, in despite of
large stones, briers, and BAD STEPS, which abounded in the road I had
chosen. In the interim, I tried as much as I could, with verses from
Horace and Prior, and all who have lauded the mixture of literary with
rural life, to call back the visions of last night and this morning,
imagining myself settled in same detached farm of the estate of
Glentanner,--

  “Which sloping hills around enclose--
   Where many a birch and brown oak grows,”

when I should have a cottage with a small library, a small cellar, a
spare bed for a friend, and live more happy and more honoured than when
I had the whole barony. But the sight of Castle Treddles had disturbed
all my own castles in the air. The realities of the matter, like a stone
plashed into a limpid fountain, had destroyed the reflection of the
objects around, which, till this act of violence, lay slumbering on the
crystal surface, and I tried in vain to re-establish the picture which
had been so rudely broken. Well, then, I would try it another way. I
would try to get Christie Steele out of her PUBLIC, since she was not
striving in it, and she who had been my mother’s governante should be
mine. I knew all her faults, and I told her history over to myself.

She was grand-daughter, I believe--at least some relative--of the famous
Covenanter of the name, whom Dean Swift’s friend, Captain Creichton,
shot on his own staircase in the times of the persecutions; [See Note
2.--Steele a Covenanter, shot by Captain Creichton.] and had perhaps
derived from her native stock much both of its good and evil properties.
No one could say of her that she was the life and spirit of the family,
though in my mother’s time she directed all family affairs. Her look was
austere and gloomy, and when she was not displeased with you, you could
only find it out by her silence. If there was cause for complaint, real
or imaginary, Christie was loud enough. She loved my mother with the
devoted attachment of a younger sister; but she was as jealous of
her favour to any one else as if she had been the aged husband of a
coquettish wife, and as severe in her reprehensions as an abbess over
her nuns. The command which she exercised over her was that, I fear, of
a strong and determined over a feeble and more nervous disposition and
though it was used with rigour, yet, to the best of Christie Steele’s
belief, she was urging her mistress to her best and most becoming
course, and would have died rather than have recommended any other. The
attachment of this woman was limited to the family of Croftangry; for
she had few relations, and a dissolute cousin, whom late in life she had
taken as a husband, had long left her a widow.

To me she had ever a strong dislike. Even from my early childhood she
was jealous, strange as it may seem, of my interest in my mother’s
affections. She saw my foibles and vices with abhorrence, and without
a grain of allowance; nor did she pardon the weakness of maternal
affection even when, by the death of two brothers, I came to be the only
child of a widowed parent. At the time my disorderly conduct induced my
mother to leave Glentanner, and retreat to her jointure-house, I
always blamed Christie Steele for having influenced her resentment and
prevented her from listening to my vows of amendment, which at times
were real and serious, and might, perhaps, have accelerated that change
of disposition which has since, I trust, taken place. But Christie
regarded me as altogether a doomed and predestinated child of perdition,
who was sure to hold on my course, and drag downwards whosoever might
attempt to afford me support.

Still, though I knew such had been Christie’s prejudices against me
in other days, yet I thought enough of time had since passed away
to destroy all of them. I knew that when, through the disorder of my
affairs, my mother underwent some temporary inconvenience about money
matters, Christie, as a thing of course, stood in the gap, and having
sold a small inheritance which had descended to her, brought the
purchase money to her mistress, with a sense of devotion as deep as that
which inspired the Christians of the first age, when they sold all they
had, and followed the apostles of the church. I therefore thought that
we might, in old Scottish phrase, “let byganes be byganes,” and
begin upon a new account. Yet I resolved, like a skilful general,
to reconnoitre a little before laying down any precise scheme of
proceeding, and in the interim I determined to preserve my incognito.



CHAPTER IV. MR. CROFTANGRY BIDS ADIEU TO CLYDESDALE.

  Alas, how changed from what it once had been!
  ‘Twas now degraded to a common inn.    GAY.

An hour’s brisk walking, or thereabouts, placed me in front of
Duntarkin, which had also, I found, undergone considerable alterations,
though it had not been altogether demolished like the principal
mansion. An inn-yard extended before the door of the decent little
jointure-house, even amidst the remnants of the holly hedges which had
screened the lady’s garden. Then a broad, raw-looking, new-made road
intruded itself up the little glen, instead of the old horseway, so
seldom used that it was almost entirely covered with grass. It is
a great enormity, of which gentlemen trustees on the highways are
sometimes guilty, in adopting the breadth necessary for an avenue to the
metropolis, where all that is required is an access to some sequestered
and unpopulous district. I do not say anything of the expense--that
the trustees and their constituents may settle as they please. But the
destruction of silvan beauty is great when the breadth of the road is
more than proportioned to the vale through which it runs, and lowers, of
course, the consequence of any objects of wood or water, or broken and
varied ground, which might otherwise attract notice and give pleasure.
A bubbling runnel by the side of one of those modern Appian or Flaminian
highways is but like a kennel; the little hill is diminished to a
hillock--the romantic hillock to a molehill, almost too small for sight.

Such an enormity, however, had destroyed the quiet loneliness of
Duntarkin, and intruded its breadth of dust and gravel, and its
associations of pochays and mail-coaches, upon one of the most
sequestered spots in the Middle Ward of Clydesdale. The house was
old and dilapidated, and looked sorry for itself, as if sensible of
a derogation; but the sign was strong and new, and brightly painted,
displaying a heraldic shield (three shuttles in a field diapre), a web
partly unfolded for crest, and two stout giants for supporters, each one
holding a weaver’s beam proper. To have displayed this monstrous emblem
on the front of the house might have hazarded bringing down the wall,
but for certain would have blocked up one or two windows. It was
therefore established independent of the mansion, being displayed in an
iron framework, and suspended upon two posts, with as much wood and
iron about it as would have builded a brig; and there it hung, creaking,
groaning, and screaming in every blast of wind, and frightening for five
miles’ distance, for aught I know, the nests of thrushes and linnets,
the ancient denizens of the little glen.

When I entered the place I was received by Christie Steele herself, who
seemed uncertain whether to drop me in the kitchen, or usher me into
a separate apartment, as I called for tea, with something rather more
substantial than bread and butter, and spoke of supping and sleeping,
Christie at last inducted me into the room where she herself had been
sitting, probably the only one which had a fire, though the month was
October. This answered my plan; and as she was about to remove her
spinning-wheel, I begged she would have the goodness to remain and make
my tea, adding that I liked the sound of the wheel, and desired not to
disturb her housewife thrift in the least.

“I dinna ken, sir,” she replied, in a dry, REVECHE tone, which carried
me back twenty years, “I am nane of thae heartsome landleddies that can
tell country cracks, and make themsel’s agreeable, and I was ganging to
put on a fire for you in the Red Room; but if it is your will to stay
here, he that pays the lawing maun choose the lodging.”

I endeavoured to engage her in conversation; but though she answered,
with a kind of stiff civility, I could get her into no freedom of
discourse, and she began to look at her wheel and at the door more
than once, as if she meditated a retreat. I was obliged, therefore, to
proceed to some special questions; that might have interest for a person
whose ideas were probably of a very bounded description.

I looked round the apartment, being the same in which I had last seen my
poor mother. The author of the family history, formerly mentioned, had
taken great credit to himself for the improvements he had made in this
same jointure-house of Duntarkin, and how, upon his marriage, when his
mother took possession of the same as her jointure-house, “to his great
charges and expenses he caused box the walls of the great parlour”
 (in which I was now sitting), “empanel the same, and plaster the roof,
finishing the apartment with ane concave chimney, and decorating the
same with pictures, and a barometer and thermometer.” And in particular,
which his good mother used to say she prized above all the rest, he had
caused his own portraiture be limned over the mantlepiece by a skilful
hand. And, in good faith, there he remained still, having much the
visage which I was disposed to ascribe to him on the evidence of his
handwriting,--grim and austere, yet not without a cast of shrewdness and
determination; in armour, though he never wore it, I fancy; one hand on
an open book, and one resting on the hilt of his sword, though I dare
say his head never ached with reading, nor his limbs with fencing.

“That picture is painted on the wood, madam,” said I.

“Ay, sir, or it’s like it would not have been left there; they look a’
they could.”

“Mr. Treddles’s creditors, you mean?” said I.

“Na,” replied she dryly, “the creditors of another family, that sweepit
cleaner than this poor man’s, because I fancy there was less to gather.”

“An older family, perhaps, and probably more remembered and regretted
than later possessors?”

Christie here settled herself in her seat, and pulled her wheel towards
her. I had given her something interesting for her thoughts to dwell
upon, and her wheel was a mechanical accompaniment on such occasions,
the revolutions of which assisted her in the explanation of her ideas.

“Mair regretted--mair missed? I liked ane of the auld family very weel,
but I winna say that for them a’. How should they be mair missed than
the Treddleses? The cotton mill was such a thing for the country! The
mair bairns a cottar body had the better; they would make their awn keep
frae the time they were five years auld, and a widow wi’ three or four
bairns was a wealthy woman in the time of the Treddleses.”

“But the health of these poor children, my good friend--their education
and religious instruction--”

“For health,” said Christie, looking gloomily at me, “ye maun ken little
of the warld, sir, if ye dinna ken that the health of the poor man’s
body, as well as his youth and his strength, are all at the command of
the rich man’s purse. There never was a trade so unhealthy yet but men
would fight to get wark at it for twa pennies a day aboon the common
wage. But the bairns were reasonably weel cared for in the way of air
and exercise, and a very responsible youth heard them their Carritch,
and gied them lessons in Reediemadeasy [“Reading made Easy,” usually so
pronounced in Scotland.] Now, what did they ever get before? Maybe on a
winter day they wad be called out to beat the wood for cocks or siclike;
and then the starving weans would maybe get a bite of broken bread, and
maybe no, just as the butler was in humour--that was a’ they got.”

“They were not, then, a very kind family to the poor, these old
possessors?” said I, somewhat bitterly; for I had expected to hear
my ancestors’ praises recorded, though I certainly despaired of being
regaled with my own.

“They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye something. They were
just decent bien bodies; ony poor creature that had face to beg got an
awmous, and welcome--they that were shamefaced gaed by, and twice
as welcome. But they keepit an honest walk before God and man, the
Croftangrys, and, as I said before, if they did little good, they did
as little ill. They lifted their rents, and spent them; called in their
kain and ate them; gaed to the kirk of a Sunday; bowed civilly if folk
took aff their bannets as they gaed by, and lookit as black as sin at
them that keepit them on.”

“These are their arms that you have on the sign?”

“What! on the painted board that is skirling and groaning at the door?
Na, these are Mr. Treddles’s arms though they look as like legs as arms.
Ill pleased I was at the fule thing, that cost as muckle as would hae
repaired the house from the wa’ stane to the rigging-tree. But if I am
to bide here, I’ll hae a decent board wi’ a punch bowl on it.”

“Is there a doubt of your staying here, Mrs. Steele?”

“Dinna Mistress me,” said the cross old woman, whose fingers were now
plying their thrift in a manner which indicated nervous irritation;
“there was nae luck in the land since Luckie turned Mistress, and
Mistress my Leddy. And as for staying here, if it concerns you to ken,
I may stay if I can pay a hundred pund sterling for the lease, and I may
flit if I canna, and so gude e’en to you, Christie,”--and round went the
wheel with much activity.

“And you like the trade of keeping a public-house?”

“I can scarce say that,” she replied. “But worthy Mr. Prendergast is
clear of its lawfulness; and I hae gotten used to it, and made a decent
living, though I never make out a fause reckoning, or give ony ane the
means to disorder reason in my house.”

“Indeed!” said I; “in that case, there is no wonder you have not made up
the hundred pounds to purchase the lease.”

“How do you ken,” said she sharply, “that I might not have had a hundred
punds of my ain fee? If I have it not, I am sure it is my ain faut. And
I wunna ca’ it faut neither, for it gaed to her wha was weel entitled to
a’ my service.” Again she pulled stoutly at the flax, and the wheel went
smartly round.

“This old gentleman,” said I, fixing my eye on the painted panel, “seems
to have had HIS arms painted as well as Mr. Treddles--that is, if that
painting in the corner be a scutcheon.”

“Ay, ay--cushion, just sae. They maun a’ hae their cushions--there’s
sma’ gentry without that--and so the arms, as they ca’ them, of the
house of Glentanner may be seen on an auld stane in the west end of the
house. But to do them justice; they didna propale sae muckle about them
as poor Mr. Treddles did--it’s like they were better used to them.”

“Very likely. Are there any of the old family in life, goodwife?”

“No,” she replied; then added; after a moment’s hesitation, “Not that I
know of”--and the wheel, which had intermitted, began again to revolve.

“Gone abroad, perhaps?” I suggested.

She now looked up, and faced me. “No, sir. There were three sons of the
last laird of Glentanner, as he was then called. John and William were
hopeful young gentlemen, but they died early--one of a decline brought
on by the mizzles, the other lost his life in a fever. It would hae been
lucky for mony ane that Chrystal had gane the same gate.”

“Oh, he must have been the young spendthrift that sold the property?
Well, but you should you have such an ill-will against him; remember
necessity has no law. And then, goodwife, he was not more culpable than
Mr. Treddles, whom you are so sorry for.”

“I wish I could think sae, sir, for his mother’s sake. But Mr. Treddles
was in trade, and though he had no preceese right to do so, yet there
was some warrant for a man being expensive that imagined he was making
a mint of money. But this unhappy lad devoured his patrimony, when
he kenned that he was living like a ratten in a Dunlap cheese, and
diminishing his means at a’ hands. I canna bide to think on’t.” With
this she broke out into a snatch of a ballad, but little of mirth was
there either in the tone or the expression:--

  “For he did spend, and make an end
     Of gear that his forefathers wan;
   Of land and ware he made him bare,
     So speak nae mair of the auld gudeman.”

“Come, dame,” said I, “it is a long lane that has no turning. I will not
keep from you that I have heard something of this poor fellow, Chrystal
Croftangry. He has sown his wild oats, as they say, and has settled into
a steady, respectable man.”

“And wha tell’d ye that tidings?” said she, looking sharply at me.

“Not, perhaps, the best judge in the world of his character, for it was
himself, dame.”

“And if he tell’d you truth, it was a virtue he did not aye use to
practise,” said Christie.

“The devil!” said I, considerably nettled; “all the world held him to be
a man of honour.”

“Ay, ay! he would hae shot onybody wi’ his pistols and his guns that had
evened him to be a liar. But if he promised to pay an honest tradesman
the next term-day, did he keep his word then? And if he promised a puir,
silly lass to make gude her shame, did he speak truth then? And what is
that but being a liar, and a black-hearted, deceitful liar to boot?”

My indignation was rising, but I strove to suppress it; indeed, I should
only have afforded my tormentor a triumph by an angry reply. I partly
suspected she began to recognize me, yet she testified so little emotion
that I could not think my suspicion well founded. I went on, therefore,
to say, in a tone as indifferent as I could command, “Well, goodwife,
I see you will believe no good of this Chrystal of yours, till he comes
back and buys a good farm on the estate, and makes you his housekeeper.”

The old woman dropped her thread, folded her hands, as she looked up to
heaven with a face of apprehension. “The Lord,” she exclaimed, “forbid!
The Lord in His mercy forbid! O sir! if you really know this unlucky
man, persuade him to settle where folk ken the good that you say he has
come to, and dinna ken the evil of his former days. He used to be proud
enough--O dinna let him come here, even for his own sake. He used once
to have some pride.”

Here she once more drew the wheel close to her, and began to pull at the
flax with both hands. “Dinna let him come here, to be looked down upon
by ony that may be left of his auld reiving companions, and to see the
decent folk that he looked over his nose at look over their noses at
him, baith at kirk and market. Dinna let him come to his ain country, to
be made a tale about when ony neighbour points him out to another, and
tells what he is, and what he was, and how he wrecked a dainty estate,
and brought harlots to the door-cheek of his father’s house, till he
made it nae residence for his mother; and how it had been foretauld by
a servant of his ain house that he was a ne’er-do-weel and a child of
perdition, and how her words were made good, and--”

“Stop there, goodwife, if you please,” said I; “you have said as much as
I can well remember, and more than it may be safe to repeat. I can use a
great deal of freedom with the gentleman we speak of; but I think,
were any other person to carry him half of your message, I would scarce
ensure his personal safety. And now, as I see the night is settled to be
a fine one, I will walk on to --, where I must meet a coach to-morrow as
it passes to Edinburgh.”

So saying, I paid my moderate reckoning, and took my leave, without
being able to discover whether the prejudiced and hard-hearted old woman
did, or did not, suspect the identity of her guest with the Chrystal
Croftangry against whom she harboured so much dislike.

The night was fine and frosty, though, when I pretended to see what its
character was, it might have rained like the deluge. I only made the
excuse to escape from old Christie Steele. The horses which run races
in the Corso at Rome without any riders, in order to stimulate their
exertion, carry each his own spurs namely, small balls of steel, with
sharp, projecting spikes, which are attached to loose straps of leather,
and, flying about in the violence of the agitation, keep the horse to
his speed by pricking him as they strike against his flanks. The old
woman’s reproaches had the same effect on me, and urged me to a rapid
pace, as if it had been possible to escape from my own recollections. In
the best days of my life, when I won one or two hard walking matches,
I doubt if I ever walked so fast as I did betwixt the Treddles Arms and
the borough town for which I was bound. Though the night was cold, I was
warm enough by the time I got to my inn; and it required a refreshing
draught of porter, with half an hour’s repose, ere I could determine to
give no further thought to Christie and her opinions than those of any
other vulgar, prejudiced old woman. I resolved at last to treat the
thing EN BAGATELLE, and calling for writing materials, I folded up a
cheque for L100, with these lines on the envelope:--

  “Chrystal, the ne’er-do-weel,
   Child destined to the deil,
   Sends this to Christie Steele.”

And I was so much pleased with this new mode of viewing the subject,
that I regretted the lateness of the hour prevented my finding a person
to carry the letter express to its destination.

  “But with the morning cool reflection came.”

I considered that the money, and probably more, was actually due by me
on my mother’s account to Christie, who had lent it in a moment of great
necessity, and that the returning it in a light or ludicrous manner
was not unlikely to prevent so touchy and punctilious a person from
accepting a debt which was most justly her due, and which it became me
particularly to see satisfied. Sacrificing, then, my triad with little
regret (for it looked better by candlelight, and through the medium of a
pot of porter, than it did by daylight, and with bohea for a menstruum),
I determined to employ Mr. Fairscribe’s mediation in buying up the lease
of the little inn, and conferring it upon Christie in the way which
should make it most acceptable to her feelings. It is only necessary
to add that my plan succeeded, and that Widow Steele even yet keeps the
Treddles Arms. Do not say, therefore, that I have been disingenuous with
you, reader; since, if I have not told all the ill of myself I might
have done, I have indicated to you a person able and willing to supply
the blank, by relating all my delinquencies as well as my misfortunes.

In the meantime I totally abandoned the idea of redeeming any part of
my paternal property, and resolved to take Christie Steele’s advice, as
young Norval does Glenalvon’s, “although it sounded harshly.”



CHAPTER V. MR. CROFTANGRY SETTLES IN THE CANONGATE.

           If you will know my house,
  ‘Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.    AS YOU LIKE IT.

By a revolution of humour which I am unable to account for, I changed my
mind entirely on my plans of life, in consequence of the disappointment,
the history of which fills the last chapter. I began to discover
that the country would not at all suit me; for I had relinquished
field-sports, and felt no inclination whatever to farming, the ordinary
vocation of country gentlemen. Besides that, I had no talent for
assisting either candidate in case of an expected election, and saw no
amusement in the duties of a road trustee, a commissioner of supply, or
even in the magisterial functions of the bench. I had begun to take some
taste for reading; and a domiciliation in the country must remove me
from the use of books, excepting the small subscription library, in
which the very book which you want is uniformly sure to be engaged.

I resolved, therefore, to make the Scottish metropolis my regular
resting-place, reserving to myself to take occasionally those excursions
which, spite of all I have said against mail-coaches, Mr. Piper has
rendered so easy. Friend of our life and of our leisure, he secures by
dispatch against loss of time, and by the best of coaches, cattle, and
steadiest of drivers, against hazard of limb, and wafts us, as well as
our letters, from Edinburgh to Cape Wrath in the penning of a paragraph.

When my mind was quite made up to make Auld Reekie my headquarters,
reserving the privilege of EXPLORING in all directions, I began to
explore in good earnest for the purpose of discovering a suitable
habitation. “And whare trew ye I gaed?” as Sir Pertinax says. Not to
George’s Square--nor to Charlotte Square--nor to the old New Town--nor
to the new New Town--nor to the Calton Hill. I went to the Canongate,
and to the very portion of the Canongate in which I had formerly been
immured, like the errant knight, prisoner in some enchanted castle,
where spells have made the ambient air impervious to the unhappy
captive, although the organs of sight encountered no obstacle to his
free passage.

Why I should have thought of pitching my tent here I cannot tell.
Perhaps it was to enjoy the pleasures of freedom where I had so long
endured the bitterness of restraint, on the principle of the officer
who, after he had retired from the army, ordered his servant to continue
to call him at the hour or parade, simply that he might have the
pleasure of saying, “D--n the parade!” and turning to the other side to
enjoy his slumbers. Or perhaps I expected to find in the vicinity some
little old-fashioned house, having somewhat of the RUS IN URBE which
I was ambitious of enjoying. Enough: I went, as aforesaid, to the
Canongate.

I stood by the kennel, of which I have formerly spoken, and, my mind
being at ease, my bodily organs were more delicate. I was more
sensible than heretofore, that, like the trade of Pompey in MEASURE FOR
MEASURE,--it did in some sort--pah an ounce of civet, good apothecary!
Turning from thence, my steps naturally directed themselves to my own
humble apartment, where my little Highland landlady, as dapper and
as tight as ever, (for old women wear a hundred times better than the
hard-wrought seniors of the masculine sex), stood at the door, TEEDLING
to herself a Highland song as she shook a table napkin over the
fore-stair, and then proceeded to fold it up neatly for future service.

“How do you, Janet?”

“Thank ye, good sir,” answered my old friend, without looking at
me; “but ye might as weel say Mrs. MacEvoy, for she is na a’body’s
Shanet--umph.”

“You must be MY Janet, though, for all that. Have you forgot me? Do you
not remember Chrystal Croftangry?”

The light, kind-hearted creature threw her napkin into the open door,
skipped down the stair like a fairy, three steps at once, seized me by
the hands--both hands--jumped up, and actually kissed me. I was a little
ashamed; but what swain, of somewhere inclining to sixty could resist
the advances of a fair contemporary? So we allowed the full degree
of kindness to the meeting--HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE--and then Janet
entered instantly upon business. “An ye’ll gae in, man, and see your
auld lodgings, nae doubt and Shanet will pay ye the fifteen shillings
of change that ye ran away without, and without bidding Shanet good day.
But never mind” (nodding good-humouredly), “Shanet saw you were carried
for the time.”

By this time we were in my old quarters, and Janet, with her bottle of
cordial in one hand and the glass in the other, had forced on me a
dram of usquebaugh, distilled with saffron and other herbs, after some
old-fashioned Highland receipt. Then was unfolded, out of many a little
scrap of paper, the reserved sum of fifteen shillings, which Janet had
treasured for twenty years and upwards.

“Here they are,” she said, in honest triumph, “just the same I was
holding out to ye when ye ran as if ye had been fey. Shanet has had
siller, and Shanet has wanted siller, mony a time since that. And the
gauger has come, and the factor has come, and the butcher and baker--Cot
bless us just like to tear poor auld Shanet to pieces; but she took good
care of Mr. Croftangry’s fifteen shillings.”

“But what if I had never come back, Janet?”

“Och, if Shanet had heard you were dead, she would hae gien it to the
poor of the chapel, to pray for Mr. Croftangry,” said Janet, crossing
herself, for she was a Catholic, “You maybe do not think it would do you
cood, but the blessing of the poor can never do no harm.”

I agreed heartily in Janet’s conclusion; and as to have desired her to
consider the hoard as her own property would have been an indelicate
return to her for the uprightness of her conduct, I requested her to
dispose of it as she had proposed to do in the event of my death--that
is, if she knew any poor people of merit to whom it might be useful.

“Ower mony of them,” raising the corner of her checked apron to her
eyes--“e’en ower mony of them, Mr. Croftangry. Och, ay. ‘There is the
puir Highland creatures frae Glenshee, that cam down for the harvest,
and are lying wi’ the fever--five shillings to them; and half a crown to
Bessie MacEvoy, whose coodman, puir creature, died of the frost, being
a shairman, for a’ the whisky he could drink to keep it out o’ his
stamoch; and--”

But she suddenly interrupted the bead-roll of her proposed charities,
and assuming a very sage look, and primming up her little chattering
mouth, she went on in a different tone--“But och, Mr. Croftangry,
bethink ye whether ye will not need a’ this siller yoursel’, and maybe
look back and think lang for ha’en kiven it away, whilk is a creat sin
to forthink a wark o’ charity, and also is unlucky, and moreover is not
the thought of a shentleman’s son like yoursel’, dear. And I say this,
that ye may think a bit, for your mother’s son kens that ye are no so
careful as you should be of the gear, and I hae tauld ye of it before,
jewel.”

I assured her I could easily spare the money, without risk of future
repentance; and she went on to infer that in such a case “Mr. Croftangry
had grown a rich man in foreign parts, and was free of his troubles
with messengers and sheriff-officers, and siclike scum of the earth, and
Shanet MacEvoy’s mother’s daughter be a blithe woman to hear it. But
if Mr. Croftangry was in trouble, there was his room, and his ped, and
Shanet to wait on him, and tak payment when it was quite convenient.”

I explained to Janet my situation, in which she expressed unqualified
delight. I then proceeded to inquire into her own circumstances, and
though she spoke cheerfully and contentedly, I could see they were
precarious. I had paid more than was due; other lodgers fell into
an opposite error, and forgot to pay Janet at all. Then, Janet being
ignorant of all indirect modes of screwing money out of her lodgers,
others in the same line of life, who were sharper than the poor,
simple Highland woman, were enabled to let their apartments cheaper in
appearance, though the inmates usually found them twice as dear in the
long run.

As I had already destined my old landlady to be my house-keeper
and governante, knowing her honesty, good-nature, and, although a
Scotchwoman, her cleanliness and excellent temper (saving the short
and hasty expressions of anger which Highlanders call a FUFF), I now
proposed the plan to her in such a way as was likely to make it most
acceptable. Very acceptable as the proposal was, as I could plainly
see, Janet, however, took a day to consider upon it; and her reflections
against our next meeting had suggested only one objection, which was
singular enough.

“My honour,” so she now termed me, “would pe for biding in some fine
street apout the town. Now Shanet wad ill like to live in a place where
polish, and sheriffs, and bailiffs, and sie thieves and trash of the
world, could tak puir shentlemen by the throat, just because they wanted
a wheen dollars in the sporran. She had lived in the bonny glen of
Tomanthoulick. Cot, an ony of the vermint had come there, her father
wad hae wared a shot on them, and he could hit a buck within as mony
measured yards as e’er a man of his clan, And the place here was so
quiet frae them, they durst na put their nose ower the gutter. Shanet
owed nobody a bodle, but she couldna pide to see honest folk and pretty
shentlemen forced away to prison whether they would or no; and then, if
Shanet was to lay her tangs ower ane of the ragamuffins’ heads, it would
be, maybe, that the law would gi’ed a hard name.”

One thing I have learned in life--never to speak sense when nonsense
will answer the purpose as well. I should have had great difficulty
to convince this practical and disinterested admirer and vindicator of
liberty, that arrests seldom or never were to be seen in the streets of
Edinburgh; and to satisfy her of their justice and necessity would have
been as difficult as to convert her to the Protestant faith. I therefore
assured her my intention, if I could get a suitable habitation, was to
remain in the quarter where she at present dwelt. Janet gave three skips
on the floor, and uttered as many short, shrill yells of joy. Yet doubt
almost instantly returned, and she insisted on knowing what possible
reason I could have for making my residence where few lived, save those
whose misfortunes drove them thither. It occurred to me to answer her by
recounting the legend of the rise of my family, and of our deriving our
name from a particular place near Holyrood Palace. This, which would
have appeared to most people a very absurd reason for choosing a
residence, was entirely satisfactory to Janet MacEvoy.

“Och, nae doubt! if it was the land of her fathers, there was nae mair
to be said. Put it was queer that her family estate should just lie at
the town tail, and covered with houses, where the King’s cows--Cot bless
them, hide and horn--used to craze upon. It was strange changes.”
 She mused a little, and then added: “Put it is something better wi’
Croftangry when the changes is frae the field to the habited place,
and not from the place of habitation to the desert; for Shanet, her
nainsell, kent a glen where there were men as weel as there may be in
Croftangry, and if there werena altogether sae mony of them, they were
as good men in their tartan as the others in their broadcloth. And there
were houses, too; and if they were not biggit with stane and lime, and
lofted like the houses at Croftangry, yet they served the purpose of
them that lived there, and mony a braw bonnet, and mony a silk snood
and comely white curch, would come out to gang to kirk or chapel on
the Lord’s day, and little bairns toddling after. And now--Och, Och,
Ohellany, Ohonari! the glen is desolate, and the braw snoods and bonnets
are gane, and the Saxon’s house stands dull and lonely, like the single
bare-breasted rock that the falcon builds on--the falcon that drives the
heath-bird frae the glen.”

Janet, like many Highlanders, was full of imagination, and, when
melancholy themes came upon her, expressed herself almost poetically,
owing to the genius of the Celtic language in which she thought, and in
which, doubtless, she would have spoken, had I understood Gaelic. In two
minutes the shade of gloom and regret had passed from her good-humoured
features, and she was again the little, busy, prating, important old
woman, undisputed owner of one flat of a small tenement in the Abbey
Yard, and about to be promoted to be housekeeper to an elderly bachelor
gentleman, Chrystal Croftangry, Esq.

It was not long before Janet’s local researches found out exactly the
sort of place I wanted, and there we settled. Janet was afraid I would
not be satisfied, because it is not exactly part of Croftangry; but I
stopped her doubts by assuring her it had been part and pendicle thereof
in my forefather’ time, which passed very well.

I do not intend to possess any one with an exact knowledge of my
lodging; though, as Bobadil says, “I care not who knows it, since the
cabin is convenient.” But I may state in general, that it is a house
“within itself,” or, according to a newer phraseology in advertisements,
SELF-CONTAINED, has a garden of near half an acre, and a patch of
ground with trees in front. It boasts five rooms and servants’
apartments--looks in front upon the palace, and from behind towards the
hill and crags of the King’s Park. Fortunately, the place had a name,
which, with a little improvement, served to countenance the legend which
I had imposed on Janet, and would not, perhaps have been sorry if I had
been able to impose on myself. It was called Littlecroft; we have dubbed
it Little Croftangry, and the men of letters belonging to the Post
Office have sanctioned the change, and deliver letters so addressed.
Thus I am to all intents and purposes Chrystal Croftangry of that Ilk.

My establishment consists of Janet, an under maid-servant, and a
Highland wench for Janet to exercise her Gaelic upon, with a handy lad
who can lay the cloth, and take care, besides, of a pony, on which I
find my way to Portobello sands, especially when the cavalry have a
drill; for, like an old fool as I am, I have not altogether become
indifferent to the tramp of horses and the flash of weapons, of which,
though no professional soldier, it has been my fate to see something in
my youth. For wet mornings I have my book; is it fine weather? I visit,
or I wander on the Crags, as the humour dictates. My dinner is indeed
solitary, yet not quite so neither; for though Andrew waits, Janet--or,
as she is to all the world but her master and certain old Highland
gossips, Mrs. MacEvoy--attends, bustles about, and desires to see
everything is in first-rate order, and to tell me, Cot pless us, the
wonderful news of the palace for the day. When the cloth is removed, and
I light my cigar, and begin to husband a pint of port, or a glass of old
whisky and water, it is the rule of the house that Janet takes a
chair at some distance, and nods or works her stocking, as she may be
disposed--ready to speak, if I am in the talking humour, and sitting
quiet as a mouse if I am rather inclined to study a book or the
newspaper. At six precisely she makes my tea, and leaves me to drink it;
and then occurs an interval of time which most old bachelors find heavy
on their hands. The theatre is a good occasional resource, especially if
Will Murray acts, or a bright star of eminence shines forth; but it
is distant, and so are one or two public societies to which I belong.
Besides, these evening walks are all incompatible with the elbow-chair
feeling, which desires some employment that may divert the mind without
fatiguing the body.

Under the influence of these impressions, I have sometimes thought of
this literary undertaking. I must have been the Bonassus himself to have
mistaken myself for a genius; yet I have leisure and reflections like
my neighbours. I am a borderer, also, between two generations, and can
point out more, perhaps, than others of those fading traces of antiquity
which are daily vanishing; and I know many a modern instance and many an
old tradition, and therefore I ask--

  “What ails me, I may not as well as they
   Rake up some threadbare tales, that mouldering lay
   In chimney corners, wont by Christmas fires
   To read and rock to sleep our ancient sires?
   No man his threshold better knows, than I
   Brute’s first arrival and first victory,
   Saint George’s sorrel and his cross of blood,
   Arthur’s round board and Caledonian wood.”

No shop is so easily set up as an antiquary’s. Like those of the
lowest order of pawnbrokers, a commodity of rusty iron, a bay or two of
hobnails, a few odd shoe-buckles, cashiered kail-pots, and fire-irons
declared incapable of service, are quite sufficient to set him up. If
he add a sheaf or two of penny ballads and broadsides, he is a great
man--an extensive trader. And then, like the pawnbrokers aforesaid, if
the author understands a little legerdemain, he may, by dint of a little
picking and stealing, make the inside of his shop a great deal richer
than the out, and be able to show you things which cause those who do
not understand the antiquarian trick of clean conveyance to wonder how
the devil he came by them.

It may be said that antiquarian articles interest but few customers, and
that we may bawl ourselves as rusty as the wares we deal in without any
one asking; the price of our merchandise. But I do not rest my hopes
upon this department of my labours only. I propose also to have a
corresponding shop for Sentiment, and Dialogues, and Disquisition, which
may captivate the fancy of those who have no relish, as the established
phrase goes, for pure antiquity--a sort of greengrocer’s stall erected
in front of my ironmongery wares, garlanding the rusty memorials of
ancient times with cresses, cabbages, leeks, and water purpy.

As I have some idea that I am writing too well to be understood, I
humble myself to ordinary language, and aver, with becoming modesty,
that I do think myself capable of sustaining a publication of a
miscellaneous nature, as like to the Spectator or the Guardian, the
Mirror or the Lounger, as my poor abilities may be able to accomplish.
Not that I have any purpose of imitating Johnson, whose general learning
and power of expression I do not deny, but many of whose Ramblers are
little better than a sort of pageant, where trite and obvious maxims are
made to swagger in lofty and mystic language, and get some credit only
because they are not easily understood. There are some of the
great moralist’s papers which I cannot peruse without thinking on
a second-rate masquerade, where the best-known and least-esteemed
characters in town march in as heroes, and sultans, and so forth, and,
by dint of tawdry dresses, get some consideration until they are found
out. It is not, however, prudent to commence with throwing stones, just
when I am striking out windows of my own.

I think even the local situation of Little Croftangry may be considered
as favourable to my undertaking. A nobler contrast there can hardly
exist than that of the huge city, dark with the smoke of ages, and
groaning with the various sounds of active industry or idle revel,
and the lofty and craggy hill, silent and solitary as the grave--one
exhibiting the full tide of existence, pressing and precipitating itself
forward with the force of an inundation; the other resembling some
time-worn anchorite, whose life passes as silent and unobserved as the
slender rill which escapes unheard, and scarce seen, from the fountain
of his patron saint. The city resembles the busy temple, where the
modern Comus and Mammon hold their court, and thousands sacrifice ease,
independence, and virtue itself at their shrine; the misty and lonely
mountain seems as a throne to the majestic but terrible Genius of feudal
times, when the same divinities dispensed coronets and domains to those
who had heads to devise and arms to execute bold enterprises.

I have, as it were, the two extremities of the moral world at my
threshold. From the front door a few minutes’ walk brings me into the
heart of a wealthy and populous city; as many paces from my opposite
entrance place me in a solitude as complete as Zimmerman could have
desired. Surely, with such aids to my imagination, I may write better
than if I were in a lodging in the New Town or a garret in the old. As
the Spaniard says, “VIAMOS--CARACCO!”

I have not chosen to publish periodically, my reason for which was
twofold. In the first place, I don’t like to be hurried, and have had
enough of duns in an early part of my life to make me reluctant to hear
of or see one, even in the less awful shape of a printer’s devil. But,
secondly, a periodical paper is not easily extended in circulation
beyond the quarter in which it is published. This work, if published in
fugitive numbers, would scarce, without a high pressure on the part
of the bookseller, be raised above the Netherbow, and never could be
expected to ascend to the level of Princes Street. Now, I am ambitious
that my compositions, though having their origin in this Valley of
Holyrood, should not only be extended into those exalted regions I have
mentioned, but also that they should cross the Forth, astonish the long
town of Kirkcaldy, enchant the skippers and colliers of the East of
Fife, venture even into the classic arcades of St. Andrews, and travel
as much farther to the north as the breath of applause will carry their
sails. As for a southward direction, it is not to be hoped for in my
fondest dreams. I am informed that Scottish literature, like Scottish
whisky, will be presently laid under a prohibitory duty. But enough
of this. If any reader is dull enough not to comprehend the advantages
which, in point of circulation, a compact book has over a collection of
fugitive numbers, let him try the range of a gun loaded with hail-shot
against that of the same piece charged with an equal weight of lead
consolidated in a single bullet.

Besides, it was of less consequence that I should have published
periodically, since I did not mean to solicit or accept of the
contributions of friends, or the criticisms of those who may be less
kindly disposed. Notwithstanding the excellent examples which might
be quoted, I will establish no begging-box, either under the name of a
lion’s head or an ass’s. What is good or ill shall be mine own, or the
contribution of friends to whom I may have private access. Many of my
voluntary assistants might be cleverer than myself, and then I should
have a brilliant article appear among my chiller effusions, like a patch
of lace on a Scottish cloak of Galashiels grey. Some might be worse, and
then I must reject them, to the injury of the feelings of the writer, or
else insert them, to make my own darkness yet more opaque and palpable.
“Let every herring,” says our old-fashioned proverb, “hang by his own
head.”

One person, however, I may distinguish, as she is now no more, who,
living to the utmost term of human life, honoured me with a great share
of her friendship--as, indeed, we were blood-relatives in the Scottish
sense--Heaven knows how many degrees removed--and friends in the sense
of Old England. I mean the late excellent and regretted Mrs. Bethune
Baliol. But as I design this admirable picture of the olden time for a
principal character in my work, I will only say here that she knew and
approved of my present purpose; and though she declined to contribute
to it while she lived, from a sense of dignified retirement, which she
thought became her age, sex, and condition in life, she left me some
materials for carrying on my proposed work which I coveted when I
heard her detail them in conversation, and which now, when I have their
substance in her own handwriting, I account far more valuable than
anything I have myself to offer. I hope the mentioning her name in
conjunction with my own will give no offence to any of her numerous
friends, as it was her own express pleasure that I should employ the
manuscripts which she did me the honour to bequeath me in the manner
in which I have now used them. It must be added, however, that in
most cases I have disguised names, and in some have added shading and
colouring to bring out the narrative.

Much of my materials, besides these, are derived from friends, living
or dead. The accuracy of some of these may be doubtful, in which case I
shall be happy to receive, from sufficient authority, the correction of
the errors which must creep into traditional documents. The object of
the whole publication is to throw some light on the manners of Scotland
as they were, and to contrast them occasionally with those of the
present day. My own opinions are in favour of our own times in many
respects, but not in so far as affords means for exercising the
imagination or exciting the interest which attaches to other times. I am
glad to be a writer or a reader in 1826, but I would be most interested
in reading or relating what happened from half a century to a century
before. We have the best of it. Scenes in which our ancestors thought
deeply, acted fiercely, and died desperately, are to us tales to divert
the tedium of a winter’s evening, when we are engaged to no party, or
beguile a summer’s morning, when it is too scorching to ride or walk.

Yet I do not mean that my essays and narratives should be limited to
Scotland. I pledge myself to no particular line of subjects, but, on the
contrary, say with Burns--

  “Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
   Perhaps turn out a sermon.”

I have only to add, by way of postscript to the

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