The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott (1819)

This is another of Scott's short-lived group of retellings of supposed stories of his country's social life and history through obscure or less well-known incidents which were known under the collective title Tales of My Landlord. It is set around the time of Queen Anne in England I think, and among all the machinations which were happening at the same time in the politics of Scotland. Typical of Scott is the position of the main characters - the male, young Lord Ravenswood, being the last scion of a noble family who, through the actions of his dissolute father, have been stripped of their house and estates. He now lives in a decrepit tower of great age balanced on the edge of the cliffs to the sea called Wolf's Crag, and is struggling to get by, even to eat. The female, Lucy Ashton, is the daughter of the man who took advantage of Ravenswood's father's plight and gained all their estates in the process. There is, though, some hidden question as to whether, even with the culpability of the elder Ravenswood, the purchase of the estate was quite clean, and Lucy's father, Lord Ashton, experiences disquiet on this basis privately whilst maintaining outer confidence in his aggrandized circumstances. Lucy and Ravenswood fall for one another in an incident in the woods between their two habitations where he appears to save her life. Their romance develops, with her father, who is currently at home, providing qualified support, thinking that in an alliance of the two families there may be a veil thrown over any questions as to his actions in obtaining the estate. Lucy's mother is away at this time, but when she finally returns to discover that Lucy and Ravenswood have entered into an engagement, all her ancient family antagonism to the Ravenswoods is ignited. She comes from the opposite side of Scots politics and history and regards Ravenswood as the devil incarnate. She insults him savagely, effectually banishing him. Lucy pines, and the two lovers attempt to keep in touch by letter as Ravenswood is sent by a reinvigorated Scots government on a diplomatic mission to France, his side of politics being at that time given primacy for the first time in a long while. Lucy's mother, who is much stronger than her husband, and very determined, manages to stymie their letter-exchange, so that Lucy believes, after a very long 'silence', that Ravenswood is no longer interested. She pines still further, insisting on hearing the disavowal from Ravenswood's lips alone, even while Lady Ashton devises a new marriage for her with a loyal young lord who has an axe to grind with Ravenswood, though he quietly respects him. Eventually, Lucy has declined to such an extent that she gives in and the banns are undertaken. Just as she is signing the last document, Ravenswood bursts in, having finally received her very last letter which has been forwarded sneakily around the obstructions created by Lady Ashton. But it is too late; they have a scene, and Ravenswood departs dejectedly. His eruption into the scene and the realisation that he was true to her finally unhinges Lucy. Her mother forces the marriage to occur four days later and Lucy goes through with it in a stupor of lightheadedness. But that night, when visited by her new husband, her mind breaks and she stabs him almost to death. She then climbs up the chimney and sits on a ledge completely lost to sanity. She dies a little while later. Ravenswood hears of this and it finishes him in all but name. He comes to the funeral, makes a duel-date with Lucy's soldier brother who hates him as her murderer, and returns to Wolf's Crag a broken man. The following day, Lucy's brother is waiting on the field of action, sees Ravenswood madly riding towards him without attending to the well-known dangers of the place, and watches as Ravenswood disappears in a second, with his horse, in a quicksand mire, never to be seen again, and leaving only a long black hat-feather in the wavelets on the shore. There is a good amount of comedy in the background of this one, mainly housed in the person of Caleb Balderstone, Ravenswood's last retainer, and his overdone family loyalty and pride, and his attempts at bullying and obfuscation to keep up the family name. There is also a Macbethian chorus of local witches (or midwives, or herbalists, or hags) who comment sourly on the story as it progresses. This one has a quality of small-scenedness in it which is a strong contrast to the enormous scope of its predecessor The Heart of Midlothian. It has the mood of an out of the way tragedy, but is no sufferer for it on the whole, whilst not perhaps encompassing such a stirring pull as some of the author's grander canvases.

The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott (1818)

The reading of this was marked by a strange chance. I had started on one of the Notable Scottish Trials series, the one on Captain Porteous, and was a fair way through. I started then on this, quickly to discover that the historical incident involving Porteous was its starting point. Strange how these things coincide. This fact also allows a special insight, which is to watch how Scott interprets and magnifies real history in his fictionalising. Only the bare bones of history make it here, almost exclusively in the first part, where the Edinburgh 'mob' become incensed by Porteous' actions at the execution of a well-liked and understood smuggler in 1736, in the fact that he 'authorises' firing by the city guard when it looks like the crowd might try to cut the smuggler down from the gibbet. They are already pelting the guard with sizeable stones. The 'real' history explains that this was all a murky area, where it's not at all certain that he authorized anything, or indeed fired himself. But Scott has felt the need to come down on a side for the advancement of the story, which I understand. Then Porteous himself is imprisoned for his 'lead' in the affray, where several members of the public have been killed. That public wanted his blood for that, which is also understandable. Members of the officialdom of the city feel that he's been hard done by (and probably rightly, according to the trial) and send off to Queen Caroline in the hope of a pardon, which is eventually granted. The Edinburgh public are outraged by this, and rumours abound as to their wish to carry out Porteous' hanging themselves, royal pardon or not. Then the famous city-capture and prison break-in is successfully undertaken by a mob of persons unknown, and the grisly deed done. Scott keeps pretty well to the history here, but surrounds this story with one of a pair of sisters, one of whom has been undone by one of the original smuggler's mates in crime. She is also in prison at the time, for the probable murder of the resulting child. Her calmer, more upright elder sister is then involved in a long journey to London, also to try to obtain a pardon, as real evidence for her sister's crime is virtually non-existent - they have no idea what happened to the child; it was very possibly spirited away as soon as it was born. This journey is complicated by a strange meeting with the nefarious father of her sister's child, this time in his true identity as the young lord of a Lincolnshire estate. Astonishingly, attained of London, she enlists the help of the Duke of Argyle - and manages to meet Queen Caroline and gain her sister's pardon. The last third of the novel takes place in the west of Scotland as she comes under the protection of the Duke, her sister is released and disappears into the disgrace encumbent on a wronged woman, and life begins again in new surrounds, with her beloved (and obsessedly comic) father joining her, and her sweetheart also, a young clergyman for whom the Duke finds a local living. Years later it emerges that her sister has found her undoer and married him, becoming the celebrated and witty Lady Staunton that all British society is talking about, without of course knowing her chequered history, or that her husband was once the ne'erdowell associate of an infamous smuggler! The last act in this mosaic of intersections is the discovery by that husband of the fate of their son, who has indeed survived and become a marauder in a band of Highland banditti. Destiny closes in on him, as he is ambushed by them before being able to identify his son; he is shot in the skirmish, very possibly by the boy himself. The boy escapes on a people-smuggler's vessel to America, where he gets into more and more trouble, finally disappearing into the wilds to live out his life among the native Americans and an unknown end. Scott leavens all of this with bursts of humour associated with larger than life subsidiary characters. A plenitude of colour and crazy coincidence keep this one cracking along, though I will say that it sometimes seemed a little less disciplined than previous novels.

Old Mortality by Sir Walter Scott (1816)

This appeared in the first volumes of Tales of My Landlord along with The Black Dwarf. Old Mortality is a man who wanders Scotland in a lonely hermitlike way tidying the graves of forgotten Scots heroes and people of principle. This story is one that he promoted through his activities - and that's the last we hear of him, the rest is the story itself. It centres around Henry Morton, heir of Milnwood, who, in the time of Charles II, becomes a key figure in the rebellion based around religious ideas that culminated in the battle of Bothwell Bridge. Morton is in love with Edith Bellenden of Tillietudlem Castle, but the spanner in the works is that the Bellendens are supporters of the monarchy, while Morton's principles of freedom of religion lead him to support the raggletaggle army of the rebels. The ideas behind the rebellion range from a manial fundamental ultra-Puritan protestantism through to Morton's style of broad church requirement for freedom to worship. He is a constant calming voice among his more uncompromising and bloodthirsty fellows, insanely fired as they are by what they deem to be virtually a pro-Catholic conspiracy, and what does seem to be confirmed prejudice at the least. Morton's rival for Edith's affections is the royalist Lord Evandale, a handsome young blade who is deeply attached to her, and whom she feels she must reluctantly settle for given that Morton is persona non grata. After a surprising initial success the tide turns and the rebels are routed at Bothwell Bridge. Morton escapes on a Dutch boat, leaving the personal field open to Evandale. The Dutch boat sinks halfway across the channel and Morton is assumed drowned, but he is rescued and spends a good while incognito in the Netherlands. Some years later, with the revolution which installed William and Mary on the throne, he returns to Scotland, unaware that he is dead in most people's minds. Wandering under an assumed name he discovers that Evandale and Edith are about to be married, and that through political means Tillietudlem has been wrested from the Bellendens by their evil cousin Basil Olifant. He travels to Fairy Knowe, the Bellendens' much reduced home, secretly, hoping to see Edith one more time. She catches sight of him, assumes she's seen a ghost, and collapses. The recollection, once she awakens, is too much, and the marriage to Evandale cannot go ahead. Evandale, meanwhile, has changed sides and is a supporter of the faction which is critical of the monarchy. Basil Olifant, a firm monarchist, comes to Fairy Knowe with some royal dragoons to capture Evandale, but the arrest turns into a pistolfight. Olifant is killed, Evandale is shot. Just before expiring he brings Morton and Edith together giving them his blessing. By a strange twist of fate Olifant has died without a will, so the Bellendens reinherit Tillietudlem! There's a neat ending. Scott's usual brightness is pretty undimmed here; the battles are brief but exciting, the intrigue is enjoyably complicated and there is humour too in cranky retainers and Lady Margaret Bellenden (Edith's mother) and her obsessed overdressed memory of a one-night royal stay at Tillietudlem and the importance it confers on her family. Without being his best, this was fine.

A Legend of Montrose by Sir Walter Scott (1819)

This was the last of Scott's early series entitled Tales of My Landlord, detailing episodes in Scottish history in fictional form. This one covers the response among the Scots to the revolutionary actions which precipitated the English Civil War. Some Scots lairds were for, some against, and very much not exclusively for the same reasons as the English; their own affairs, rivalries and vying for power took up a lot of their motivation. The really fun thing about this one is the mixedness of our main character. We are led through these affairs by Dugald Dalgetty, a soldier for hire, who is full of wind. He has no compunction about rattling on endlessly to his superiors about tactics they're ignoring, or precedents they're not taking into consideration, driving them sourly spare in the process. At the same time, he is an excellent soldier, so we are invited not only to laugh at him, but admire him a little too. This lends the piece a warm geniality which is great. For a shorter piece, it has much derring-do, with criss-crossing of the Highlands, family hatreds, imprisonment in castles, political explication and a big battle. It also has a truncated love story - I'm thinking that this is the thing which Scott may have expanded had his enthusiasm kept up, as it is a little threadbare. But this was the last, and in an epilogue he admits that his relish has subsided. He also does something else that I'd like to see authors of the modern era try: he recommends in the last line a novel published anonymously a year previously. The title is Marriage and he hints as to the gender of the author. Of course we now know that to be Susan Ferrier, and that she went on to become one of the finest of her era. What a great idea for those 'in the know', not critics, but authors themselves, to recommend the books of fellows which they think their readers may enjoy next.

Commonplace Book

'"Spoken like an oracle," said Montrose. "Were there an academy for the education of horses to be annexed to the Marischal College of Aberdeen, Sir Dugald Dalgetty alone should fill the chair."

"Because, being an ass," said Menteith, aside to the General, "there would be some distant relation between the professor and the students."'

from A Legend of Montrose by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter XX)

The Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott (1816)

This smaller piece was the first emanation of a series of stories called The Tales of My Landlord. There is a definite feeling of rusticity to its first part, where Scott was perhaps slowly making his way to a country tale with supernatural elements; I wonder if something Gothic was on the hustings. The dwarf arrives on Mucklestane Moor and without any leave sets up his stony habitation in an eerie spot, encountering wondering rough locals and spraying all comers with his misanthropic but intelligent barbs. After a contretemps in which Hobbie of Heughfoot's homestead is burnt to ashes and his girl is kidnapped by a ruffian and eventually returned to him unharmed, the story is lifted to more traditional Scott territory. In a deft twist he turns to the parallel story of the Veres and the Mauleys and a planned Jacobite uprising. Isabella Vere is betrothed against her will to Sir Frederick Langley, one of the uprisers, by her father. It is only through the interpolation of the Black Dwarf, who had befriended her earlier in the piece, that this dastardly union is avoided. It is revealed that the Dwarf is the long-lost Sir Edward Mauley, thought dead, and Isabella's good sense has awakened his abuse-hardened heart. This piece is lifted by Scott's insight into the mind of the dwarf; his humanity, and the broader comment about our society's response to the physically unbeautiful and the misery it causes, lend texture and emotion to a simple story.

Commonplace Book

'"Stone walls may have ears,' returned Ellieslaw, eyeing him with a look of triumphant malignity, "but domestic spies, Mr Ratcliffe, will soon find themselves without any, if any such dares to continue his abode in a family where his coming was an unauthorized intrusion, where his conduct has been that of a presumptuous meddler, and from which his exit shall be that of a baffled knave, if he does not know how to take a hint."'

from The Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter XIII)

Commonplace Book

'...Do not men receive even my benefits with shrinking horror and ill-suppressed disgust? And why should I interest myself in a race which accounts me a prodigy and an outcast, and which has treated me as such? No; by all the ingratitude which I have reaped, by all the wrongs which I have sustained, by my imprisonment, my stripes, my chains, I will wrestle down my feelings of rebellious humanity! I will not be the fool I have been, to swerve from my principles whenever there was an appeal, forsooth, to my feelings; as if I, towards whom none show sympathy, ought to have sympathy with any one. Let Destiny drive forth her scythed car through the overwhelmed and trembling mass of humanity!..'

from The Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter VI)

Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (1818)

This is a famous novel and I am divided in mind about it. It has Scott's trademark largesse and broad richness. It also has his trademark diffusion. The element which most strongly comes to mind that it particularly displays is an accentuation of that in the novels by the author I have read thus far (I am slowly reading through Virtue's Dryburgh Edition from 1904), the slow-growing Waverley and Guy Mannering and the far zestier The Antiquary. This is his wandering habit, whereby a character is introduced and is clearly in Scott's mind being built up to serve a significant dramatic purpose. Then his mind wanders, or the purported drama doesn't quite fit a newer plan, and the character is dropped or backgrounded while fresher vistas are plumbed. Somehow with Scott we forgive this; there is some relish of life, sparkiness of mind in him which means that this permanent deviation matters a lot less than it would with a less joyful author. The cases here are the stories of Rashleigh Osbaldistone and Diana Vernon particularly. Rashleigh's intricate two-faced manoeuvrings and Diana's no-less-than-heroine stature are belied in the time they are given in the ultimate half of the novel. But after all is said and done it's Scott, and still a joy...

Commonplace Book

'...placing myself in one of the large leathern chairs which flanked the old Gothic chimney, I watched unconsciously the bickering of the blaze which I had fostered. 'And this,' said I aloud, 'is the progress and the issue of human wishes! Nursed by the merest trifles, they are first kindled by fancy, nay, are fed upon the vapour of hope till they consume the substance which they inflame; and man, and his hopes, passions, and desires, sink into a worthless heap of embers and ashes!''

from Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter XXXVIII)

Commonplace Book

'"...But I maun hear naething about honour; we ken naething here but about credit. Honour is a homicide and a bloodspiller, that gangs about making frays in the street; but Credit is a decent honest man, that sits at hame and makes the pat play."'

from Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter XXVI)

Commonplace Book

'"...happy is he whose good intentions have borne fruit in deeds, and whose evil thoughts have perished in the blossom."'

from Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter XIII)

Commonplace Book

'....of all the propensities which teach mankind to torment themselves, that of causeless fear is the most irritating, busy, painful, and pitiable.'

from Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter III)