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Walter Scott: Chronicles of the Canongate
=========================================
a machine-readable transcription
Version 1.0: 1993-03-25
This machine-readable transcription of the
Chronicles of the Canongate is based on the text
published as volumes 41 and 48 of the Waverley
Novels by Archibald Constable and Company in 1896.
Volume 41 also included the Keepsake Stories, which
have been separated from the Chronicles. The tale
`The Surgeon's Daughter' originally appeared in
volume 48, for reasons only printers and publishers
will understand.
The order of the files in this distribution are
as follows:
introduction - the author's introduction
introduction.appendix - account of the first public
announcement of Scott's authorship
of the Waverley novels
introductory - Chrystal Croftangry account of
himself
introductory.notes
the.highland.widow
the highland.widow.notes
the.two.drovers.introduction
the.two.drovers
the two.drovers.notes
t . . .
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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 fo . . .
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THE
HIGHLAND WIDOW.
CHAPTER 1.
It wound as near as near could be,
But what it is she cannot tell;
On the other side it seemed to be,
Of the huge broad-breasted old oak-tree.
Coleridge.
Mrs Bethune Baliol's memorandum begins
thus:---
It is five-and-thirty, or perhaps nearer forty
years ago, since, to relieve the dejection of spirits
occasioned by a great family loss sustained two or
three months before, I undertook what was called
the short Highland tour. This had become in some
degree fashionable; but though the military roads
were excellent, yet the accommodation was so indifferent
that it was reckoned a little adventure to
accomplish it. Besides, the Highlands, though
now as peaceable as any part of King George's
dominions, was a sound which still carried terror,
while so many survived who had witnessed the
insurrection of 1745; and a vague idea of fear was
impres . . .
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1.
Note A.---Loch Awe.
``Loch Awe, upon the banks of which the scene of action
took place, is thirty-four miles in length. The north side is
bounded by wide muirs and inconsiderable hills, which occupy
an extent of country from twelve to twenty miles in breadth,
and the whole of this space is enclosed as by circumvallation.
Upon the north it is barred by Loch Eitive, on the south by
Loch Awe, and on the east by the dreadful pass of Brandir,
through which an arm of the latter lake opens, at about four
miles from its eastern extremity, and discharges the river
Awe into the former. The pass is about three miles in length;
its east side is bounded by the almost inaccessible steeps which
form the base of the vast and rugged mountain of Cruachan.
The crags rise in some places almost perpendicularly from
the water, and for their chief extent show no space nor level
at their feet, but a rough and narrow edge of stony beach.
Upon the whole of these c . . .
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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.]
------
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 re . . .
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CHRONICLES
OF
THE CANONGATE.
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 bead 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 ambitio . . .
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NOTE TO CHAPTER I.
Note A. Holyrood.
The reader may be gratified with Hector Boece's narrative
of the original foundation of the famous abbey of Holyrood,
or the Holy Cross, as given in Bellenden's translation:
``Eftir death of Alexander the first, his brothir David come
out of Ingland, and wes crownit at Scone, the yeir of God
MCXXIV yeiris, and did gret justice, eftir his coronation, in
all partis of his realme. He had na weris during the time of
King Hary; and wes so pietuous, that he sat daylie in judgement,
to caus his pure commonis to have justice; and causit
the actionis of his noblis to be decidit be his othir jugis. He
gart ilk juge redres the skaithis that come to the party be his
wrang sentence; throw quhilk, he decorit his realm with
mony nobil actis, and ejeckit the vennomus custome of riotus
cheir, quhilk wes inducit afore be Inglismen, quhen thay
com with Quene Margaret; for the samin wes noisum to
al gud maneris, makand his pepil tender and effeminat.
``In the f . . .
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THE
SURGEON'S DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER 1.
When fainting Nature call'd for aid,
And hovering Death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy display'd
The power of Art without the show;
In Misery's darkest caverns known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die;
No summons mock'd by cold delay,
No petty gains disclaim'd by pride
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.
Samuel Johnson.
The exquisitely beautiful portrait which the
Rambler has painted of his friend Levett, well
describes Gideon Gray, and many other village
doctors, from whom Scotland reaps more benefit
and to whom she is perhaps more ungrateful, than
to any other class of men, excepting her schoolmasters.
Such a rural man of medicine is usually the inhabitant
of some petty borough or village, which
forms the central point . . .
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Mr Croftangry's Conclusion.
If you tell a good jest,
And please all the rest,
Comes Dingley, and asks you, ``What was it?''
And before she can know,
Away she will go
To seek an old rag in the closet.
Dean Swift.
While I was inditing the goodly matter which
my readers have just perused, I might be said to go
through a course of breaking-in to stand criticism,
like a shooting-pony to stand fire. By some of
those venial breaches of confidence, which always
take place on the like occasions, my private flirtations
with the Muse of Fiction became a matter
whispered in Miss Fairscribe's circle, some ornaments,
of which were, I suppose, highly interested
in the progress of the affair, while others ``really
thought Mr Chrystal Croftangry might have had
more wit at his time of day.'' Then came the sly
intimation, the oblique remark, all that sugar-lipped
raillery which is fitted for . . .
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INTRODUCTION
TO THE
SURGEON'S DAUGHTER.
The tale of the Surgeon's Daughter formed
part of the second series of Chronicles of the
Canongate, published in 1827; but has been
separated from the stories of The Highland
Widow, &c., which it originally accompanied,
and deferred to the close of this collection, for
reasons which printers and publishers will understand,
and which would hardly interest the
general reader.
The Author has nothing to say now in reference
to this little Novel, but that the principal
incident on which it turns, was narrated to
him one morning at breakfast by his worthy
friend, Mr Train, of Castle Douglas, in Galloway,
whose kind assistance he has so often had
occasion to acknowledge in the course of these
prefaces; and that the military friend who is
alluded to as having furnished him with some
information as to Eastern matters, was Colonel
James Ferguson of Huntly Burn, one of the
sons of the venerable historian and philosopher
of that name . . .
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THE
SURGEON'S DAUGHTER.
Mr Croftangry's Preface.
Indite, my muse, indite,
Subp<oe>na'd is thy lyre,
The praises to requite
Which rules of court require.
_Probationary Odes_.
The concluding a literary undertaking, in whole
or in part, is, to the inexperienced at least, attended
with an irritating titillation, like that which
attends on the healing of a wound---a prurient
impatience, in short, to know what the world in
general, and friends in particular, will say to our
labours. Some authors, I am told, profess an
oyster-like indifference upon this subject; for my
own part, I hardly believe in their sincerity.
Others may acquire it from habit; but in my poor
opinion, a neophyte like myself must be for a long
time incapable of such _sang froid_.
Frankly I was ashamed to feel how childishly
I felt on the occasion. No person could have said
prettier things than myself upon the importance . . .
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THE
TWO DROVERS.
CHAPTER 1.
It was the day after Doune Fair when my story
commences. It had been a brisk market, several
dealers had attended from the northern and midland
counties in England, and English money had
flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of
the Highland farmers. Many large droves were
about to set off for England, under the protection
of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they employed
in the tedious, laborious, and responsible
office of driving the cattle for many hundred miles,
from the market where they had been purchased,
to the fields or farm-yards where they were to be
fattened for the shambles.
The Highlanders in particular are masters of
this difficult trade of driving, which seems to suit
them as well as the trade of war. It affords exercise
for all their habits of patient endurance and
active exertion. They are required to know perfectly
the drove-roads, which lie over the wildest
tracts of . . .
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Mr Croftangry introduces another tale.
Together both on the high lawns appeared.
Under the opening eyelids of the morn
They drove afield.
_Elegy on Lycidas_.
I have sometimes wondered why all the favourite
occupations and pastimes of mankind go to the
disturbance of that happy state of tranquillity, that
_Otium_, as Horace terms it, which he says is the
object of all men's prayers, whether preferred from
sea or land; and that the undisturbed repose, of
which we are so tenacious, when duty or necessity
compels us to abandon it, is precisely what we long
to exchange for a state of excitation, as soon as we
may prolong it at our own pleasure. Briefly, you
have only to say to a man, ``remain at rest,'' and you
instantly inspire the love of labour. The sportsman
toils like his gamekeeper, the master of the
pack takes as severe exercise as his whipper-in,
the statesman or politician drudges more than the
professional lawyer; and, to come to m . . .
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NOTE TO CHAPTER II.
Note A.---Robert Donn's Poems.
I cannot dismiss this story without resting attention for a
moment on the light which has been thrown on the character
of the Highland Drover since the time of its first appearance,
by the account of a drover poet, by name Robert Mackay, or,
as he was commonly called, Rob Donn, i.e. brown Robert,
and certain specimens of his talents, published in the 90th
Number of the Quarterly Review. The picture which that
paper gives of the habits and feelings of a class of persons with
which the general reader would be apt to associate no ideas
but those of wild superstition and rude manners, is in the
highest degree interesting; and I cannot resist the temptation
of quoting two of the songs of this hitherto unheard of poet of
humble life. They are thus introduced by the reviewer:---
``Upon one occasion, it seems, Rob's attendance upon his
master's cattle business detained him a whole year from home,
and at his return . . .
