Sir Walter Scott | Page 7

through the
suspense of the hero's mind, rendered in the talk of Bailie Nicol Jarvie
and Andrew Fairservice; made alive, as the saying is, through
successive anxieties and dangers; thrilling with romance, yet at the
same time never beyond the range of ordinary common sense. Is it not
a triumph, at the very lowest reckoning, of dexterous narrative to bring
together in a vivid dramatic scene the humorous character of the
Glasgow citizen and the equal and opposite humour of his cousin, the
cateran, the Highland loon, Mr. Campbell disclosed as Rob Roy--with
the Dougal creature helping him?
Scott's comedy is like that of Cervantes in Don Quixote--humorous
dialogue independent of any definite comic plot and mixed up with all
sorts of other business. Might not Falstaff himself be taken into
comparison too? Scott's humorous characters are nowhere and never
characters in a comedy--and Falstaff, the greatest comic character in
Shakespeare, is not great in comedy.
Some of the rich idiomatic Scottish dialogue in the novels might be
possibly disparaged (like Ben Jonson) as 'mere humours and
observation.' Novelists of lower rank than Scott--Galt in The Ayrshire
Legatees and Annals of the Parish and The Entail--have nearly rivalled
Scott in reporting conversation. But the Bailie at any rate has his part to

play in the story of Rob Roy--and so has Andrew Fairservice. Scott
never did anything more ingenious than his contrast of those two
characters--so much alike in language, and to some extent in cast of
mind, with the same conceit and self-confidence, the same garrulous
Westland security in their own judgment, both attentive to their own
interests, yet clearly and absolutely distinct in spirit, the Bailie a match
in courage for Rob Roy himself.
Give me leave, before I end, to read one example of Scott's language:
from the scene in Guy Mannering where Dandie Dinmont explains his
case to Mr. Pleydell the advocate. It is true to life: memory and
imagination here indistinguishable:--
Dinmont, who had pushed after Mannering into the room, began with a
scrape of his foot and a scratch of his head in unison. 'I am Dandie
Dinmont, sir, of the Charlies-hope--the Liddesdale lad--ye'll mind me?
It was for me you won yon grand plea.'
'What plea, you loggerhead?' said the lawyer; 'd'ye think I can
remember all the fools that come to plague me?'
'Lord, sir, it was the grand plea about the grazing o' the Langtae-head,'
said the farmer.
'Well, curse thee, never mind;--give me the memorial, and come to me
on Monday at ten,' replied the learned counsel.
'But, sir, I haena got ony distinct memorial.'
'No memorial, man?' said Pleydell.
'Na, sir, nae memorial,' answered Dandie; 'for your honour said before,
Mr. Pleydell, ye'll mind, that ye liked best to hear us hill-folk tell our
ane tale by word o' mouth.'
'Beshrew my tongue that said so!' answered the counsellor; 'it will cost
my ears a dinning.--Well, say in two words what you've got to say--you
see the gentleman waits.'

'Ou, sir, if the gentleman likes he may play his ain spring first; it's a'
ane to Dandie.'
'Now, you looby,' said the lawyer, 'cannot you conceive that your
business can be nothing to Colonel Mannering, but that he may not
choose to have these great ears of thine regaled with his matters?'
'Aweel, sir, just as you and he like, so ye see to my business,' said
Dandie, not a whit disconcerted by the roughness of this reception.
'We're at the auld wark o' the marches again, Jock o' Dawston Cleugh
and me. Ye see we march on the tap o' Touthoprigg after we pass the
Pomoragrains; for the Pomoragrains, and Slackenspool, and
Bloodylaws, they come in there, and they belang to the Peel; but after
ye pass Pomoragrains at a muckle great saucer-headed cutlugged stane,
that they ca' Charlie's Chuckie, there Dawston Cleugh and
Charlies-hope they march. Now, I say, the march rins on the tap o' the
hill where the wind and water shears; but Jock o' Dawston Cleugh
again, he contravenes that, and says that it hauds down by the auld
drove-road that gaes awa by the Knot o' the Gate ower to
Keeldar-ward--and that makes an unco difference.'
'And what difference does it make, friend?' said Pleydell. 'How many
sheep will it feed?'
'Ou, no mony,' said Dandie, scratching his head; 'it's lying high and
exposed--it may feed a hog, or aiblins twa in a good year.'
'And for this grazing, which may be worth about five shillings a-year,
you are willing to throw away a hundred pound or two?'
'Na, sir, it's no for the value of the grass,' replied Dinmont; 'it's for
justice.'
Do we at home in Scotland make too much of Scott's life and
associations when we think of his poetry and his