St. Ronans Well | Page 3

end of sin and folly?" The reviewer in the "Monthly Review" (1824) says "there is a hint of some deeper cause of grief (see the confession to the brother), but it is highly problematical." For all this the delicacy of James Ballantyne is to blame--his delicacy, and Scott's concessions to a respectable man and a bad critic.
The origin of "St. Ronan's Well" has been described by Lockhart in a familiar passage. As Laidlaw, Scott, and Lockhart were riding along the brow of the triple-peaked Eildon Hills, Scott mentioned "the row" that was going on in Paris about "Quentin Durward." "I can't but think I could make better play still with something German," he said. Laidlaw grumbled at this: "You are always best, like Helen MacGregor, when your foot is on your native heath; and I have often thought that if you were to write a novel, and lay the scene here in the very year you were writing it, you would exceed yourself." "Hame's hame," quoth Scott, smiling, "be it ever sae hamely," and Laidlaw bade him "stick to Melrose in 1823." It was now that Scott spoke of the village tragedy, the romance of every house, of every cottage, and told a tale of some horrors in the hamlet that lies beyond Melrose, on the north side of Tweed. Laidlaw and Lockhart believed that this conversation suggested "St. Ronan's Well," the scene of which has been claimed as their own by the people of Innerleithen. This little town is beautifully situated where the hills of Tweed are steepest, and least resemble the bosses verdatres of Prosper Mérimée. It is now a manufacturing town, like its neighbours, and contributes its quota to the pollution of "the glittering and resolute streams of Tweed." The pilgrim will scarce rival Tyrrel's feat of catching a clean-run salmon in summer, but the scenes are extremely pleasing, and indeed, from this point to Dryburgh, the beautiful and fabled river is at its loveliest. It is possible that a little inn farther up the water, "The Crook," on the border of the moorland, and near Tala Linn, where the Covenanters held a famous assembly, may have suggested the name of the "Cleikum." Lockhart describes the prosperity which soon flowed into Innerleithen, and the St. Ronan's Games, at which the Ettrick Shepherd presided gleefully. They are still held, or were held very lately, but there will never come again such another Shepherd, or such contests with the Flying Tailor of Ettrick.
Apart from the tragedy of Clara, doubtless the better parts of "St. Ronan's Well" are the Scotch characters. Even our generation remembers many a Meg Dods, and he who writes has vividly in his recollection just such tartness, such goodness of heart, such ungoverned eloquence and vigour of rebuke as made Meg famous, successful on the stage, and welcome to her countrymen. These people, Mrs. Blower and Meg, are Shakspearean, they live with Dame Quickly and Shallow, in the hearts of Scots, but to the English general they are possibly caviare. In the gallant and irascible MacTurk we have the waning Highlander: he resembles the Captain of Knockdunder in "The Heart of Mid Lothian," or an exaggerated and ill-educated Hector of "The Antiquary." Concerning the women of the tale, it may be said that Lady Binks has great qualities, and appears to have been drawn "with an eye on the object," as Wordsworth says, and from the life. Lady Penelope seems more exaggerated now than she probably did at the time, for the fashion of affectation changes. The Winterblossoms and Quacklebens are accurate enough in themselves, but are seen through a Blackwoodian atmosphere, as it were, through a mist of the temporary and boisterous Scotch humour of the day. The author occasionally stoops to a pun, and, like that which Hood made in the hearing of Thackeray, the pun is not good. Indeed the novel, in its view of the decay of the Border, the ruined Laird, the frivolous foolish society of the Well, taking the place of sturdy William of Deloraine, and farmers like Scott's grandfather, makes a picture of decadence as melancholy as "Redgauntlet." "Not here, O Apollo, are haunts meet for thee!" Strangely enough, among the features of the time, Scott mentions reckless borrowings, "accommodation," "Banks of Air." His own business was based on a "Bank of Air," "wind-capital," as Cadell, Constable's partner, calls it, and the bubble was just about to burst, though Scott had no apprehension of financial ruin. A horrid power is visible in Scott's second picture of la mauvaise pauvre, the hag who despises and curses the givers of "handfuls of coals and of rice;" his first he drew in the witches of "The Bride of Lammermoor." He has himself indicated his desire to press hard on the vice of