Yet before the “Lord of the Isles” was published (Jan. 18, 1815), two volumes of “Guy Mannering “ were in print (Letter to Morritt, Jan. 17, 1815.) The novel was issued on Feb. 14, 1815. Scott, as he says somewhere, was like the turnspit dog, into whose wheel a hot cinder is dropped to encourage his activity. Scott needed hot cinders in the shape of proof-sheets fresh from the press, and he worked most busily when the printer’s devil was waiting. In this case, not only the printer’s devil, but the wolf was at the door. The affairs of the Ballantynes clamoured for moneys In their necessity and his own, Scott wrote at the rate of a volume in ten days, and for some financial reason published “Guy Mannering” with Messrs. Longmans, not with Constable. Scott was at this moment facing creditors and difficulties as Napoleon faced the armies of the Allies, — present everywhere, everywhere daring and successful. True, his “Lord of the Isles” was a disappointment, as James Ballantyne informed him. “‘Well, James, so be it; but you know we must not droop, for we cannot afford to give over. Since one line has failed, we must just stick to something else.’ And so he dismissed me, and resumed his novel.”
In these circumstances, far from inspiring, was “Guy Mannering” written and hurried through the press. The story has its own history: one can watch the various reminiscences and experiences of life that crystallized together in Scott’s mind, and grouped themselves fantastically into his unpremeditated plot. Sir Walter gives, in the preface of 1829, the legend which he heard from John MacKinlay, his father’s Highland servant, and on which he meant to found a tale more in Hawthorn’s manner than in his own. That plan he changed in the course of printing,” leaving only just enough of astrology to annoy pedantic reviewers and foolish Puritans.’ Whence came the rest of the plot, — the tale of the long-lost heir, and so on? The true heir, “kept out of his own,” and returning in disguise, has been a favourite character ever since Homer sang of Odysseus, and probably long before that. But it is just possible that Scott had a certain modern instance in his mind. In turning over the old manuscript diary at Branxholme Park (mentioned in a note to “Waverley”), the Editor lighted on a singular tale, which, in the diarist’s opinion, might have suggested “Guy Mannering “ to Sir Walter. The resemblance between the story of Vanbeest Brown and the hero of the diarist was scanty; but in a long letter of Scott’s to Lady Abercorn (May 21, 1813), a the Editor finds Sir Walter telling his correspondent the very narrative recorded in the Branxholme Park diary. Singular things happen, Sir Walter says; and he goes on to describe a case just heard in the court where he is sitting as Clerk of Sessions. Briefly, the anecdote is this: A certain Mr. Carruthers of Dormont had reason to suspect his wife’s fidelity. While proceedings for a divorce were pending, Mrs. Carruthers bore a daughter, of whom her husband, of course, was legally the father. But he did not believe in the relationship, and sent the infant girl to be brought up, in ignorance of her origin and in seclusion, among the Cheviot Hills. Here she somehow learned the facts of her own story. She married a Mr. Routledge, the son of a yeoman, and “compounded” her rights (but not those of her issue) for a small sung of ready money, paid by old Dormont. She bears a boy; then she and her husband died in poverty. Their son was sent by a friend to the East Indies, and was presented with a packet of papers, which he left unopened at a lawyer’s. The young man made a fortune in India, returned to Scotland, and took a shooting in Dumfriesshire, near bormont, his ancestral home. He lodged at a small inn hard by, and the landlady, struck by his name, began to gossip with him about his family history. He knew nothing of the facts which the landlady disclosed, but, impressed by her story, sent for and examined his neglected packet of papers. Then he sought legal opinion, and was advised, by President Blair, that he had a claim worth presenting on the estate of Dormont. “The first decision of the cause,” writes Scott, “was favourable.” The true heir celebrated his legal victory by a dinner-party, and his friends saluted him as “Dormont.” Next morning he was found dead. Such is the true tale. As it occupied Scott’s mind in 1813, and as he wrote “Guy Mannering” in 1814-15, it is not impossible that he may have borrowed his wandering heir, who returns by pure accident to his paternal domains, and there learns his origin at a woman’s lips, from the Dormont case. The resemblance of the stories, at least, was close enough to strike a shrewd observer some seventy years ago.
Another possible source of the plot — a more romantic origin, certainly — is suggested by Mr. Robert Chambers in “Illustrations of the Author of ‘Waverley.’” A Maxwell of Glenormiston, “a religious and bigoted recluse,” sent his only son and heir to a Jesuit College in Flanders, left his estate in his brother’s management, and died. The wicked uncle alleged that the heir was also dead. The child, ignorant of his birth, grew up, ran away from the Jesuits at the age of sixteen, enlisted in the French army, fought at Fontenoy, got his colours, and, later, landed in the Moray Firth as a French officer in 1745. He went through the campaign, was in hiding in Lochaber after Drumossie, and in making for a Galloway port, was seized, and imprisoned in Dumfries. Here an old woman of his father’s household recognized him by “a mark which she remembered on his body.” His cause was taken up by friends; but the usurping uncle died, and Sir Robert Maxwell recovered his estates without a lawsuit. This anecdote is quoted from the “New Monthly Magazine,” June, 1819. There is nothing to prove that Scott was acquainted with this adventure. Scott’s own experience, as usual, supplied him with hints for his characters. The phrase of Dominie Sampson’s father, “Please God, my bairn may live to wag his pow in a pulpit,” was uttered in his own hearing. There was a Bluegown, or Bedesman, like Edie Ochiltree, who had a son at Edinburgh College. Scott was kind to the son, the Bluegown asked him to dinner, and at this meal the old man made the remark about the pulpit and the pow.’ A similar tale is told by Scott in the Introduction to “The Antiquary” (1830). As for the good Dominie, Scott remarks that, for “certain particular reasons,” he must say what he has to say about his prototype “very generally.” Mr. Chambers’ finds the prototype in a Mr. James Sanson, tutor in the house of Mr. Thomas Scott, Sir Walter’s uncle. It seems very unlike Sir Walter to mention this excellent man almost by his name, and the tale about his devotion to his patron’s daughter cannot, apparently, be true of Mr. James Sanson. The prototype of Pleydell, according to Sir Walter himself (Journal, June 19, 1830), was “my old friend Adam Rolland, Esq., in external circumstances, but not in frolic or fancy.” Mr. Chambers, however, finds the original in Mr. Andrew Crosbie, an advocate of great talents, who frolicked to ruin, and died in 1785. Scott may have heard tales of this patron of “High Jinks,” but cannot have known him much personally. Dandie Dinmont is simply the typical Border farmer. Mr. Shortreed, Scott’s companion in his Liddesdale raids, thought that Willie Elliot, in Millburnholm, was the great original. Scott did not meet Mr. James Davidson in Hindlee, owner of all the Mustards and Peppers, till some years after the novel was written. “Guy Mannering,” when read to him, sent Mr. Davidson to sleep. “The kind and manly character of Dandie, the gentle and delicious one of his wife,” and the circumstances of their home, were suggested, Lockhart thinks, by Scott’s friend, steward, and amanuensis, Mr. William Laidlaw, by Mrs. Laidlaw, and by their farm among the braes of Yarrow. In truth, the Border was peopled then by Dandies and Ailies: nor is the race even now extinct in Liddesdale and Teviotdale, in Ettrick and Yarrow. As for Mustard and Pepper, their offspring too is powerful in the land, and is the deadly foe of vermin. The curious may consult Mr. Cook’s work on “The Dandie Dinmont Terrier.” The Duke of Buccleugh’s breed still resembles the fine example painted by Gainsborough in his portrait of the duke (of Scott’s time). “Tod Gabbie,” again, as Lockhart says, was studied from Tod Willie, the huntsman of the hills above Loch Skene. As for the Galloway scenery, Scott did not know it well, having only visited “the Kingdom” in 1793, when he was defending the too frolicsome Mr. McNaught, Minister of Girthon. The beautiful and lonely wilds of the Glenkens, in central Galloway, where traditions yet linger, were, unluckily, terra incognita to Scott. A Galloway story of a murder and its detection by the prints of the assassin’s boots inspired the scene where Dirk Hatteraick is traced by similar means. In Colonel Mannering, by the way, the Ettrick Shepherd recognized “Walter Scott, painted by himself.”
The reception of “Guy Mannering” was all that could be wished. William Erskine and Ballantyne were “of opinion that it is much more interesting than ‘Waverley.’” Mr. Morritt (March, 1815) pronounced himself to be “quite charmed with Dandie, Meg Merrilies, and Dirk Hatteraick, —
