Illustrations of the Author of Waverley / Being Notices and Anecdotes of Real Characters, Scenes, and Incidents Supposed to Be Described in His Works

by Robert Chambers

A COUNTRY INNKEEPER.

(Caleb Balderston.)

The prototype of Caleb Balderstone was perhaps Laird Bour, a servant of the Logans of Restalrig, in 1600. It is evident that the character is just a Scottish edition of “Garrick’s Lying Valet.” We have discovered, however, a solitary trait of Caleb, in a Scotch innkeeper of real existence, who lived long in the south country,[47] and died only a few years ago. We subjoin a very brief notice of this person, whose name was Andrew Davidson.

A literary gentleman, who supplies us with information respecting him, states that he was once possessed of a considerable estate,—that of Green-house, in the county of Roxburgh. But being a man of great wit and humour, his society was courted by young men of idle and dissipated habits, who led him into such expenses as shortly proved prejudicial to his fortunes. He was then obliged to sell off his estate and betake himself to a humbler line of life. Keeping a small grocery and spirit shop always presents itself to men in such circumstances as a means of subsistence requiring the least instruction and most easily set afloat. He accordingly commenced that line of business in Jedburgh; but, being considered as an intruder into the burgh, and opposing certain ancient residenters, who were supposed to be more lawfully, justly, and canonically entitled to trade in the town than any new upstart, he did not meet with that success which he expected. In consequence of this illiberal treatment, he conceived the most rancorous hatred for the inhabitants of Jedburgh, and ever after spoke of them in the most violent terms of hatred and contempt. His common language was, “that not an individual in the town would be judged at the last day,—Jedburgh would be at once damned by the slump!”

He again resolved to commence the profession of agriculture, and took the farm of Habton, in the neighbouring parish of Crailing. This speculation, however, succeeded no better than the shop. By associating himself with the opulent farmers and gentlemen of the vicinity, by whom his company, as a man of wit and jollity, was always much sought after, his ancient habits of extravagance returned; and, though in poorer circumstances, being obliged to spend in equal style with these ruinous friends, the surviving wrecks of his fortune were soon dissipated, and he was obliged to become a bankrupt.

When a man who has freely lavished his fortune and his humour in the entertainment of friends above his own rank becomes incapable of further sacrifice, it is most natural for such friends to forsake and neglect him. He is considered as no more entitled to their gratitude than the superannuated player, after he has ceased to be supported by the immediate exhibition of his powers. There is no Chelsea provided for the cripples in the cause of the gay.

Mr. Davidson was, however, more fortunate in his companions. After his misfortune, they induced him to open a house of entertainment at Ancrum Bridge; laid in for him a stock of wines, spirits, etc.; made parties at his house; and set him fairly a-going. This was a line in which he was calculated both to shine and to realize profit. His company was still as attractive as ever; and it was no longer disgraceful to receive a solid reward for the entertainment which his facetiousness could afford. Having also learned a little wisdom from his former miscarriages, he proceeded with more caution, kept up the respectability of his house, was polite and amusing to his guests, and, above all, paid infinite attention to his business.

The peculiarity of character, for which we have placed his name against that of Caleb Balderstone, here occurs. Whenever there alighted any stranger of a more splendid appearance than ordinary, he was suddenly seized with a fit of magniloquency, and, in the identical manner of Caleb Balderstone, would call Hostler No. 10 down from Hay-loft No. 15, to conduct the gentleman’s “beast” to one of the best stalls in the Stable No. 20! He would then, with a superabundance of ceremony, show the stranger into a chamber which he would declare with the greatest assurance to be No. 40; and on his guest asking perhaps for a glass of rum, would order a waiter, whom he baptized (nolens volens) No. 15 for the occasion, to draw it from the cask in the bar marked 95. Then was the twelfth hen-roost to be ransacked, and a glorious fowl, the best that could be selected from a stock of about one thousand or so, to be consigned to the hands of the Head Cook herself, (God knows his house boasted only one, who was Scullion and Boots besides.) All this rhodomontade was enacted in a style of such serious effrontery, and was accompanied by such a volubility of talk, and flights of humour, and bustling activity, that any one not previously acquainted with his devices, would have given him and his house credit for ten times the size and respectability they could actually boast of.

Mr. Davidson afterwards removed to the inn at Middleton, where he died, in good circumstances, about sixteen years ago. He was a man of very brilliant talents, distinguished much by that faculty entitled by the country people ready wit. He had a strong memory, a lively and fertile imagination, and possessed powers of discourse truly astonishing. The prevailing tone of his mind was disposed to ridicule. He had a singularly felicitous knack of giving anything improper in his own conduct or appearance a bias in his favour, and could at all times, as we have seen, set off his own circumstances in such a light as made them splendid and respectable, though in reality they were vulgar and undignified.

CHAPTER IX.

Legend of Montrose.

(Plot of the Tale.)

here can be little doubt that the Author of “Waverley” has taken the grounds of this Tale from the following interesting story, related in a critique on the “Culloden Papers,” in the Quarterly Review, which is said to have been written by the Great Novelist’s other self, Sir Walter Scott.

“The family or sept of Macgregor is of genuine Celtic origin, great antiquity, and, in Churchill’s phrase,

‘doubtless springs

From great and glorious, but forgotten kings.’

“They were once possessed of Glenurchy, of the castle at the head of Lochowe, of Glendochart, Glenlyon, Finlarig, Balloch, now called Taymouth, and of the greater part of Breadalbane. From these territories they were gradually expelled by the increasing strength of the Campbells, who, taking advantage of a bloody feud between the M‘Gregors and M‘Nabs, obtained letters of fire and sword against the former; and, about the reigns of James III. and IV., dispossessed them of much of their property. The celebrated M‘Gregor a Rua Rua, the heir-male of the chief, and a very gallant young man, was surprised and slain by Colin Campbell, the Knight of Lochowe, and with him fell the fortunes of his family. From this time, the few lands which remained not sufficing to support so numerous a clan, the M‘Gregors became desperate, wild, and lawless, supporting themselves either by actual depredation, or by the money which they levied as the price of their forbearance, and retaliating upon the more powerful clans, as well as upon the Lowlands, the severity with which they were frequently pursued and slaughtered. A single trait of their history will show what was the ferocity of feud among the Scottish clans.

“The remaining settlements of the M‘Gregor tribe were chiefly in Balquhidder, around Loch Katrine, as far as the borders of Lochlomond. Even these lands they did not possess in property, but by some transactions with the family of Buchanan, who were the real landholders; but the terrors of the M‘Gregors extended far and wide, for they were at feud with all their neighbours. In the year 1589, a party of the M‘Gregors, belonging to a tribe called Clan-Duil a Cheach, i.e. the children of Dougal of the Mist, (an appropriate name for such a character,) met with John Drummond of Drummondernoch, who had, in his capacity of stewart-depute, or provincial magistrate of Strathearn, tried and executed two or three of these M‘Gregors, for depredations committed on his chief Lord Drummond’s lands. The Children of the Mist seized the opportunity of vengeance, slew the unfortunate huntsman, and cut off his head. They then went to the house of John Stewart of Ardvoirlich, whose wife was a sister of the murdered Drummondernoch. The laird was absent, but the lady received the unbidden and unwelcome guests with hospitality, and, according to the Highland custom and phrase, placed before them bread and cheese, till better food could be made ready. She left the room to superintend the preparations, and when she returned, beheld, displayed upon the table, the ghastly head of her brother, with a morsel of bread and cheese in its mouth. The terrified lady rushed out of the house with a fearful shriek, and could not be found, though her distracted husband caused all the woods and wildernesses around to be diligently searched. To augment the misery of Ardvoirlich, his unfortunate wife was with child when she disappeared. She did not, however, perish. It was harvest season, and in the woods and moors the maniac wanderer probably found berries and other substances capable of sustaining life; though the vulgar, fond of the marvellous, supposed that the wild deer had pity on her misery, and submitted to be milked by her. At length some train of former ideas began to revive in her mind. She had formerly been very attentive to her domestic duties, and used commonly to oversee the milking of the cows; and now the women employed in that office in the remote upland grazings, observed with terror, that they were regularly watched during the milking by an emaciated, miserable-looking, female figure, who appeared from among the bushes, but retired with great swiftness when any one approached her. The story was told to Ardvoirlich, who, conjecturing the truth, took measures for intercepting and recovering the unfortunate fugitive. She regained her senses after the birth of her child; but it was remarkable, that the son whom she bore seemed affected by the consequences of her terror. He was of great strength, but of violent passions, under the influence of which he killed his friend and commander, Lord Kilpont, in a manner which the reader will find detailed in Wishart’s Memoirs of Montrose.

“The tragedy of Drummondernoch did not end with the effects of the murder on the Lady Ardvoirlich. The clan of the M‘Gregors being convoked in the church of Balquhidder, upon the Sunday after the act, the bloody head was produced on the altar, when each clansman avowed the murder to have been perpetrated by his own consent, and, laying successively his hands on the scalp, swore to defend and protect the authors of the deed,—‘in ethnic and barbarous manner,’ says an order of the Lords of the Privy Council, dated 4th February, 1589, ‘in most proud contempt of our Sovereign Lord and his authority, if this shall remain unpunished.’ Then follows a commission to search for and pursue Alaster M‘Gregor of Glenstrae, and all others of his name, with fire and sword. We have seen a letter upon this subject from Patrick, Lord Drummond, who was naturally most anxious to avenge his kinsman’s death, to the Earl of Montrose, appointing a day in which the one shall be ‘at the bottom of the valley of Balquhidder with his forces, and advance upward, and the other, with his powers, shall occupy the higher outlet, and move downwards, for the express purpose of taking sweet revenge for the death of their cousin.’ Ardvoirlich assisted them with a party, and it is said they killed thirty-seven of the clan of Dougal of the Mist upon the single farm of Inverneuty.”—Quarterly Review, vol. xiv., p. 307.