Robert Shortreed, Scott's guide through Liddesdale, fixed upon Willie Elliott, of Millburnholm, the first of these farmers whom Scott visited, as the real Dandie. Lockhart, however, gives the honour to neither, and believes that Scott built up the description of this kind and manly character and of his gentle wife, Ailie, from his observation of the early home of William Laidlaw, who later became the novelist's amanuensis and one of his most affectionate friends.
At 'Mump's Ha', Bertram first met the old witch, Meg Merrilies, who played so important a part in his destiny. Scott, as a boy attending school at Kelso, had made several visits to Kirk Yetholm, a village near the English Border, then known as the capital of the gipsies. A certain gipsy soldier, having rendered a service to the Laird of Kirk Yetholm in 1695, was allowed to settle on his estate, which thereafter was the headquarters of the tribe. Scott remembered being accosted on one of his visits by a 'woman of more than female height, dressed in a long red cloak,' who gave him an apple. This woman was Madge Gordon, who was the Queen of the Yetholm tribes. She was a granddaughter of Jean Gordon, whom she greatly resembled in appearance. An interesting story of the latter, who was the real Meg Merrilies, is told in the Introduction to 'Guy Mannering.'
The royal name of the gipsies was Faa, supposed to be a corruption of Pharaoh from whom they claimed descent. Gabriel Faa, the nephew of Meg Merrilies, was a character whom Scott met when on an excursion with James Skene. 'He was one of those vermin-destroyers,' says Skene, 'who gain a subsistence among the farmers in Scotland by relieving them of foxes, polecats, rats, and such-like depredators. The individual in question was a half-witted, stuttering, and most original-looking creature, ingeniously clothed in a sort of tattered attire, to no part of which could any of the usual appellations of man's garb be appropriately given. We came suddenly upon this crazy sportsman in one of the wild glens of Roxburghshire, shouting and bellowing on the track of a fox, which his not less ragged pack of mongrels were tracking around the rocky face of a hill. He was like a scarecrow run off, with some half-dozen grey-plaided shepherds in pursuit of him, with a reserve of shaggy curs yelping at their heels.'
Scott was able to write the vivid description of the salmon-spearing incident, in which Gabriel lets the torch drop into the water just as one of the fishermen had speared a thirty-pound fish, because the sport was one of his own favourite amusements. One night in January, he, with James Skene, Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, and one or two others, were out on the Tweed by the side of Elibank. They had a fine, blazing light and the salmon were plentiful. The boat, however, was a crazy old craft, and just as they reached the deepest pool in the river she began to sink. His companions begged him to push for the shore, but Scott, in great glee, replied, 'Oh, she goes fine,' and began some verses of an old song:—
An gin the boat war bottomless,
An seven miles to row,—
when the boat suddenly went to the bottom. Nothing worse than a good drenching happened to any of the party and Scott enjoyed the experience heartily.
While attending lectures in the University of Edinburgh, it happened frequently that Scott sat by the side of a modest but diligent student, whose extreme poverty was quite obvious. This did not deter him from making a companion of the boy, and they often walked together in the country. Toward the end of the session, he was strolling alone one day when he saw his friend talking, in a confidential manner, with an old beggar to whom he had often given small sums of money. Observing some confusion on the part of the young man, he made some inquiries, and learned that the beggar was his friend's father. It was characteristic of Scott's generous heart that he did not allow this fact to break the acquaintance, but with great sympathy he kept the secret. Some time later he called by special request of the old man at the latter's humble cottage, where he found his fellow student, pale and emaciated from a recent illness. He learned that the old man had saved enough for his own maintenance, but had voluntarily subjected himself to the humiliation of professional mendicancy for no other purpose than to pay for his son's college expenses. In the course of the conversation the poor father often expressed the hope that his bairn 'might wag his pow in a pulpit yet.' These are the words attributed to the parents of Dominie Sampson, of whom the poor lad was the earliest suggestion. When the family came to live at Abbotsford, a tutor for Walter, the eldest son, was required. Scott, always eager to help the unfortunate, employed George Thomson, 'a gallant son of the church,' who by accident had lost a leg. He was 'tall, vigorous, athletic, a dauntless horseman, and expert at the single-stick.' Scott often said of him, 'In the Dominie, like myself, accident has spoiled a capital lifeguardsman.' He was a man of many eccentricities and peculiarities of disposition, among them a remarkable absent-mindedness, but kind-hearted, faithful, upright, and an excellent scholar. In these respects he was the prototype of Dominie Sampson, though the story of the latter's devotion to Lucy Bertram in the days of her adversity is based upon an incident in the life of another person.
Counsellor Pleydell, whom Dominie Sampson regarded as 'a very erudite and fa-ce-ti-ous person,' was generally identified, by those who knew Edinburgh a century ago, with Mr. Andrew Crosbie,[[3]] a flourishing member of the Scottish Bar of that period. Eminent lawyers were then in the habit of meeting their clients in taverns, where important business was transacted to the accompaniment of drinking and revelry. This typical old Scottish gentleman of real life lived in Lady Stair's Close and later in Advocate's Close, both resembling the quarters assigned to Counsellor Pleydell. In those days, the extremely high buildings, crowded closely together in that part of the Old Town nearest to the Parliament House, were occupied by the elite of Edinburgh society. They were ten and twelve stories high and reached by narrow winding stairs. Access from High Street was gained by means of narrow and often steep alleyways or closes. As a rule the more aristocratic and exclusive families lived on the top floors, and as there were no elevators, it might be said, the higher a man's social position, the more he had to work for his living.
Like his brethren in the profession, Mr. Crosbie had his favourite tavern, where he could always be found by any of the 'cadies'[[4]] in the street. This was Dawny Douglas's tavern in Anchor Close, the meeting-place of the 'Crochallan Fencibles,' a convivial club of which William Smellie, a well-known printer and editor of the day, was the inspiring genius, and where Robert Burns, when in Edinburgh, joined heartily in the bacchanalian revels which were famous for their duration and intensity. Smellie's printing-office in this close was frequented by some of the most eminent literary men of the day.
The game of 'High Jinks' was played on Saturday nights in Douglas's tavern very much as described in the novel. Clerihugh's, which Scott mentions as Mr. Pleydell's resort, was a somewhat more respectable place in Writers' Court.