“To point a moral and adorn a tale!”[15]
SOUTH COUNTRY FARMERS.
(Dandie Dinmont.)
Perhaps the Author of “Waverley” has nowhere so completely given the effect of reality to his portraiture as in the case of honest Dandie Dinmont, the renowned yeoman of Charlieshope. This personage seems to be quite familiar to his mind, present to his eye, domesticated in the chambers of his fancy. The minutest motions of the farmer’s body, and the most trivial workings of his mind, are alike bright in his eye; and so faithful a representation has been produced, that one might almost think the author had taken his sketch by some species of mental camera obscura, which brought the figure beneath his pencil in all its native colours and proportions.
It is impossible to point out any individual of real life as the original of this happy production. It appears to be entirely generic—that is to say, the whole class of Liddisdale farmers is here represented, and little more than a single thread is taken from any single person to form the web of the character. Three various persons have been popularly mentioned as furnishing the author with his most distinguished traits, each of whom have their followers and believers among the country people. It will perhaps be possible to prove that Dandie Dinmont is a sort of compound of all three, the ingredients being leavened and wrought up with the general characteristic qualities of the “Lads of Liddisdale.”
Mr. Archibald Park, late of Lewinshope, near Selkirk, brother of the celebrated Mungo Park, was the person always most strongly insisted on as being the original of Dandie. He was a man of prodigious strength, in stature upwards of six feet, and every member of his body was in perfect accordance with his great height. He completely realized the most extravagant ideas that the poets of his country formerly entertained of the stalwart borderers; and his achievements “by flood and field,” in the violent exercises and sports of his profession, came fully up to those of the most distinguished heroes of border song. He had all the careless humour and boisterous hospitality of the Liddisdale farmer. On the appearance of the novel, his neighbours at once put him down as the Dandie Dinmont of real life, and he was generally addressed by the name of his supposed archetype by his familiar associates, so long as he remained in that part of the country, which, however, was not long. His circumstances requiring him to relinquish his farm, he obtained, by the interest of some friends, the situation of collector of customs at Tobermory, to which place he removed in 1815. Soon after he had settled there, he was attacked by a paralytic affection, from which he never thoroughly recovered, and he died in 1821, aged about fifty years.
Mr. John Thorburn, of Juniper Bank, the person whom we consider to have stood in the next degree of relationship to Dinmont, was a humorous good-natured farmer, very fond of hunting and fishing, and a most agreeable companion over a bottle. He was truly an unsophisticated worthy man. Many amusing anecdotes are told of him in the south, and numerous scenes have been witnessed in his hospitable mansion, akin to that described in the novel as taking place upon the return of Dandie from “Stagshawbank fair.” The interior economy of Juniper Bank is said to have more nearly resembled Charlieshope than did that of Lewinshope, the residence of Mr. Park. Indeed the latter bore no similarity whatever to Charlieshope, excepting in the hospitality of the master and the Christian name of the mistress of the house. Mr. Park, like his fictitious counterpart, was one of the most generous and hearty landlords alive; and his wife, who was a woman of highly respectable connections, bore, like Mrs. Dinmont, the familiar abbreviated name of Ailie.
Thorburn, like Dandie, was once before the feifteen. The celebrated Mr. Jeffrey being retained in his cause, Thorburn went into Court to hear his pleading. He was delighted with the talents and oratory of his advocate; and, on coming out, observed to his friends, “Od, he’s an awfu’ body yon; he said things that I never could hae thought o’ mysel’.”
Mr. James Davidson, of Hindlee, another honest south-country farmer, was pointed out as the prototype of Dandie Dinmont. This gentleman used to breed numerous families of terriers, to which he gave the names of Pepper and Mustard, in all their varieties of Auld and Young, Big and Little; and it was this community of designation in the dogs of the two personages, rather than any particular similarity in the manners or characters of themselves, that gave credit to the conjecture of Mr. Davidson’s friends.[16]
It will appear, from these notices, that no individual has sat for the portrait of Dinmont, but that it has been painted from indiscriminate recollections of various border store-farmers. We cannot do better than conclude with the words of the author himself, when introducing this subject to the reader:—“The present store-farmers of the south of Scotland are a much more refined race than their fathers, and the manners I am now to describe have either altogether disappeared or are greatly modified. Without losing their rural simplicity of manners, they now cultivate arts unknown to the former generation, not only in the progressive improvement of their possessions, but in all the comforts of life. Their houses are more commodious, their habits of life better regulated, so as better to keep pace with those of the civilized world; and the best of luxuries, the luxury of knowledge, has gained much ground among the hills during the last thirty years. Deep drinking, formerly their greatest failing, is now fast losing ground; and while the frankness of their extensive hospitality continues the same, it is, generally speaking, refined in its character, and restrained in its excesses.”