Scott, with the others, was well pleased with this dialogue, and, in his easy unaffected manner, said—
“Well, something of a similar nature occurred when a friend of mine was present at the Justice Court at Jedburgh. Two fellows had been taken up for sheep-stealing; there was a dense crowd, and we were listening with breathless attention to the evidence, when, from what reason I have forgotten, there was a dead pause, during which the judge, observing a rosy-cheeked, chubby-faced country boy, who seemed to pay the utmost attention to what was going on, and continued to fix his eyes on his Lordship’s countenance, cried out to the callant—
“‘Well, my man, what do you say to the cause!’
“‘Eh, gosh!’ answered the boy, ‘but that’s a gude ane! What div I say? I whiles say, Pui hup! and whiles I say Pui ho! to the caws,’ meaning, of course, the calves. But the business was quickly decided, for the whole Court, judge and jury, were thrown into such convulsions of laughter that nothing more could be said or done.”
“It is interesting to observe,” says Gilfillan, “how not a few of the familiar names known to Scott in his youth or boyhood have been preserved on his written pages and are now classical. Thus Meg Dods was the real name of a woman, or ‘Luckie,’ in Howgate, ‘who brewed good ale for gentlemen.’ In the account of a Galloway trial, in which Scott was counsel, occurs the name ‘Mac-Guffog,’ afterwards that of the famous turnkey in Guy Mannering. The name ‘Durward’ may still be seen on the signs of Arbroath and Forfar, and Scott had doubtless met it there; as well as that of ‘Prudfute,’ or ‘Proudfoot,’ in or near Perth; ‘Morton,’ in the lists of the Western Whigs; and ‘Gilfillan,’ in the catalogue of the prisoners in Dunnottar Castle. Nothing, in fact, that ever flashed on the eye or vibrated on the ear of this extraordinary man but was in some form or other reproduced in his writings.” In a remarkable sense here the child was father of the man. When a lad at school, a boy in the same class was asked by the dominie what part of speech “with” was.
“A noun, sir,” answered the boy.
“You young blockhead,” cried the pedagogue, “what example can you give of such a thing?”
“I can tell you, sir,” interrupted Scott. “You know there’s a verse in the Bible which says—‘They bound Samson with withs!’”
Mrs. Cockburn, authoress of the popular version of “The Flowers of the Forest,” the one beginning “I’ve seen the smiling of fortune beguiling,” has left a curious account of an interview which she had with Scott, when a boy not quite six years old. He was reading a poem to his mother when the lady entered, the subject of which was the description of a shipwreck. His passion rose with the storm, and he lifted up his eyes and hands—
“There’s a mast gone,” says he; “crash it goes; they will all perish!”