Stephenson: The Ettrick Shepherd 



41 



half humorous air with which he said, scratching his head most vehemently 

 "Odd, Scott, here's twae fo'k's come frae Glasgow to provoke me to fecht 

 a duel." "A duel", answered I in great astonishment, "and what do you 

 intend to do?" "Odd, I just locket them up in my room and sent the 

 lassie for twae o' the police, and just gie the men ower to their charge, 

 and I thocht I wad come and ask you what I should do. . . ." He 

 had already settled for himself the question whether he was to fight 

 or not, and all that he had to do was to go to the police and tell the 

 charge he had to bring against the two Glasgow gentlemen. 

 The Glaswegians were greatly too many for him in court. . . . They 

 returned in all triumph and glory, and Hogg took the wings of the 

 morning and fled to his cottage at Altrive, not deeming himself alto- 

 gether safe in the streets of Edinburgh! Now% although I do not hold 

 valour to be an essential article in the composition of a man like Hogg, 

 yet I heartily wish he could have prevailed on himself to swagger a 

 little. . . . But, considering his failure in the field and in the Sheriff's 

 Office, I fear we must apply to Hogg the apology that is made for 

 Waller by his biographer: "Let us not condemn him with untempered 

 severity, because he was not such a prodigy as the w^orld has seldom 

 seen — because his character included not the poet, the orator, and the 

 hero."^ 



The Shepherd was jolly, self-made, and confident, and be- 

 came in later life well-behaved in and thoroly conversant with 

 the usages of society far above the rank in which he had been 

 born. In his early days, however, he encountered many mis- 

 haps. It may be worth while here to quote the passage from 

 Lockhart to which reference has already been made : 



When Hogg entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Scott, being at the time 

 in a delicate state of health, was reclining on a sofa. The Shepherd, 

 after being presented, and making his best bow, forthwith took pos- 

 session of another sofa placed opposite to hers, and placed himself 

 thereupon at all his length; for, as he said afterwards, "I thought I 

 could never do wrong to copy the lady of the house." As his dress at 

 this period was precisely that in which any ordinary herdsman attends 

 cattle to the market, and as his hands, moreover, bore most legible 

 marks of a recent sheep-smearing, the lady of the house did not observe 

 with perfect equanimity the novel usage to which her chintz was ex- 

 posed. The Shepherd, however, remarked nothing of all this — dined 

 heartily and drank freely, and, by jest, anecdote, and song, afforded 

 plentiful merriment to the more civilized part of the company. As the 

 li'^uor operated, his familiarity increased and strengthened; from "Mr. 

 Scott", he advanced to "Sherra", and thence to "Scott", "Walter", and 

 "Wattle", — until, at supper, he fairly convulsed the whole party by ad- 

 dressing Mrs. Scott as "Charlotte".' 



* Scott's Journal, page 454. 



5 Lockhart's Life of Scott, page 111 (Black's edition. l^OCy. 



