Stephenson: The Ettrick Shepherd 87 



men wei'e or what they wanted — nor is there any in the story. 

 At the end one is sure that he has been reading an unmuti- 

 lated transcript of fact, one of the events in life that happen 

 but are never explained. 



This story illustrates Hogg's method of telling whatevei* 

 comes up. Whether it is the supernatural or real life with 

 which he is dealing, he tells what occurred and never bothers 

 himself with explanations. It must not be thought that he 

 used this method to cover up careless plotting, or that he fell 

 back upon the deus ex nidcliina resolutions that disfigure the 

 pages of Miss Edgeworth. Hogg's imagination was so vivid 

 and so concrete, so accurate and so detailed, that he never in- 

 troduces one of these unexplained climaxes accompanied by 

 the least impression upon the reader's mind of unreality. 



The way he manages to convey this impression of truth is 

 very simple. His stories contain many phrases of this kind : 

 'This is a true story", "An old woman of above ninety who 

 had seen it with her own eyes", *'The following is set forth 

 as a fact, as I discovered in an old MS.", etc., etc. These 

 phrases, however, are but the ear-marks of truth and are so 

 artificial as often to be futile. Hogg really convinces his 

 reader of the truth of the story by the multitude of artfully 

 inserted details. No worm mark upon a fence-post is too 

 small for his notice. Whenever there is occasion to doubt, 

 Hogg floods the reader with a wave of proof. One cannot 

 doubt in the face of so much evidence. And it would be an 

 impossibility now to tell which of Hogg's tales are true and 

 which are not. 



The setting of most of Hogg's stories is his native forest, 

 the loved Highlands, and Edinburgh, tho in some of his verse 

 he wanders into imaginary scenes of imaginary lands. His- 

 tory as a background figures in only a few of them. His 

 most successful historical attempt is The Brownie of Bodsbeck 

 where Claverhouse's cruelty in the vale of Yarrow is made 

 the theme. In The Siege of Roxburgh he is less successful, 

 and in such stories as The Bridal of Polmood the historical 

 characters are little more than names. 



As a creator of original characters, Hogg can lay only 

 doubtful claim. One of his novels, The Three Perils of 

 Waman, has not been included in any of his collected works, 

 but contains, in Cherry, the one character of Hogg's that 

 bears the stamp of splendid creative imagination. His next 



