everal
successive years, and perhaps even the {p.126} first of them was in
some degree connected with his professional business. At all events,
it was to his allotted task of enforcing the execution of a legal
instrument against some Maclarens, refractory tenants of Stewart of
Appin, brother-in-law to Invernahyle, that Scott owed his introduction
to the scenery of The Lady of the Lake. "An escort of a sergeant and
six men," he says, "was obtained from a Highland regiment lying in
Stirling, and the author, then a Writer's Apprentice, equivalent to
the honorable situation of an attorney's clerk, was invested with the
superintendence of the expedition, with directions to see that the
messenger discharged his duty fully, and that the gallant sergeant did
not exceed his part by committing violence or plunder. And thus it
happened, oddly enough, that the author first entered the romantic
scenery of Loch Katrine, of which he may perhaps say he has somewhat
extended the reputation, riding in all the dignity of danger, with a
front and rear guard, and loaded arms. The sergeant was absolutely a
Highland Sergeant Kite, full of stories of Rob Roy and of himself, and
a very good companion. We experienced no interruption whatever, and
when we came to Invernenty, found the house deserted. We took up our
quarters for the night, and used some of the victuals which we found
there. The Maclarens, who probably had never thought of any serious
opposition, went to America, where, having had some slight share in
removing them from their _paupera regna_, I sincerely hope they
prospered."[65]

[Footnote 65: Introduction to _Rob Roy_.]

That he entered with ready zeal into such professional business as
inferred Highland expeditions with comrades who had known Rob Roy, no
one will think strange; but more than one of his biographers allege
that in the ordinary indoor fagging of the chamber in George's Square,
he was always an unwilling, and rarely an efficient assistant. Their
addition, that he often played chess with one of his companions in the
office, and had to conceal the {p.127} board with precipitation when
the old gentleman's footsteps were heard on the staircase, is, I do
not doubt, true; and we may remember along with it his own insinuation
that his father was sometimes poring in his secret nook over
Spottiswoode or Wodrow, when his apprentices supposed him to be deep
in Dirleton's Doubts, or Stair's decisions. But the Memoir