still be admired.]

On a fishing excursion to a loch near Howgate, among the Moorfoot
Hills, Scott, Clerk, Irving, and Abercromby spent the night at a
little public-house kept by one Mrs. Margaret Dods. When St. Ronan's
Well was published, Clerk, meeting Scott in the street, observed,
"That's an odd name; surely I have met with it somewhere before."
Scott smiled, said, "Don't you remember Howgate?" and passed on. The
name alone, however, was taken from the Howgate hostess.

At one of their drinking bouts of those days William Clerk, Sir P.
Murray, Edmonstone, and Abercromby, being of the party, the sitting
was prolonged to a very late hour, and Scott fell asleep. When he
awoke, his friends succeeded in convincing him that he had sung a song
in the course of the evening, and sung it extremely well. How must
these gentlemen have chuckled when they read Frank Osbaldistone's
account of his revels in the old hall! "It has even been reported by
maligners that I sung a song while under this vinous influence; but as
I remember nothing of it, and never attempted to turn a tune in all my
life, either before or since, I would willingly hope there is no
actual foundation for the calumny."[71]

[Footnote 71: _Rob Roy_, chap. xii.]

On one of his first long walks with Clerk and others of the same set,
their pace, being about four miles an hour, was found rather too much
for Scott, and he offered to contract for three, which measure was
thenceforth considered as the legal one. At this rate they often
continued to wander from five in the morning till eight in the
{p.134} evening, halting for such refreshment at mid-day as any
village alehouse might afford. On many occasions, however, they had
stretched so far into the country, that they were obliged to be absent
from home all night; and though great was the alarm which the first
occurrence of this sort created in George's Square, the family soon
got accustomed to such things, and little notice was taken, even
though Walter remained away for the better part of a week. I have
heard him laugh heartily over the recollections of one protracted
excursion, towards the close of which the party found themselves a
long day's walk--thirty miles, I think--from Edinburgh, without a
single sixpence left among them. "We were put to our shifts," said he;
"but we asked every now and then at a cottage door for a drink of
water; and one or two of the good-wives, observing our worn-