dy of the Lake_, 1830.]

Another resting-place was Craighall, in Perthshire, the seat of the
Rattrays, a family related to Mr. Clerk, who accompanied him. From the
position of this striking place, as Mr. Clerk at once perceived, and
as the author afterwards confessed to him, that of the _Tully-Veolan_
was very faithfully copied; though in the description of the house
itself, and its gardens, many features were adopted from Bruntsfield
and Ravelston.[108] Mr. Clerk has told me that he went through the
first chapters of Waverley without more than a vague suspicion of the
new novelist; but that when he read the arrival at Tully-Veolan, his
suspicion was at once converted into certainty, and he handed the book
to a common friend of his and the author's, saying, "This is
Scott's--and I'll lay {p.195} a bet you'll find such and such things
in the next chapter." I hope Mr. Clerk will forgive me for mentioning
_the_ particular circumstance that first flashed the conviction on his
mind. In the course of a ride from Craighall they had both become
considerably fagged and heated, and Clerk, seeing the smoke of a
_clachan_ a little way before them, ejaculated--"How agreeable if we
should here fall in with one of those signposts where a red lion
predominates over a punch-bowl!" The phrase happened to tickle Scott's
fancy--he often introduced it on similar occasions afterwards--and at
the distance of twenty years Mr. Clerk was at no loss to recognize an
old acquaintance in the "huge bear" which "predominates" over the
stone basin in the courtyard of Baron Bradwardine.

[Footnote 108: _Waverley_, chap. viii.]

I believe the longest stay he made this autumn was at Meigle in
Forfarshire, the seat of Patrick Murray of Simprim, a gentleman whose
enthusiastic passion for antiquities, and especially military
antiquities, had peculiarly endeared him both to Scott and Clerk. Here
Adam Ferguson, too, was of the party; and I have often heard them each
and all dwell on the thousand scenes of adventure and merriment which
diversified that visit. In the village churchyard, close beneath Mr.
Murray's gardens, tradition still points out the tomb of Queen
Guenever; and the whole district abounds in objects of historical
interest. Amidst them they spent their wandering days, while their
evenings passed in the joyous festivity of a wealthy young bachelor's
establishment, or sometimes under the roofs of neighbors less refined
than their host,