all
the progeny, so his genius, in all its happiest efforts, was the
"Recording Angel;" and when George Constable first expounded his
"Gabions" to the child that was to immortalize his name, they were
either wandering hand in hand over the field where the grass still
grew rank upon the grave of _Balmawhapple_, or sauntering on the beach
where the _Mucklebackets_ of Prestonpans dried their nets, singing,--

"Weel may the boatie row, and better may she speed,
O weel may the boatie row that wins the bairns' bread"--

or telling wild stories about cliff-escapes and the funerals of
shipwrecked fishermen.

Considered by itself, without reference to these sources of personal
interest, this novel seems to me to possess, almost throughout, in
common with its two predecessors, a kind of simple unsought charm,
which the subsequent works of the series hardly reached, save in
occasional snatches: like them it is, in all its humbler and softer
scenes, the transcript of actual Scottish life, as observed by the man
himself. And I think it must also be allowed that he has nowhere
displayed his highest art, that of skilful contrast, in greater
perfection. Even the tragic romance of Waverley does not set off its
Macwheebles and Callum Begs better than the oddities of {p.106}
Jonathan Oldbuck and his circle are relieved, on the one hand, by the
stately gloom of the Glenallans, on the other, by the stern affliction
of the poor fisherman, who, when discovered repairing the "auld black
bitch o' a boat" in which his boy had been lost, and congratulated by
his visitor on being capable of the exertion, makes answer,--"And what
would you have me to do, unless I wanted to see four children starve,
because one is drowned? _It's weel wi' you gentles, that can sit in
the house wi' handkerchers at your een, when ye lose a friend; but the
like o' us maun to our wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard
as my hammer._"

It may be worth noting, that it was in correcting the proof sheets of
this novel that Scott first took to equipping his chapters with
mottoes of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask
John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a particular
passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he was bid, but did not
succeed in discovering the lines. "Hang it, Johnnie," cried Scott, "I
believe I can make a motto sooner than you will find one." He did so
accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory fa