Rob Roy – Complete. Вальтер Скотт

place of men, sheep of cattle, deer of sheep, and, in the long peace, a population grew up again – a population destitute of employment even more than of old, because war and robbery had ceased to be outlets for its energy. Some chiefs, as Dr. Johnson said, treated their lands as an attorney treats his row of cheap houses in a town. Hence the Highland Question, – a question in which Scott’s sympathies were with the Highlanders. “Rob Roy,” naturally, is no mere “novel with a purpose,” no economic tract in disguise. Among Scott’s novels it stands alone as regards its pictures of passionate love. The love of Diana Vernon is no less passionate for its admirable restraint. Here Scott displays, without affectation, a truly Greek reserve in his art. The deep and strong affection of Diana Vernon would not have been otherwise handled by him who drew the not more immortal picture of Antigone. Unlike modern novelists, Sir Walter deals neither in analysis nor in rapturous effusions. We can, unfortunately, imagine but too easily how some writers would peep and pry into the concealed emotions of that maiden heart; how others would revel in tears, kisses, and caresses. In place of all these Scott writes: —

      She extended her hand, but I clasped her to my bosom. She sighed as she extricated herself from the embrace which she permitted, escaped to the door which led to her own apartment, and I saw her no more.

      Months pass, in a mist of danger and intrigue, before the lovers meet again in the dusk and the solitude.

      “Mr. Francis Osbaldistone,” cries the girl’s voice through the

      moonlight, “should not whistle his favourite airs when he wishes to

      remain undiscovered.”

      And Diana Vernon – for she, wrapped in a horseman’s cloak, was the

      last speaker – whistled in playful mimicry the second part of the

      tune, which was on my lips when they came up.

      Surely there was never, in story or in song, a lady so loving and so light of heart, save Rosalind alone. Her face touches Frank’s, as she says goodbye for ever “It was a moment never to be forgotten, inexpressibly bitter, yet mixed with a sensation of pleasure so deeply soothing and affecting as at once to unlock all the floodgates of the heart.”

      She rides into the night, her lover knows the hysterica passio of poor Lear, but “I had scarce given vent to my feelings in this paroxysm ere I was ashamed of my weakness.”

      These were men and women who knew how to love, and how to live. All men who read “Rob Roy” are innocent rivals of Frank Osbaldistone. Di Vernon holds her place in our hearts with Rosalind, and these airy affections, like the actual emotions which they mimic, are not matters for words. This lady, so gay, so brave, so witty and fearless, so tender and true, who “endured trials which might have dignified the history of a martyr… who spent the day in darkness and the night in vigil, and never breathed a murmur of weakness or complaint,” is as immortal in men’s memories as the actual heroine of the White Rose, Flora Macdonald. Her place is with Helen and Antigone, with Rosalind and Imogen, the deathless daughters of dreams. She brightens the world as she passes, and our own hearts tell us all the story when Osbaldistone says, “You know how I lamented her.”

      In the central interest, which, for once, is the interest of love, “Rob Roy” attains the nobility, the reserve, the grave dignity of the highest art. It is not easy to believe that Frank Osbaldistone is worthy of his lady; but here no man is a fair judge. In the four novels – “Waverley,” “Guy Mannering,” “The Antiquary,” and “Rob Roy” – which we have studied, the hero has always been a young poet. Waverley versified; so did Mannering; Lovel “had attempted a few lyrical pieces;” and, in Osbaldistone’s rhymes, Scott parodied his own

                                 blast of that dread horn

                             On Fontarabian echoes borne.

      All the heroes, then, have been poets, and Osbaldistone’s youth may have been suggested by Scott’s memories of his own, and of the father who “feared that he would never be better than a gangrel scrapegut.” Like Henry Morton, in “Old Mortality,” Frank Osbaldistone is on the political side taken by Scott’s judgment, not by his emotions. To make Di Vernon convert him to Jacobitism would have been to repeat the story of Waverley. Still, he would have been more sympathetic if he had been converted. He certainly does not lack spirit, as a sportsman, or “on an occasion,” as Sir William Hope says in “The Scots’ Fencing Master,” when he encounters Rashleigh in the college gardens. Frank, in short, is all that a hero should be, and is glorified by his affection.

      Of the other characters, perhaps Rob Roy is too sympathetically drawn. The materials for a judgment are afforded by Scott’s own admirable historical introduction. The Rob Roy who so calmly “played booty,” and kept a foot in either camp, certainly falls below the heroic. His language has been criticised in late years, and it has been insisted that the Highlanders never talked Lowland Scotch. But Scott has anticipated these cavils in the eighteenth chapter of the second volume. Certainly no Lowlander knew the Highlanders better than he did, and his ear for dialect was as keen as his musical ear was confessedly obtuse. Scott had the best means of knowing whether Helen MacGregor would be likely to soar into heroics as she is apt to do. In fact, here “we may trust the artist.”

      The novel is as rich as any in subordinate characters full of life and humour. Morris is one of the few utter cowards in Scott. He has none of the passionate impulses towards courage of the hapless hero in “The Fair Maid of Perth.” The various Osbaldistones are nicely discriminated by Diana Vernon, in one of those “Beatrix moods” which Scott did not always admire, when they were displayed by “Lady Anne” and other girls of flesh and blood. Rashleigh is of a nature unusual in Scott. He is, perhaps, Sir Walter’s nearest approach, for malignant egotism, to an Iago. Of Bailie Nicol Jarvie commendation were impertinent. All Scotland arose, called him hers, laughed at and applauded her civic child. Concerning Andrew Fairservice, the first edition tells us what the final edition leaves us to guess – that Tresham “may recollect him as gardener at Osbaldistone Hall.” Andrew was not a friend who could be shaken off. Diana may have ruled the hall, but Andrew must have remained absolute in the gardens, with “something to maw that he would like to see mawn, or something to saw that he would like to see sawn, or something to ripe that he would like to see ripen, and sae he e’en daikered on wi’ the family frae year’s end to year’s end,” and life’s end. His master “needed some carefu’ body to look after him.”

      Only Shakspeare and Scott could have given us medicines to make us like this cowardly, conceited “jimp honest” fellow, Andrew Fairservice, who just escapes being a hypocrite by dint of some sincere old Covenanting leaven in his veins. We make bold to say that the creator of Parolles and Lucie, and many another lax and lovable knave, would, had he been a Scot, have drawn Andrew Fairservice thus, and not otherwise.

      The critics of the hour censured, as they were certain to censure, the construction, and especially the conclusion, of “Rob Roy.” No doubt the critics were right. In both Scott and Shakspeare there is often seen a perfect disregard of the denouement. Any moderately intelligent person can remark on the huddled-up ends and hasty marriages in many of Shakspeare’s comedies; Moliere has been charged with the same offence; and, if blame there be, Scott is almost always to blame. Thackeray is little better. There must be some reason that explains why men of genius go wrong where every newspaper critic, every milliner’s girl acquainted with circulating libraries, can detect the offence.

      In the closing remarks of “Old Mortality” Scott expresses himself humorously on this matter of the denouement. His schoolmaster author takes his proofsheets to Miss Martha Buskbody, who was the literary set in Gandercleugh, having read through the whole stock of three circulating libraries. Miss Buskbody criticises the Dominic as Lady Louisa Stuart habitually criticised Sir Walter. “Your plan of omitting a formal conclusion will never do!” The Dominie replies, “Really, madam, you must be aware that every volume of a narrative turns less and less interesting as the author draws to a conclusion, – just like your tea, which, though excellent hyson, is necessarily weaker and more insipid in the last cup.” He compares the orthodox happy ending to “the