SIR SIDNEY COLVIN'S NOTE
With the words last printed, "a wilful convulsion of brute nature," theromance of "Weir of Hermiston" breaks off. They were dictated, Ibelieve, on the very morning of the writer's sudden seizure and death."Weir of Hermiston" thus remains in the work of Stevenson what "EdwinDrood" is in the work of Dickens or "Denis Duval" in that of Thackeray:or rather it remains relatively more, for if each of those fragmentsholds an honourable place among its author's writings, among Stevenson'sthe fragment of "Weir" holds, at least to my mind, certainly thehighest.
Readers may be divided in opinion on the question whether they would orthey would not wish to hear more of the intended course of the story anddestinies of the characters. To some, silence may seem best, and thatthe mind should be left to its own conjectures as to the sequel, withthe help of such indications as the text affords. I confess that this isthe view which has my sympathy. But since others, and those almostcertainly a majority, are anxious to be told all they can, and sinceeditors and publishers join in the request, I can scarce do otherwisethan comply. The intended argument, then, so far as it was known at thetime of the writer's death to his step-daughter and devoted amanuensis,Mrs. Strong, was nearly as follows:--
* * * * *
Archie persists in his good resolution of avoiding further conductcompromising to young Kirstie's good name. Taking advantage of thesituation thus created, and of the girl's unhappiness and woundedvanity, Frank Innes pursues his purpose of seduction; and Kirstie,though still caring for Archie in her heart, allows herself to becomeFrank's victim. Old Kirstie is the first to perceive something amisswith her, and believing Archie to be the culprit, accuses him, thusmaking him aware for the first time that mischief has happened. He doesnot at once deny the charge, but seeks out and questions young Kirstie,who confesses the truth to him; and he, still loving her, promises toprotect and defend her in her trouble. He then has an interview withFrank Innes on the moor, which ends in a quarrel, and in Archie killingFrank beside the Weaver's Stone. Meanwhile the Four Black Brothers,having become aware of their sister's betrayal, are bent on vengeanceagainst Archie as her supposed seducer. But their vengeance isforestalled by his arrest for the murder of Frank. He is tried beforehis own father, the Lord Justice-Clerk, found guilty, and condemned todeath. Meanwhile the elder Kirstie, having discovered from the girl howmatters really stand, informs her nephews of the truth; and they, in agreat revulsion of feeling in Archie's favour, determine on an actionafter the ancient manner of their house. They gather a following, andafter a great fight break the prison where Archie lies confined, andrescue him. He and young Kirstie thereafter escape to America. But theordeal of taking part in the trial of his own son has been too much forthe Lord Justice-Clerk, who dies of the shock. "I do not know," adds theamanuensis, "what becomes of old Kirstie, but that character grew andstrengthened so in the writing that I am sure he had some dramaticdestiny for her."
* * * * *
The plan of every imaginative work is subject, of course, to changeunder the artist's hand as he carries it out; and not merely thecharacter of the elder Kirstie, but other elements of the design noless, might well have deviated from the lines originally traced. Itseems certain, however, that the next stage in the relations of Archieand the younger Kirstie would have been as above foreshadowed; and thisconception of the lover's unconventional chivalry and unshaken devotionto his mistress after her fault is very characteristic of the writer'smind. The vengeance to be taken on the seducer beside the Weaver's Stoneis prepared for in the first words of the Introduction; and in thespring of 1894 the author rehearsed in conversation with a visitor (Mr.Sidney Lysaght) a scene where the girl was to confess to her lover inprison that she was with child by the man he had killed. The situationand fate of the judge, confronting like a Brutus, but unable to survive,the duty of sending his own son to the gallows, seem clearly to havebeen destined to furnish the climax and essential tragedy of the tale.
How this last circumstance was to have been brought about, within thelimits of legal usage and possibility, seems hard to conjecture; but itwas a point to which the author had evidently given carefulconsideration. Mrs. Strong says simply that the Lord Justice-Clerk, likean old Roman, condemns his son to death; but I am assured on the bestlegal authority of Scotland that no judge, however powerful either bycharacter or office, could have insisted on presiding at the trial of anear kinsman of his own. The Lord Justice-Clerk was head of the criminaljusticiary of the country; he might have insisted on his right of beingpresent on the bench when his son was tried; but he would never havebeen allowed to preside or to pass sentence. Now in a letter ofStevenson's to Mr. Baxter, of October 1892, I find him asking formaterials in terms which seem to indicate that he knew this quitewell:--"I wish Pitcairn's 'Criminal Trials,' _quam primum_. Also anabsolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath. Also, in casePitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a report aspossible of a Scots murder trial between 1790-1820. Understand, _thefullest possible_. Is there any book which would guide me to thefollowing facts? The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally oncircuit. Certain evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to theJustice-Clerk's own son. Of course in the next trial the Justice-Clerkis excluded, and the case is called before the Lord Justice-General.Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would notsuit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?" The point wasreferred to a quondam fellow-member with Stevenson of the EdinburghSpeculative Society, Mr. Graham Murray, the present Lord Advocate forScotland, whose reply was to the effect that there would be nodifficulty in making the new trial take place at the circuit town; thatit would have to be held there in spring or autumn, before two Lords ofJusticiary; and that the Lord Justice-General would have nothing to dowith it, this title being at the date in question only a nominal oneheld by a layman (which is no longer the case). On this Stevensonwrites, "Graham Murray's note _re_ the venue was highly satisfactory,and did me all the good in the world." The terms of his inquiry implyclearly that he intended other persons before Archie to have fallenunder suspicion of the murder (what other persons?); and also--doubtlessin order to make the rescue by the Black Brothers possible--that hewanted Archie to be imprisoned not in Edinburgh but in the circuit town.Can it have been that Lord Hermiston's part was to have been limited topresiding at the _first_ trial, where the persons wrongly suspected wereto have been judged, and to directing that the law should take itscourse when evidence incriminating his own son was unexpectedly broughtforward?
Whether the final escape and union of Archie and Christina would haveproved equally essential to the plot may perhaps to most readers seemquestionable. They may rather feel that a tragic destiny is foreshadowedfrom the beginning for all concerned, and is inherent in the veryconditions of the tale. But on this point, and other matters of generalcriticism connected with it, I find an interesting discussion by theauthor himself in his correspondence. Writing to Mr. J. M. Barrie,under date November 1, 1892, and criticising that author's famous storyof "The Little Minister," Stevenson says:--
"Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul are frightfullyunconscientious.... 'The Little Minister' ought to have ended badly; weall know it _did_, and we are infinitely grateful to you for the graceand good feeling with which you have lied about it. If you had told thetruth, I for one could never have forgiven you. As you had conceived andwritten the earlier parts, the truth about the end, though indisputablytrue to fact, would have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord, inart. If you are going to make a book end badly, it must end badly fromthe beginning. Now, your book began to end well. You let yourself fallin love with, and fondle, and smile at your puppets. Once you had donethat, your honour was committed: at the cost of truth to life you werebound to save them. It is the blot on 'Richard Feverel,' for instance,that it begins to end well; and then tricks you and ends ill. But inthis case, there is worse behind, for the ill ending d
oes not inherentlyissue from the plot--the story had, in fact, ended well after the greatlast interview between Richard and Lucy--and the blind, illogical bulletwhich smashes all has no more to do between the boards than a fly has todo with a room into whose open window it comes buzzing. It might have sohappened; it needed not; and unless needs must, we have no right to painour readers. I have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kindabout my Braxfield story. Braxfield--only his name is Hermiston--has ason who is condemned to death; plainly there is a fine tempting fitnessabout this; and I meant he was to hang. But on considering my minorcharacters, I saw there were five people who would--in a sense, whomust--break prison and attempt his rescue. They are capable hardy folkstoo, who might very well succeed. Why should they not then? Why shouldnot young Hermiston escape clear out of the country? and be happy, if hecould, with his--but soft! I will not betray my secret nor myheroine...."
To pass, now, from the question how the story would have ended to thequestion how it originated and grew in the writer's mind. The characterof the hero, Weir of Hermiston, is avowedly suggested by the historicalpersonality of Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield. This famous judge hasbeen for generations the subject of a hundred Edinburgh tales andanecdotes. Readers of Stevenson's essay on the Raeburn exhibition, in"Virginibus Puerisque," will remember how he is fascinated by Raeburn'sportrait of Braxfield, even as Lockhart had been fascinated by adifferent portrait of the same worthy sixty years before (see "Peter'sLetters to His Kinsfolk"); nor did his interest in the characterdiminish in later life.
Again, the case of a judge involved by the exigencies of his office in astrong conflict between public duty and private interest or affection,was one which had always attracted and exercised Stevenson'simagination. In the days when he and Mr. Henley were collaborating witha view to the stage, Mr. Henley once proposed a plot founded on thestory of Mr. Justice Harbottle in Sheridan Le Fanu's "In a GlassDarkly," in which the wicked judge goes headlong _per fas et nefas_ tohis object of getting the husband of his mistress hanged. Some timelater Stevenson and his wife together drafted a play called _The HangingJudge_. In this, the title character is tempted for the first time inhis life to tamper with the course of justice, in order to shield hiswife from persecution by a former husband who reappears after beingsupposed dead. Bulwer's novel of "Paul Clifford," with its finalsituation of the worldly-minded judge, Sir William Brandon, learningthat the highwayman whom he is in the act of sentencing is his own son,and dying of the knowledge, was also well known to Stevenson, andprobably counted for something in the suggestion of the present story.
Once more, the difficulties often attending the relation of father andson in actual life had pressed heavily on Stevenson's mind andconscience from the days of his youth, when in obeying the law of hisown nature he had been constrained to disappoint, distress, and for atime to be much misunderstood by, a father whom he justly loved andadmired with all his heart. Difficulties of this kind he had alreadyhandled in a lighter vein once or twice in fiction--as for instance in"The Story of a Lie," "The Misadventures of John Nicholson," and "TheWrecker"--before he grappled with them in the acute and tragic phase inwhich they occur in the present story.
These three elements, then, the interest of the historical personalityof Lord Braxfield, the problems and emotions arising from a violentconflict between duty and nature in a judge, and the difficulties due toincompatibility and misunderstanding between father and son, lie at thefoundations of the present story. To touch on minor matters, it isperhaps worth notice, as Mr. Henley reminds me, that the name of Weirhad from of old a special significance for Stevenson's imagination, fromthe horrible and true tale of the burning in Edinburgh of Major Weir,the warlock, and his sister. Another name, that of the episodicalpersonage of Mr. Torrance the minister, is borrowed direct from life, asindeed are the whole figure and its surroundings--kirkyard, kirk, andmanse--down even to the black thread mittens: witness the followingpassage from a letter of the early seventies:--"I've been to church andam not depressed--a great step. It was at that beautiful church" [ofGlencorse in the Pentlands, three miles from his father's country houseat Swanston]. "It is a little cruciform place, with a steep slate roof.The small kirkyard is full of old gravestones; one of a Frenchman fromDunkerque, I suppose he died prisoner in the military prison hard by.And one, the most pathetic memorial I ever saw: a poor school-slate, ina wooden frame, with the inscription cut into it evidently by thefather's own hand. In church, old Mr. Torrance preached, over eighty anda relic of times forgotten, with his black thread gloves and mild oldface." A side hint for a particular trait in the character of Mrs. Weirwe can trace in some family traditions concerning the writer's owngrandmother, who is reported to have valued piety much more thanefficiency in her domestic servants. I know of no original for that newand admirable incarnation of the eternal feminine in the elder Kirstie.The little that Stevenson says about her himself is in a letter writtena few days before his death to Mr. Gosse. The allusions are to thevarious views and attitudes of people in regard to middle age, and aresuggested by Mr. Gosse's volume of poems, "In Russet and Silver." "Itseems rather funny," he writes, "that this matter should come up justnow, as I am at present engaged in treating a severe case of middle agein one of my stories, 'The Justice-Clerk.' The case is that of a woman,and I think I am doing her justice. You will be interested, I believe,to see the difference in our treatments. 'Secreta Vitae' [the title ofone of Mr. Gosse's poems] comes nearer to the case of my poor Kirstie."From the quality of the midnight scene between her and Archie, we mayjudge what we have lost in those later scenes where she was to havetaxed him with the fault that was not his--to have presently learned hisinnocence from the lips of his supposed victim--to have then vindicatedhim to her kinsmen and fired them to the action of his rescue. The sceneof the prison-breaking here planned by Stevenson would have gainedinterest (as will already have occurred to readers) from comparison withthe two famous precedents in Scott, the Porteous mob and the breaking ofPortanferry gaol.
The best account of Stevenson's methods of imaginative work is in thefollowing sentences from a letter of his own to Mr. W. Craibe Angus ofGlasgow:--"I am still 'a slow study,' and sit for a long while silent onmy eggs. Unconscious thought, there is the only method: macerate yoursubject, let it boil slow, then take the lid off and look in--and thereyour stuff is--good or bad." The several elements above noted havingbeen left to work for many years in his mind, it was in the autumn of1892 that he was moved to "take the lid off and look in,"--under theinfluence, it would seem, of a special and overmastering wave of thatfeeling for the romance of Scottish scenery and character which was atall times so strong in him, and which his exile did so much tointensify. I quote again from his letter to Mr. Barrie on November 1stin that year:--"It is a singular thing that I should live here in theSouth Seas under conditions so new and so striking, and yet myimagination so continually inhabit the cold old huddle of grey hillsfrom which we come. I have finished 'David Balfour,' I have another bookon the stocks, 'The Young Chevalier,' which is to be part in France andpart in Scotland, and to deal with Prince Charlie about the year 1749;and now what have I done but begun a third, which is to be all moorlandtogether, and is to have for a centre-piece a figure that I think youwill appreciate--that of the immortal Braxfield. Braxfield himself is mygrand premier--or since you are so much involved in the British drama,let me say my heavy lead."
Writing to me at the same date he makes the same announcement morebriefly, with a list of the characters and an indication of the sceneand date of the story. To Mr. Baxter he writes a month later, "I have anovel on the stocks to be called 'The Justice-Clerk.' It is prettyScotch; the grand premier is taken from Braxfield (O, by the by, send meCockburn's 'Memorials'), and some of the story is, well, queer. Theheroine is seduced by one man, and finally disappears with the other manwho shot him.... Mind you, I expect 'The Justice-Clerk' to be mymasterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of beauty and a joy forever, and so far as he has gone far my best character
." From the lastextract it appears that he had already at this date drafted some of theearlier chapters of the book. He also about the same time composed thededication to his wife, who found it pinned to her bed-curtains onemorning on awaking. It was always his habit to keep several books inprogress at the same time, turning from one to another as the fancy tookhim, and finding relief in the change of labour; and for many monthsafter the date of this letter, first illness,--then a voyage toAuckland,--then work on "The Ebb-Tide," on a new tale called "St. Ives,"which was begun during an attack of influenza, and on his projected bookof family history,--prevented his making any continuous progress with"Weir." In August 1893 he says he has been recasting the beginning. Ayear later, still only the first four or five chapters had been drafted.Then, in the last weeks of his life, he attacked the task again, in asudden heat of inspiration, and worked at it ardently and withoutinterruption until the end came. No wonder if during these weeks he wassometimes aware of a tension of the spirit difficult to sustain. "Howcan I keep this pitch?" he is reported to have said after finishing oneof the chapters; and all the world knows how that frail organism,overtaxed so long, in fact betrayed him in mid effort.
With reference to the speech and manners of the Hanging Judge himself:that they are not a whit exaggerated, in comparison with what isrecorded of his historic prototype, Lord Braxfield, is certain. The_locus classicus_ in regard to this personage is in Lord Cockburn's"Memorials of his Time." "Strong built and dark, with rough eyebrows,powerful eyes, threatening lips, and a low growling voice, he was like aformidable blacksmith. His accent and dialect were exaggerated Scotch;his language, like his thoughts, short, strong, and conclusive.Illiterate and without any taste for any refined enjoyment, strength ofunderstanding, which gave him power without cultivation, only encouragedhim to a more contemptuous disdain of all natures less coarse than hisown. It may be doubted if he was ever so much in his element as whentauntingly repelling the last despairing claim of a wretched culprit,and sending him to Botany Bay or the gallows with an insulting jest. Yetthis was not from cruelty, for which he was too strong and too jovial,but from cherished coarseness." Readers, nevertheless, who are at allacquainted with the social history of Scotland will hardly have failedto make the observation that Braxfield's is an extreme case ofeighteenth-century manners, as he himself was an eighteenth-centurypersonage (he died in 1799, in his seventy-eighth year); and that forthe date in which the story is cast (1814) such manners are somewhat ofan anachronism. During the generation contemporary with the FrenchRevolution and the Napoleonic wars--or, to put it another way, thegeneration that elapsed between the days when Scott roamed the countryas a High School and University student and those when he settled in thefulness of fame and prosperity at Abbotsford,--or again (the allusionswill appeal to readers of the admirable Galt) during the intervalbetween the first and the last provostry of Bailie Pawkie in the boroughof Gudetown, or between the earlier and final ministrations of Mr.Balwhidder in the parish of Dalmailing,--during this period a greatsoftening had taken place in Scottish manners generally, and in those ofthe Bar and Bench not least. "Since the death of Lord Justice-ClerkMacqueen of Braxfield," says Lockhart, writing about 1817, "the wholeexterior of judicial deportment has been quite altered." A similarcriticism may probably hold good on the picture of border life containedin the chapter concerning the Four Black Brothers of Cauldstaneslap,namely, that it rather suggests the ways of an earlier generation; norhave I any clue to the reasons which led Stevenson to choose thisparticular date, in the year preceding Waterloo, for a story which, inregard to some of its features at least, might seem more naturallyplaced some quarter or even half a century earlier.
If the reader seeks, further, to know whether the scenery of Hermistoncan be identified with any one special place familiar to the writer'searly experience, the answer, I think, must be in the negative. Ratherit is distilled from a number of different haunts and associations amongthe moorlands of southern Scotland. In the dedication and in a letterto me he indicates the Lammermuirs as the scene of his tragedy. And Mrs.Stevenson (his mother) told me that she thought he was inspired byrecollections of a visit paid in boyhood to an uncle living at a remotefarmhouse in that district called Overshiels, in the parish of Stow. Butthough he may have thought of the Lammermuirs in the first instance, wehave already found him drawing his description of the kirk and mansefrom another haunt of his youth, namely, Glencorse in the Pentlands;while passages in chapters v. and viii. point explicitly to a thirddistrict, that is, Upper Tweeddale, with the country stretching thencetowards the wells of Clyde. With this country also holiday rides andexcursions from Peebles had made him familiar as a boy: and on the wholeit is this which best answers the geographical indications of the story.Some of the place-names are clearly not meant to furnish literalindications. The Spango, for instance, is a water running, I believe,not into the Tweed but into the Nith. Crossmichael as the name of a townis borrowed from Galloway; but it may be taken to all intents andpurposes as standing for Peebles, where I am told by Sir George Douglasthere existed in the early years of the century a well-known club of thesame character as that described in the story. Lastly, the nameHermiston itself is taken from a farm on the Water of Ale, betweenEttrick and Teviotdale, and close to the proper country of the Elliotts.
But it is with the general and essential that the artist deals, andquestions of strict historical perspective or local definition arebeside the mark in considering his work. Nor will any reader expect, orbe grateful for, comment in this place on matters which are moreproperly to the point--on the seizing and penetrating power of theauthor's ripened art as exhibited in the foregoing pages, his vitalpoetry of vision and magic of presentment. Surely no son of Scotland hasdied leaving with his last breath a worthier tribute to the land heloved.
S. C.
GLOSSARY
ae, _one_.
antinomian, _one of a sect which holds that under the gospel dispensation the moral law is not obligatory_.
Auld Hornie, _the Devil_.
ballant, _ballad_.
bauchles, _brogues, old shoes_.
bauld, _bold_.
bees in their bonnet, _eccentricities_.
birling, _whirling_.
black-a-vised, _dark-complexioned_.
bonnet-laird, cock-laird, _small landed proprietor, yeoman_.
bool, _ball, technically marble, here = sugar-plum_.
brae, _rising ground_.
brig, _bridge_.
buff, play buff on, _to make a fool of, to deceive_.
burn, _stream_.
butt end, _end of a cottage_.
byre, _cow-house_.
ca', _drive_.
caller, _fresh_.
canna, _cannot_.
canny, _careful, shrewd_.
cantie, _cheerful_.
carline, _old woman_.
cauld, _cold_.
chalmer, _chamber_.
claes, _clothes_.
clamjamfry, _crowd_.
clavers, _idle talk_.
cock-laird. _See_ bonnet-laird.
collieshangie, _turmoil_.
crack, _to converse_.
cuddy, _donkey_.
cuist, _cast_.
cutty, _jade, also used playfully = brat_.
daft, _mad, frolicsome_.
dander, _to saunter_.
danders, _cinders_.
daurna, _dare not_.
deave, _to deafen_.
denty, _dainty_.
dirdum, _vigour_.
disjaskit, _worn out, disreputable-looking_.
doer, _law agent_.
dour, _hard_.
drumlie, _dark_.
dule-tree, _the tree of lamentation, the hanging tree_.
dunting, _knocking_.
dwaibly, _infirm, rickety_.
earrand, _errand_.
ettercap, _vixen_.
fechting, _fighting_.
feckless, _feeble, powerless_.
fell, _strong and fiery_.
fey, _unlike yourself, strange, as if urged on by fate, or as persons are observed to be in the hour of approaching death or disaster_.
fit, _foot_.
flit, _to depart_.
flyped, _turned, up, turned inside out_.
forbye, in _addition to_.
forgather, _to fall in with_.
fower, _four_.
fushionless, _pithless, weak_.
fyle, _to soil, to defile_.
fylement, _obloquy, defilement_.
gaed, _went_.
gang, _to go_.
gey an, _very_.
gigot, _leg of mutton_.
girzie, _lit. diminutive of Grizel, here a playful nickname_.
glaur, _mud_.
glint, _glance, sparkle_.
gloaming, _twilight_.
glower, _to scowl_.
gobbets, _small lumps_.
gowden, _golden_.
gowsty, _gusty_.
grat, _wept_.
grieve, _land-steward_.
guddle, _to catch fish with the hands by groping under the stones or banks_.
guid, _good_.
gumption, _common-sense, judgment_.
gurley, _stormy, surly_.
gyte, _beside itself_.
hae, _have, take_.
haddit, _held_.
hale, _whole_.
heels-ower-hurdie, _heels over head_.
hinney, _honey_.
hirstle, _to bustle_.
hizzie, _wench_.
howe, _hollow_.
howf, _haunt_.
hunkered, _crouched_.
hypothec, _lii. in Scots law the furnishings of a house, and formerly the produce and stock of a farm hypothecated by law to the landlord as security for rent; colloquially "the whole structure," "the whole concern."_
idleset, _idleness_.
infeftment, a _term in Scots law originally synonymous with investiture_.
jaud, _jade_.
jeely-piece, _a slice of bread and jelly_.
jennipers, _juniper_.
jo, _sweetheart_.
justifeed, _executed, made the victim of justice_.
jyle, _jail_.
kebbuck, _cheese_.
ken, _to know_.
kenspeckle, _conspicuous_.
kilted, _tucked up_.
kyte, _belly_.
laigh, _low_.
laird, _landed proprietor_.
lane, _alone_.
lave, _rest, remainder_.
linking, _tripping_.
lown, _lonely, still_.
lynn, _cataract_.
Lyon King of Arms, _the chief of the Court of Heraldry in Scotland_.
macers, _officers of the supreme court_. [_Cf._ "Guy Mannering," last chapter.]
maun, _must_.
menseful, _of good manners_.
mirk, _dark_.
misbegowk, _deception, disappointment_.
mools, _mould, earth_.
muckle, _much, great, big_.
my lane, _by myself_.
nowt, _black cattle_.
palmering, _walking infirmly_.
panel, in _Scots law, the accused person in a criminal action, the prisoner_.
peel, _fortified watch-tower_.
plew-stilts, _plough-handles_.
policy, _ornamental grounds of a country mansion_.
puddock, _frog_.
quean, _wench_.
rair, _to roar_.
riffraff, _rabble_.
risping, _grating_.
rout, rowt, _to roar, to rant_.
rowth, _abundance_.
rudas, _haggard old woman_.
runt, _an old cow past breeding; opprobriously, an old woman_.
sab, _sob_.
sanguishes, _sandwiches_.
sasine, _in Scots law, the act of giving legal possession of feudal property, or, colloquially, the deed by which that possession is proved_.
sclamber, _to scramble_.
sculduddery, _impropriety, grossness_.
session, _the Court of Session, the supreme court of Scotland_.
shauchling, _shuffling, slipshod_.
shoo, _to chase gently_.
siller, _money_.
sinsyne, _since then_.
skailing, _dispersing_.
skelp, _slap_.
skirling, _screaming_.
skreigh-o'-day, _daybreak_.
snash, _abuse_.
sneisty, _supercilious_.
sooth, _to hum_.
sough, _sound, murmur_.
Spec., _The Speculative Society, a debating Society connected with Edinburgh University_.
speir, to _ask_.
speldering, _sprawling_.
splairge, _to splash_.
spunk, _spirit, fire_.
steik, _to shut_.
stirk, _a young bullock_.
stockfish, _hard, savourless_.
sugar-bool, _sugar-plum_.
syne, _since, then_.
tawpie, _a slow foolish slut, also used playfully = monkey_.
telling you, _a good thing for you_.
thir, _these_.
thrawn, _cross-grained_.
toon, _farm, town_.
two-names, _local sobriquets in addition to patronymic_.
tyke, _dog_.
unchancy, _unlucky_.
unco, _strange, extraordinary, very_.
upsitten, _impertinent_.
vennel, _alley, lane_. The Vennel, _a narrow lane in Edinburgh running out of the Grassmarket_.
vivers, _victuals_.
wac, _sad, unhappy_.
waling, _choosing_.
warrandise, _warranty_.
waur, _worse_.
weird, _destiny_.
whammle, _to upset_.
whaup, _curlew_.
whiles, _sometimes_.
windlestrae, _crested dog's-tail grass_.
wund, _wind_.
yin, _one_.
END OF VOL. XIX
PRINTED BY CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 19 Page 26
