The Life of Sir Walter Scott - new book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: she came to see the young advocate, Alan Fairford. Scott is supposed to have described his first sight of her to David Erskine of Cardross, in one of a series of letters relating to his attachment which were burnt. The mothers of the young people seem to have known one another, and for many Sundays they continued to walk home together. But Walter's father tried to nip the affair in the bud by warning Sir John OLD GREYFRIARS CHURCH Stuart of an intimacy which he thought likely to lead to no good, owing to the inequality of their prospects in life. His interference, however (which was unknown to his son), seems to have been fruitless, and the two continued to meet both at Edinburgh and in the country. " Young Walter Scott," according to a lady of his acquaintance, "was a comely creature." He had a strongly built figure, with a finely formed head superbly set upon a classically moulded bust; his lameness wasscarcely apparent. He had a fresh complexion, clear eyes, and faultless teeth; "his smile was always delightful." But he was no lady-killer; and he was proud, not complacent, when he first found that " a pretty young woman could think it worth her while " to sit and talk with him by the hour whilst others danced. And we are even told on the authority of the "first woman of real fashion," who, as he himself said, " took him up," that he seemed to her bashful and awkward in those early days. It was probably, however, as much delicacy occasioned by the uncertainty of his prospects as natural diffidence which prevented the young advocate from declaring himself for the long period of five years; but something in the nature of an informal engagement seems to have been agreed upon in the summer of 1795. A letter from Miss Stuart in August of that year caused Scott, prepared...