The way of life of Scott's two drovers would not have seemed strange to his readers. In the fall of the year, drovers from the north and west of Scotland still converged on trysting places. One of these was Doune in Perthshire, which served Skye and the western isles as well as the northwest Highlands. Drovers usually went on foot, covering ten or twelve miles a day, grazing their cattle at midday, and arranging to rent "stances" to rest, graze, and water them at night. Cattle entering England by way of Carlisle might be driven from Doune to Stirling, Falkirk, and Peebles, in the Lowlands, over the Minch Moor and along the Ettrick Valley. The journey could take up to four weeks at a cost in the early nineteenth century of seven shillings sixpence a head. To travel faster or at night would have been, as the drovers say in Stevenson's St. Ives, "fair ruin on the bestial." In the eighteenth century, gun, pistol, and sword were precautionary against reivers. (A. R. B. Haldane's The Drove Roads of Scotland, 1952, is of interest here.)

Entry to Carlisle was by the Scotch Gate. The Gaol which Robin Oig would have occupied was near the English Gate on the south side of Carlisle. It had no furniture and only provided straw for bedding. As John Howard the philanthropist described the quarters for felons in 1792 (The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, 4th ed.), the two rooms were "dark and dirty," the night room measuring nine by eleven feet. Male and female felons lodged together and were allowed ninepence a week before conviction, a shilling after. A dunghill near the pump scented the court, and gaol-fever sometimes anticipated the executioner. Scott had seen at least the outside of the gaol, and the courthouse where a murderer would have been tried was nearby.

In 1803, some six years after his longest visit to Carlisle, Scott published in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. III, the sixteenth century ballad of "Graeme and Bewick," which exploits the theme of "The Two Drovers" (1827), the honor killing of a friend. While drinking wine with Lord Graeme in Carlisle, Sir Robert Bewick sneered at the ignorance of young Graeme, whose incensed father forced on Christie a tragic choice, either fight his parent or his "billie dear," young Bewick. Accepting the lesser sin, Christie rode to meet his "brother dear," explained his woeful mission, and after a two hour duel delivered the mortal stroke. Then he leapt on his own sword point. The dying Bewick rebuked his prideful father, of whom he demanded burial in the same grave with Christie Graeme. Scott rightly relates this ballad "to the institution of brotherhood in arms" of chivalric romance, but he exaggerates the parallelism to the "compaignons darmes ensemble" in Gyron le Courtoys.

Scott's imagination was drawn to Carlisle by history as well as by balladry and by memory. In Waverley (1814), he shaped the trials of Jacobite rebels to his purposes in the arraignment of Fergus Maclvor and the eloquent but futile offer of Evan Dhu M'Combich to die in place of his chief. Robin Oig M'Combich rises to like nobility, "I give a life for the life I took, and what can I do more?" In a mood different from that of novel or short story, Scott wrote J. B. S. Morritt on October 2, 1815, about a quizzing project to advertise an edition of David Hume's poetry (a total of four lines), with explication to include "a full account of the affair of 1745 with the trials last speeches and so forth of the poor plaids who were strap'd up at Carlisle."

In the opening of "The Two Drovers," Scott supplies a magnet to attract details from the history and legendry of the M'Gregors to his stark tale of murder. He names his Highland drover Robin Oig M'Combich, alias M'Gregor, a clan name long proscribed, and makes him the grandson of a friend of Rob Roy's. The associations thus easily achieved were rich indeed. As Scott was later to remind readers in his long introduction of 1831 to Rob Roy in the "magnum opus" edition of the Waverley Novels, Rob Roy was "a drover or trader in cattle" before he became cattle thief, blackmailer, and outlaw. Although no Lowland or English drover dared venture into the Highlands, the Highlanders "dealt . . . in all honour and good faith with their Southern customers."

As in the tale, the dirk and the supernatural are juxtaposed when the raiding M'Gregors were outnumbered by the forces of Sir Humphrey Colquhoun. "Cheered on to the attack by a Seer, or second-sighted person, who professed that he saw the shrouds of the dead wrapt around their principal opponents," the M'Gregors won the battle. Dugald Ciar Mhor, "the ancestor of Rob Roy," was told to guard some divinity students who had been spectators of the fight, but he stabbed them instead. His only explanation was his bloody dirk held high and the words, "Ask that, and God save me [the plea of his victims]!"

The temporary withholding of a weapon, so prominent in the short story, also turns up in M'Gregor annals. Rob Roy and Henry Cunningham wrathftilly agreed to single combat, but "the goodwife of the clachan had hidden Cunningham's sword." While the search went on, Rob Roy strutted on the Shieling Hill, from which he was driven when his enemy found a serviceable old sword. Tragic rather than comic is the story of Robin Oig, one of Rob Roy's five sons, who was wrought to fury heat by his mother, on whose land a MacLaren had settled. The implacable Helen M'Gregor, by the way, not only appears in Rob Roy (1817) but leaves her mark ten years later on the title character of the Canongate tale, "The Highland Widow." Robin Oig swore that he would kill the man when he laid hands on his father's gun, then "at Doune to be repaired." And with it he "shot MacLaren when between the stilts of his plough." Scott adds that the "fatal piece" later came into his possession.

This Robert M'Gregor, alias Campbell, alias Drummond, alias Robert Oig, is described by Scott as looking "more gentle" than James Mohr Drummond, his brother and accomplice; "dark, but yet ruddy in complexion — a good-looking young savage." (The fictional Robin Oig has "ruddy cheek, red lips, and white teeth" which set off his "hardy" countenance.) The original Robert Oig was executed on February 14, 1754, not for the murder, but for the forcible abduction and marriage of an heiress, Jean Key, who died in 1749. Scott assures the reader that his information about the M'Gregors' lamenting in a coronach as they bore the kidnapper's body to Balquhidder came to him from "a venerable friend" recently deceased.

In a comment on "The Two Drovers" of March 6, 1828, The Caledonian Mercury conveys a like sense of immediacy to actual events: "Almost uniformly some member of the families connected with Robin Oig, has been distinguished for . . . the second sight." This Cassandra faculty brings what is distant in time or place to the eye—or ear—of the ineffectual seer. In the stage version of Scott's story, Henry Goff's Second Sight; or, Prediction (published as The Two Drovers. A Domestic, Legendary Melodrama), which opened at the Surrey Theatre, London, on February 6, 1828, it was given exaggerated importance, and Robin Oig eliminated the trial scene by stabbing himself. In more artistic control, Scott himself differentiates between Highland belief, Lowland indifference, and English ignorance of second sight in Janet of Tomahourich's vision of blood on her nephew's dirk, Hugh Morrison's tolerant willingness to guard the dirk, on which Janet has placed a taboo, and Harry Wakefield's unawareness that his death has been foreseen. The person warned, Robin Oig, is fey, in the grip of a doom beyond his control. Thus the man moves toward the event with the tranced inevitability of Greek tragedy.

In his use of Scottish folklore to heighten narrative effects, the author introduces a lesser superstition. As a charm against witches, the hair at the end of cattle's tails is carefully twined in St. Mungo's knot. Robin Oig shields his drove against evil cantrips, but he cannot shield himself against his own temperament or his devotion to Highland honor.

Not only did Scott draw together strands from literature and legend, history and folklore, in the stuff of "The Two Drovers," he wove in threads of family and self as well. "A man of middle stature, extremely active, quick, keen, and fiery in his temper," his grandfather, "Honest Robin," Robert Scott, "was one of the first who were active in the cattle trade, afterwards carried to such extent between the Highlands of Scotland and the leading counties in England, and by his droving transactions acquired a considerable sum of money" (Scott's Autobiography of 1808). Sir Walter's vision of life had long been robustly stoical when the death of his wife Charlotte, bankruptcy, and harassment for debt sharpened stoicism into a tragic consciousness of man's lot on earth. A possible victim of the law, or fugitive, he originally thought of the title The Canongate Miscellany, or Traditions of the Sanctuary for Chronicles of the Canongate, of which "The Two Drovers" is a part. As he notes in his Journal of November 1, 1827 (the day of publication), "I suppose that I, the Chronicler of the Canongate, will have to take up my residence in the Sanctuary [Holyroodhouse] for a week or so, unless I prefer the more airy residence of the Calton Jail, or a trip to the Isle of Man."

No wonder he was moved to tell of a poor drover whose character deserved good but attracted evil fortune. In the story itself Scott comes forward to assert that, "as a young Scottish lawyer" in Carlisle, he was invited to the trial and thus heard "the charge of the venerable judge to the jury, although not at that time liable to be affected either by that which was eloquent or pathetic." At the age of twenty-six Scott visited Carlisle in November and again in December 1797 to arrange his marriage to Charlotte Carpenter, which took place in St. Mary's Church on December 24th. He was not likely then to feel much empathy for a drover charged with murder.

In my search for the original trial, I have been informed by the Archivist that the Record Office housed in the Castle, Carlisle, has no files of murder cases. The Deputy City Librarian of Carlisle has written that the local newspapers of 1797 do not report such a trial. Journalists of Scott's day accepted his statement in good faith. Writing for Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine of November 1827, John Wilson ("Christopher North") calls the tale "a mere evolvement or developement of what may be supposed to have been the real circumstances of a melancholy case of murder, which many years ago was tried at Carlisle," with the author's adding "some few touches of more solemn and pathetic eloquence" to the fine original charge delivered by the judge, "a most eminent and remarkable man." While disapproving of the "dull and feeble," legally inexact charge, The New Monthly Magazine of December 1, 1827, finds "The Two Drovers" as a whole "an ingenious amplification of an incident which in itself would barely furnish a paragraph for a newspaper." In Q.'s literary notice for The Examiner of November 4, 1827, the blend of fact with imagination is recognized: "We cannot help suspecting a somewhat large infusion of romance in the portrait . . . and Robin Oig is avowedly the Rob Roy of a lower grade."

Some time before publication Scott had expressed fear that his rigid printer-partner, James Ballantyne, would dislike "The Two Drovers" as low, departing from the safe "chivalry" line; "and if he thinks so, others will" (Journal of July 15 and 22, 1827). Ballantyne thought so, as did several critics. The Morning Post of October 22, 1827, concludes that the story contains "few and trivial incidents" involving humble characters; these "would be unworthy of Sir Walter Scott" if it were not for the distinctive characterization (The Scotsman of November 3); and the subject is one "which the talents of Sir Walter Scott alone could have redeemed from vulgarity" (The Gentleman's Magazine of November).

The anomaly of criticism appearing in the Post before official publication challenges attention before we continue with the journalistic comment of Scott's day. The two crown octavo volumes, in boards, of Chronicles of the Canongate, were advertised as going on sale Thursday, November 1, 1827, at a guinea. But "The Two Drovers" had already been pirated in the triple columns of the Saturday, October 20th issue of The London Weekly Review. According to the explanation, printed sheets had been obtained "by the circuitous route of Paris." The St. James's Chronicle of October 18-20 and 20-23 promptly lifted the story from the Weekly Review in full, and both The Morning Post and The Morning Chronicle of October 22nd supplied their readers with abridgments of the text in the "spirited" Weekly Review, which the Chronicle praised for its "early and superior resources." While referring to "this apparent invasion of . . . copyright," The London Magazine of November admitted indebtedness to that "sensible and industrious literary journal," the Weekly Review, for its boldness—or good fortune. Then it fully reprinted the tale, only later to disclaim any original knowledge of the procurement method, which "confers little honour on any party concerned." Sensitive to this reproof and to The Literary Gazette's charge of plunder, the Weekly Review rather feebly protested on November 3rd that "the Gentleman who furnished us with the sheets of the Chronicles, appeared to us to have authority for doing what he did."

In the generally favorable reviews of Chronicles of the Canongate, "The Two Drovers" was at times rated "of an inferior order" to the companion tales (Literary Gazette) or to "The Highland Widow" in particular (Scotsman). Though not the best of the three narratives, it was certainly "the most compact whole" for reproduction (London Magazine). The action was too real and common to be given significance by any but a "masterhand." But The Examiner of November 4 praised "The Two Drovers" as "the jewel of these two volumes, and strongly illustrative of the magic power of genius" in its contrast of "national character" which "exalts the lowly persons and circumstances."

Far the most influential review was John Wilson's in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which was reprinted for London readers in The Morning Post and criticized in The Sun of November 1st. After devoting his chief attention to "The Highland Widow," Wilson judges "The Two Drovers" to be "more subdued and less imaginative—pitched on a lower key"; nevertheless, arresting and in its catastrophe "terrible." However, "The Surgeon's Daughter" will be for readers generally "the most interesting of the series." But no matter what Canongate story received highest commendation, the usual contemporary verdict was that the easy, humorous introductory matter and running commentary of Chrystal Croftangry was the most pleasing part of Scott's new work.

Time has not greatly affected these early estimates. In "Scott and the Short Story" (Glasgow Herald, October 20, 1923), A. M. Williams describes "The Two Drovers" as "a spirited sketch of human passions," although Croftangry's containing narrative is more interesting "for Scott students." Sir George Douglas, in "Scott's Short Stories" (Sir Walter Scott Quarterly, April 1927), commends the portrayal of "local manners and human passions" in that masterpiece "The Two Drovers"; "the contrast of character between the good-natured, easy-going North Englander, Harry Wakefield, and the typical Highlander as represented by Robin Oig, with all his native liveliness, dourness, easily exasperated punctilio, and suddenness in quarrel"; and the "terse, telling, and appropriately coloured dialogue."

Lord David Cecil would go beyond Sir George's conviction that, given more time, "Scott might have proved himself as great a master . . . of the short story as of the long." If Scott shows "technical incapacity," inserts "a lot of dead matter" in his novels, lacks a "sense of form," and is unable "to conceive a complete book," the short story yields "least scope to his faults." Thus "Wandering Willie's Tale" and "The Two Drovers" are "the only two perfect things Scott ever wrote," supremely displaying his style and his "power of realistic eloquence." And in its combination of authentic and romantic force, the "heroic tragedy" of the latter "triumphs on a higher plane."

Walter Allen remarks in passing (The English Novel, 1954) that Scott "achieved tragedy only twice," in "The Highland Widow" and "The Two Drovers," both "tragedies resulting from national character as shaped by historic circumstances." And Edgar Johnson, in his impressive biography of Scott (1970), concludes his discussion of "The Two Drovers": "There is no superfluous detail, the action moves with the pace of doom, and the tragedy is inevitable and unforgettable."

Sir Walter Scott pursues the theme of honor in conflict with some other loyalty in a number of shorter narratives. In "The Two Drovers" the clash in Robin Oig's breast is between Highland honor challenged by insult to his manhood and friendship for a Yorkshireman. So terrible are these incompatible allegiances that they can only be embodied in the starkest terms, which are intensified by prefiguring second sight and solemnized by the judge's charge to the jury. It is on the supernatural, the realistic, and the legalistic plane that fatalism governs life in Scott's short masterwork.