Chapter 4

LEGENDS.

THE character of a place is often most perfectly
expressed in its associations. An event strikes root and
grows into a legend, when it has happened amongst
congenial surroundings. Ugly actions, above all in ugly
places, have the true romantic quality, and become an
undying property of their scene. To a man like Scott,
the different appearances of nature seemed each to
contain its own legend ready made, which it was his to
call forth: in such or such a place, only such or such
events ought with propriety to happen; and in this spirit
he made the LADY OF THE LAKE for Ben Venue, the HEART OF
MIDLOTHIAN for Edinburgh, and the PIRATE, so
indifferently written but so romantically conceived, for
the desolate islands and roaring tideways of the North.
The common run of mankind have, from generation to
generation, an instinct almost as delicate as that of
Scott; but where he created new things, they only forget
what is unsuitable among the old; and by survival of the
fittest, a body of tradition becomes a work of art. So,
in the low dens and high-flying garrets of Edinburgh,
people may go back upon dark passages in the town's
adventures, and chill their marrow with winter's tales
about the fire: tales that are singularly apposite and
characteristic, not only of the old life, but of the very
constitution of built nature in that part, and singularly
well qualified to add horror to horror, when the wind
pipes around the tall LANDS, and hoots adown arched
passages, and the far-spread wilderness of city lamps
keeps quavering and flaring in the gusts.

Here, it is the tale of Begbie the bank-porter,
stricken to the heart at a blow and left in his blood
within a step or two of the crowded High Street. There,
people hush their voices over Burke and Hare; over drugs
and violated graves, and the resurrection-men smothering
their victims with their knees. Here, again, the fame of
Deacon Brodie is kept piously fresh. A great man in his
day was the Deacon; well seen in good society, crafty
with his hands as a cabinet-maker, and one who could sing
a song with taste. Many a citizen was proud to welcome
the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret at a
timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had
he known how soon, and in what guise, his visitor
returned. Many stories are told of this redoubtable
Edinburgh burglar, but the one I have in my mind most
vividly gives the key of all the rest. A friend of
Brodie's, nested some way towards heaven in one of these
great LANDS, had told him of a projected visit to the
country, and afterwards, detained by some affairs, put it
off and stayed the night in town. The good man had lain
some time awake;