Dr. Brown's
family gloried in the possession of a Dandy Dinmont named John Pym, whose
cousin (Auld Pepper) belonged to one of my brothers. Dr. Brown was much
interested in Pepper, a dog whose family pride was only matched by that
of the mother of Candide, and, at one time, threatened to result in the
extinction of this branch of the House of Pepper. Dr. Brown had
remarked, and my own observations confirm it, that when a Dandy is not
game, his apparent lack of courage arises "from kindness of heart."
Among Dr. Brown's landscapes, as one may call his descriptions of
scenery, and of the ancient historical associations with Scotch scenery,
"Minchmoor" is the most important. He had always been a great lover of
the Tweed. The walk which he commemorates in "Minchmoor" was taken, if I
am not mistaken, in company with Principal Shairp, Professor of Poetry in
the University of Oxford, and author of one of the most beautiful of
Tweedside songs, a modern "Bush aboon Traquair:"--
"And what saw ye there,
At the bush aboon Traquair;
Or what did ye hear that was worth your heed?
I heard the cushie croon
Thro' the gowden afternoon,
And the Quair burn singing doon to the vale o' Tweed."
There is in the country of Scott no pleasanter walk than that which Dr.
Brown took in the summer afternoon. Within a few miles, many places
famous in history and ballad may be visited: the road by which Montrose's
men fled from Philiphaugh fight; Traquair House, with the bears on its
gates, as on the portals of the Baron of Bradwardine; Williamhope, where
Scott and Mungo Park, the African explorer, parted and went their several
ways.
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