Sinclair confutes the Obdurest Atheists with
the Pied Piper of Hamelin, with the young lady from Howells' "Letters,"
whose house, like Rahab's, was "on the city wall," and with the ghost of
the Major who appeared to the Captain (as he had promised), and scolded
him for not keeping his sword clean. He also gives us Major Weir, at
full length, convincing us that, as William Erskine said, "The Major was
a disgusting fellow, a most ungentlemanlike character." Scott, on the
other hand, remarked, long before "Waverley," "if I ever were to become a
writer of prose romances, I think I would choose Major Weir, if not for
my hero, at least for an agent and a leading one, in my production." He
admitted that the street where the Major lived was haunted by a woman
"twice the common length," "but why should we set him down for an
ungentlemanly fellow?" Readers of Mr. Sinclair will understand the
reason very well, and it is not necessary, nor here even possible, to
justify Erskine's opinion by quotations. Suffice it that, by virtue of
his enchanted staff, which was burned with him, the Major was enabled "to
commit evil not to be named, yea, even to reconcile man and wife when at
variance." His sister, who was hanged, had Redgauntlet's horse-shoe mark
on her brow, and one may marvel that Scott does not seem to have
remembered this coincidence. "There was seen an exact Horse-shoe, shaped
for nails, in her wrinkles.
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