The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

“To the real history of this singular individual credulity
has attached several superstitious appendages. It is
said that the farmer who was the cause of Charlie’s death
shortly afterwards drowned himself in a peat-hag; and
that the hand with which a butcher in Kilinarnock
struck one of the other sheep became powerless, and
withered to the very bone. In the summer of 1769, when
she was passing by New Cumnock, a young man, whose
name was William Forsyth, son of a farmer in the same
parish, plagued her so much that she wished he might
never see the morn; upon which he went home and
hanged himself in his father’s barn. And I doubt not
that many such stories may yet be remembered in other
parts where she had been.”
So far Mr. Train. The Author can only add to this narrative
that Feckless Fannie and her little flock were well
known in the pastoral districts. In attempting to introduce
such a character into fiction, the Author felt the
risk of encountering a comparison with the Maria of
Sterne; and, besides, the mechanism of the story would
have been as much retarded by Feckless Fannie’s flock
Sir Walter Scott
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as the night march of Don Quixote was delayed by
Sancho’s tale of the sheep that were ferried over the
river.
The Author has only to add, that notwithstanding the
preciseness of his friend Mr. Train’s statement, there may
be some hopes that the outrage on Feckless Fannie and
her little flock was not carried to extremity. There is no
mention of any trial on account of it, which, had it occurred
in the manner stated, would have certainly taken
place; and the Author has understood that it was on the
Border she was last seen, about the skirts of the Cheviot
hills, but without her little flock.