He gave me several anecdotes of a noted pauper named Andrew Gemmells,
or Gammel, as it was pronounced, who had once flourished on the banks
of Galla Water, immediately opposite Abbotsford, and whom he had seen
and talked and joked with when a boy; and I instantly recognized the
likeness of that mirror of philosophic vagabonds and Nestor of beggars,
Edie Ochiltree. I was on the point of pronouncing the name and
recognizing the portrait, when I recollected the incognito observed by
Scott with respect to his novels, and checked myself; but it was one
among many things that tended to convince me of his authorship.
His picture of Andrew Gemmells exactly accorded with that of Edie as to
his height, carriage, and soldier-like air, as well as his arch and
sarcastic humor. His home, if home he had, was at Galashiels; but he
went "daundering" about the country, along the green shaws and beside
the burns, and was a kind of walking chronicle throughout the valleys
of the Tweed, the Ettrick, and the Yarrow; carrying the gossip from
house to house, commenting on the inhabitants and their concerns, and
never hesitating to give them a dry rub as to any of their faults or
follies.
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