The worthy and good old man died in 1799. He had suffered a succession of paralytic attacks, under which mind as well as body had been laid quite prostrate. From the lips of a near relation of the family Lockhart gives the following touching statement made to himself on the publication of the first 'Chronicles of the Canongate'--'I had been out of Scotland for some time, and did not know of my good friend's illness, until I reached Edinburgh, a few months before his death. I saw the very scene that is here painted[2] of the elder Croftangry's sickroom--not a feature different--poor Anne Scott, the gentlest of creatures, was treated by the fretful patient exactly like this niece.' And the biographer adds--'I have lived to see the curtain rise and fall once more on a like scene.'
[2] 'Chronicles of the Canongate,' chap. I. Note that the house is in Brown's Square, where old Fairford dwelt.
The old man's business was continued by his son Thomas, and the property he left, though less than had been expected, was sufficient to make ample provision for his widow, and a not inconsiderable addition to the resources of those among whom the remainder was divided.
On the 16th December 1799, Walter Scott was made Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire, with a salary of £300. Probably, had Scott been an avowed Whig, he would never have been offered the post, but beyond the mere fact that he was _not_ a Whig, politics had no part in the appointment. Personal friendship no doubt aided his other claims. The strongest efforts were made on his behalf by both Robert and William Dundas, nephews of Henry Dundas (Lord Melville), in whose hands was the general control of all Crown patronage. The same was done by his (Henry Dundas's) son Robert, and Lord Dalkeith and Lord Montague, sons of the Duke of Buccleuch--all ardent volunteers. The result was that the Duke and Dundas, both of whom knew and liked Scott, though neither was at all 'addicted to literature,' had no choice. Neither imagined that in appointing the young advocate to be a sheriff-depute, he was making his best bid for immortality. This very innocent 'job' was most happily timed. It crowned the modest fortune of the young poet's little household. The duties were light, and though the income was small, it was sufficient to make him independent of the precarious prospects of a profession for which he had never acquired any real liking. He spoke of it himself in the words of Slender about Anne Page--'There was no great love between us at the beginning; and it pleased Heaven to decrease it on further acquaintance.' The end of the century, therefore, saw Scott placed by fortune in the position which was his own ideal--free to devote his best energies to literature, without depending on its results for his own and his family's daily bread.