[1] Scott's youthful love-dream lasted through several years. The lady eventually married Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, who was a banker in Edinburgh. Sir William acted a very friendly part during Scott's financial disaster of 1826-27.
The Advocate's 'Trials'--Scott and Clerk admitted to the Bar--Walter's first Fee--Connection of the Scotts with Lord Braxfield--Scottish Judges--Stories of Braxfield.
The trials set to candidates for admission into the Faculty of Advocates were duly passed by Scott and his friend Clerk on the same days. They were formally admitted to the fraternity on the 11th of July, 1792.
There is always some story of the young Advocate's first fee. When the ceremony of 'putting on the gown' was completed, Scott said to Clerk, putting on the air and tone of some Highland lassie waiting at the Cross to be 'fee'd' for the harvest, 'We've stood here an hour by the Tron, hinny, an' deil a ane has speir'd our price.' The friends were about to leave the Outer Court, when a friend, a solicitor, came up and gave Scott his first guinea fee. As he and Clerk went down the High Street, they passed a hosier's shop, and Scott remarked, 'This is a sort of wedding-day, Willie; I think I must go in and buy me a new nightcap.' Thus he 'wared' his guinea, but it is pleasing to know that his first big fee was spent on a silver taper-stand for his mother, which (Lockhart tells) the old lady used to point to with great satisfaction, as it stood on her chimney-piece five-and-twenty years afterwards.
Scott's 'thesis'--no doubt, like Alan Fairford's, a very pretty piece of Latinity--was dedicated to the terrible Lord Braxfield, 'the giant of the bench,' as Cockburn calls him, 'whose very name makes people start yet.' Braxfield was a friend and near neighbour of the Scotts, his house being No. 28 George Square. It is said that he was rather kind to nervous young advocates at their first appearance in a case, so long as they were not 'Bar flunkies'--his term for brainless fops. Braxfield lives in popular tradition as a monster of rough and savage cruelty, and the sketch of the man by Cockburn bears out the character only too well. The sketch may be quoted in full, for its intrinsic interest, and for the vivid light it throws on the character and manners of Scottish judges in the century following the Union.