Robert Fittis - The Mosstrooper - A Legend of the Scottish Border

After the death of my husband, Robert Scott Fittis, several of his friends suggested to me that some of his earlier writings should be re-published in book form as a Memorial of the Author, especially as it is now quite impossible to procure them otherwise. For these reasons I have chosen “The Mosstrooper,” which, although now re-published here as he revised it in a subsequent edition, was originally written by my late husband when he was only between sixteen and seventeen years of age.

I take this public opportunity of thanking Mr. A. H. Millar for his great kindness in writing the very full and accurate biographical notice which is prefixed to this Memorial Volume.

89 High Street,

Perth, December, 1906.

ROBERT SCOTT FITTISrepresents a type of the Scottish man of letters which is rapidly disappearing. While it could not justly be said that he was unique as a personality, or that he introduced a novel combination of intellectual qualities and thereby formed an epoch, the honour must be ascribed to him of having continued the best traditions of the Augustan Age of Scottish Literature, and of maintaining the dignity in literary affairs to which his native land had attained. He was a Scotsman “through and through,” loving the land of his birth with intense devotion, reverencing the heroes whom she had brought forth to adorn the records alike of war and literature, and devoting the energies of a long life to setting before his countrymen the best models of patriotism for their imitation. His natural gifts were so strenuously cultivated that in his later days he was regarded as an inexhaustible encyclopædia of recondite information of the most varied kind. He was from his youth an omnivorous reader, and he possessed that best of all gifts “a reference memory,” as Dean Stanley called it, and could bring forth from his treasures, new and old, a surprising variety of apt quotations and original inferences. In some respects his mind was akin to that of the late John Hill Burton, the historian. He had the same finical love of accuracy, the same fervid Scottish spirit, and a similarly broad outlook upon general literature which prevented him from becoming merely a local historian and nothing more. While his labours in connection with Perthshire history were unceasing, and have produced a rich storehouse of facts, he dealt with national history and literature in a manner which showed the breadth of his mind and the variegated nature of his studies. He was a historian, earnest to separate veritable truth from tradition; yet he was one eager to collect these very traditions as fragments of national character. A student of charters and a genealogist, over whom any time-stained charter or antique paper scrawled with crabbed penmanship exercised a fascination, he was still an ardent lover of poetry, especially such as described the flowery banks of Tay or Tummel, the gowany lea of Gowrie, or the Bens and Straths of Garth and Glen Lyon. Upon one of his title-pages he placed two quotations which aptly express his characteristics: —

To describe adequately the life of such a man within limited space is impossible. All that can here be done is to outline his industrious career, as a tribute to one whose devotion to national literature, even in times of severe distress and difficulty, must ever command sincere respect.

The Fair City of Perth was the birth-place of Robert Scott Fittis, and there he spent all his days, from his birth on 15th November, 1824, till his death on 11th October, 1903, when he had almost completed his 79th year. He was educated at one of the Burgh Schools, and in May, 1837, he was apprenticed for three years (at that time the usual period) to Mr. John Flockhart, Solicitor in the City. So well did he acquit himself during his apprenticeship that he was retained in the office for two years as a clerk. From Mr. Flockhart’s place he went to several lawyers’ offices in Perth, until 1853, when he bade farewell to the Law as a profession, and took to literature. It was not altogether a rash step which made him take the crutch of literature and form it into a sustaining staff. Twelve years before this time – in 1841 – he had begun to write for the press, and for over sixty years it supported him.

The late Mr. John Fisher, Printer, Perth, had started in 1841 in that city a penny weekly periodical of twelve pages called “The Perth Saturday Journal.” It was the first of its kind in the locality. Knowing the literary aspirations of Mr. Fittis, then a youth of 17 years, Mr. Fisher secured his aid as a contributor. The first editor was Mr. Rennie, afterwards one of the sub-editors of “Hogg’s Instructor,” and Mr. Fittis began in the second number, published in August, 1841, a series entitled “Legends of Perth.” At that time the Rev. George Clark Hutton (afterwards Principal Hutton, of the United Presbyterian Church) was a Perth youth just beginning his theological studies, and he also became a contributor of poems and tales.

Rennie was succeeded by Mr. James Davidson, a local reporter, who soon resigned the office into the hands of Mr. Thomas Hay Marshall, also a reporter, who came to be known as the “historian of Perth.” Before the end of the year, however, this periodical may be said to have entered upon another stage of its existence, with an alteration of the title to “The Perth and Dundee Saturday Journal,” and in an eight-page issue.

The first number was dated 27th November, 1841, and in No. 28, July 16th, 1842, Mr. Fittis began a serial story entitled “The Mysterious Monk.” This issue ran on to fifty-two numbers, the last one appearing 31st December, 1842. In this number it was announced that “the second volume of the ‘JOURNAL’ will appear on the day it is due – on the first Saturday of 1843, and will continue to be issued, as usual, weekly.” It was not, however until Saturday, January 21st, 1843, that the first number of Vol. II. made its appearance. The volume consisted of fifty numbers of eight pages, as before, but the last, which was issued on Saturday, 30th December, 1843, consisted of two leaves (4 pp.) only, and intimated that the Journal was to be continued in 1844, and that the talented writer (Fittis) of “Anguswood” and many other tales which have appeared in the Journal, and met with so favourable reception, is, in an early number, to favour us with the first chapter of another tale entitled the “Mosstrooper.” Accordingly, in 1844, the Journal again made its appearance, this time under the title of “The Perth and Dundee Journal,” and in this year’s issue, as promised, the tale called “The Mosstrooper,” by Fittis, was first published. With this year the career of the Journal was terminated.

The literary ability of Mr. Fittis had been so conspicuously displayed in connection with the “Journal,” that when Mr. Fisher contemplated a new venture it was to Fittis he first looked for aid. On 1st January, 1845, there was started a periodical entitled “The Tales of Scotland,” similar in character to Wilson’s “Tales of the Borders,” but taking a wider scope. Fittis was editor and principal contributor, and he was assisted by Thomas Soutar, Solicitor, Crieff, George Hay of Rait, and James Stewart of Dunkeld. The experiment was entirely successful. So great was the demand for the “Tales” that the first twelve numbers were reprinted three times, and Fisher spared no effort to push the sale of the publication in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen. The work was completed in four half-yearly volumes, the greater portion of the contents having been written by Mr. Fittis. Shortly after its completion Mr. Fittis became a contributor to “The Scottish Miscellany,” which was begun in 1847. Four years afterwards (1851) he edited a short series under the title of “Miscellany of Scottish Tradition,” and in the following year (1852) he began the “Tales and Traditions of Scotland,” in which he re-published “The Mosstrooper” in a revised and improved version. The tales in this periodical were all from his industrious pen.