Saunders Mucklebackit is a character in
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
's 1816 novel ''
The Antiquary
''The Antiquary'' (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all prac ...
'', an elderly fisherman and smuggler who is bereaved of his son. Though a comparatively minor character he has often been singled out for praise as one of the novel's most masterly creations.
His role in the novel
Mucklebackit first appears in the novel as one of the rescuers of
Sir Arthur Wardour
Sir Arthur Wardour of Knockwinnock Castle is a character in Walter Scott’s 1816 novel ''The Antiquary'', a Scottish Tory baronet who is vain of his ancient family but short of money. He is a friend and neighbour of Jonathan Oldbuck, the nove ...
and his companions when they are stranded on a cliff-face and in danger of drowning. His impatience of the title-character
Jonathan Oldbuck
Jonathan Oldbuck is the leading character in Sir Walter Scott's 1816 novel ''The Antiquary''. In accordance with Scottish custom he is often addressed by the name of his house, Monkbarns. He is devoted to the study and collection of old coins, bo ...
's interference is also seen for the first time. Much later Mucklebackit's son Steenie is drowned, and at the lad's funeral Saunders is almost incoherent with grief. Since he is too overcome to help to carry the coffin to the graveyard Oldbuck takes his place. While the interment is taking place the Mucklebackit cottage is visited by
Lord Glenallan
William, Earl of Glenallan, otherwise Lord Glenallan, is a character in Sir Walter Scott's 1816 novel ''The Antiquary'', a Scottish aristocrat whose life has been ruined by the suicide of his wife and the belief that he has unwittingly committed ...
, who, unaware of the funeral, wishes to speak with Saunders' mother Elspeth. Saunders indignantly refuses him entrance, but is over-ruled by his mother. Oldbuck returns to find Mucklebackit repairing the fishing-boat from which Steenie had been swept, and says how pleased he is to find him capable of that job. Mucklebackit replies,
"And what would you have me to do…unless I wanted to see four children starve, because ane is drowned? It's weel wi' you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at your een when ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard as my hammer."
Finding the job too much for him he flings his hammer aside, and Oldbuck offers to send a professional carpenter to repair the boat. Mucklebackit thanks him for this and for the honour he did him in helping to carry the body, and the two men break into tears.
Critical assessment
Several contemporary reviews of ''The Antiquary'' quoted the scene of the Mucklebackit funeral as a highlight of the novel. The ''
Monthly Review
The ''Monthly Review'', established in 1949, is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. The publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States.
History Establishment
Following ...
'' found the scene strongly drawn with a terrible effectiveness,
Francis Jeffrey
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (23 October 1773 – 26 January 1850) was a Scottish judge and literary critic.
Life
He was born at 7 Charles Street near Potterow in south Edinburgh, the son of George Jeffrey, a clerk in the Court of Session ...
in the ''
Edinburgh Review
The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929.
''Edinburgh Review'', ...
'' found it "in the highest degree striking and pathetic", and the ''
British Critic
The ''British Critic: A New Review'' was a quarterly publication, established in 1793 as a conservative and high-church review journal riding the tide of British reaction against the French Revolution. The headquarters was in London. The journa ...
'' commented on how cold, forced and heartless various of
Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
's poems seemed by comparison. Byron himself and Scott's son-in-law and biographer
J. G. Lockhart
John Gibson Lockhart (12 June 1794 – 25 November 1854) was a Scottish writer and editor. He is best known as the author of the seminal, and much-admired, seven-volume biography of his father-in-law Sir Walter Scott: ''Memoirs of the Life of Sir ...
were both struck by the power of the scene in which Mucklebackit is found repairing his boat despite his son's death.
Moving forward to the 20th century,
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University ...
found the character of Mucklebackit to be an example of Scott's art at its very best.
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born i ...
presented the same opinion through her character Mr. Ramsay in ''
To the Lighthouse
''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.
Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel ...
'', and in her own voice said that in the funeral scene the various elements "come together…drawn, one knows not how, to make a whole, a complete presentation of life". The boat-repairing speech put Catherine Macdonald Maclean in mind of
David
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
's lament for
Absalom
Absalom ( he, ''ʾAḇšālōm'', "father of peace") was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maacah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur.
2 Samuel 14:25 describes him as the handsomest man in the kingdom. Absalom eventually rebelled ag ...
in the
Second Book of Samuel
The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Josh ...
.
John Buchan
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
After a brief legal career ...
wrote that Mucklebackit and
Edie Ochiltree
Edie Ochiltree is a character in Sir Walter Scott's 1816 novel ''The Antiquary'', a licensed beggar of the legally protected class known as Blue-gowns or bedesmen, who follows a regular beat around the fictional Scottish town of Fairport. Scott ...
were the true heroes of ''The Antiquary'', and that through strong emotion the fisherman rose to an epic dignity with the austere quality of the sagas. Scott's biographer Edgar Johnson praised the "racy and picturesque Scots" of Mucklebackit's dialogue, and found his rhetoric "beautiful and effective", but wondered whether its poetry and eloquence were true to life. David D. Brown thought the interchange between Mucklebackit and Oldbuck the most poignant in all Scott's work, Mucklebackit being Scott's "only spokesman for the incipient working classes". Likewise Harry E. Shaw found the boat-repairing scene unforgettable, and saw Mucklebackit as the voice of social protest by the Scottish peasant class against the gentry.
Jane Millgate
(Eunice) Jane Millgate born Eunice Jane Barr (1937 – 26 January 2019) was a British born Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Toronto. She was an authority on the works of Sir Walter Scott.
Life
Millgate was born in Leeds in 1937. ...
considered the tragedy of Mucklebackit's bereavement an essential strand of the novel's plot, in that it shows us the empathetic and humane side of Oldbuck's character and prepares both Oldbuck and the reader for his generous response to Lord Glenallan's plea for help in recovering his lost son. The scholar Robin Mayhead, noting that Mucklebackit is, with Edie Ochiltree, the character furthest from sham and pretension, was reminded of the stoical Scott who endured the troubled years that followed the death of his wife Charlotte.
Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mucklebackit, Saunders
Literary characters introduced in 1816
Fictional fishers
Fictional Scottish people
Fictional smugglers
Sir Walter Scott characters