Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer — Complete

by Walter Scott

  NOTE 5, p. 234

  The distinction of individuals by nicknames when they possess no propertyis still common on the Border, and indeed necessary, from the number ofpersons having the same name. In the small village of Lustruther, inRoxburghshire, there dwelt, in the memory of man, four inhabitants calledAndrew, or Dandie, Oliver. They were distinguished as Dandie Eassil-gate,Dandie Wassilgate, Dandie Thumbie, and Dandie Dumbie. The two first hadtheir names from living eastward and westward in the street of thevillage; the third from something peculiar in the conformation of histhumb; the fourth from his taciturn habits.

  It is told as a well-known jest, that a beggar woman, repulsed from doorto door as she solicited quarters through a village of Annandale, asked,in her despair, if there were no Christians in the place. To which thehearers, concluding that she inquired for some persons so surnamed,answered, 'Na, na, there are nae Christians here; we are a' Johnstonesand Jardines.'