John Campbell Shairp

“When [Robert] Jamieson, the editor of the 5th edition of Burt's Letters , was in the Highlands in 1814, he met a savage-looking fellow on the top of Ben Lomond who told him that he had been a guide to the mountain for more than forty years, but now 'a Walter Scott' had spoiled his trade. 'I wish,' said he, 'I had him a ferry over Loch Lomond; I should be after sinking the boat, if I drowned myself into the bargain, for ever since he wrote his Lady of the Lake , as they call it, everybody goes to see that filthy hole, Loch Ketterine. The devil confound his ladies and his lakes!”