Saunders Mucklebackit

Saunders Mucklebackit
Saunders Mucklebackit, the Old Fisherman (1853) by Henry Stacy Marks
First appearance	The Antiquary (1816)
Created by	Walter Scott
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Fisherman
Spouse(s)	Maggie Mucklebackit
Relatives	Reginald Cheyne (Grandfather) Elspeth Mucklebackit (née Cheyne) (Mother) Simon Mucklebackit (Father) Steenie Mucklebackit (Son) Jenny Mucklebackit (Daughter) Patie Mucklebackit (Son)
Religion	Presbyterian
Nationality	Scottish

Saunders Mucklebackit is a character in Walter Scott's 1816 novel The Antiquary, 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.

Mucklebackit first appears in the novel as one of the rescuers of Sir Arthur Wardour and his companions when they are stranded on a cliff-face and in danger of drowning. His impatience of the title-character Jonathan Oldbuck'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, who, unaware of the funeral, wishes to speak with Saunders’ mother Elspeth. Saunders indignantly refuses him entrance, but is overruled 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.

Several contemporary reviews of The Antiquary quoted the scene of the Mucklebackit funeral as a highlight of the novel. The Monthly Review found the scene strongly drawn with a terrible effectiveness,Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review found it “in the highest degree striking and pathetic”, and the British Critic commented on how cold, forced and heartless various of Byron's poems seemed by comparison. Byron himself and Scott’s son-in-law and biographer J. G. Lockhart were both struck by the power of the scene in which Mucklebackit is found repairing his boat despite his son's death.

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