The Gow Chrom Reluctantly Conducting the Glee Maiden to a Place of Safety (from Scott's 'The Fair Maid of Perth')
Artist: Robert Scott Lauder (Scottish, 1803-1869)
Date: 1846
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland
Description
Henry Gow, a Perth armourer known as the 'Gow Chrom' (from the Gaelic term for crooked or bandy-legged) is the hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel The Fair Maid of Perth (1828). He finds himself in a situation where the King’s son, Duke of Rothesay, has requested that he protects a young woman and sees her to safety, away from his enemies who wish to harm her. The woman, Louise, is a wandering street singer (a ‘glee maiden’) from Provence, who Gow reluctantly assists along with her small spaniel Chalrot. He helps her escape, but is reluctant because he is afraid that he will be seen with a woman of doubtful reputation and that this information will reach his fiancée Catharine Glover (The Fair Maid).