Mr.Shortreed, Scott's companion in his Liddesdale raids, thought that Willie Elliot, in Millburnholm, was the great original.

Scott did not meet Mr.James Davidson in Hindlee, owner of all the Mustards and Peppers, till some years after the novel was written.
"Guy Mannering," when read to him, sent Mr.Davidson to sleep.

"The kind and manly character of Dandie, the gentle and delicious one of his wife," and the circumstances of their home, were suggested, Lockhart thinks, by Scott's friend, steward, and amanuensis, Mr.William Laidlaw, by Mrs.
Laidlaw, and by their farm among the braes of Yarrow.

In truth, the Border was peopled then by Dandies and Ailies: nor is the race even now extinct in Liddesdale and Teviotdale, in Ettrick and Yarrow.

As for Mustard and Pepper, their offspring too is powerful in the land, and is the deadly foe of vermin.