Autumn at Abbotsford. -- Scott's Hospitality. -- Visit of Sir
Humphry Davy, Henry Mackenzie, Dr. Wollaston, and William Stewart
Rose. -- Coursing on Newark Hill. -- Salmon-fishing. -- The
Festival at Boldside. -- The Abbotsford Hunt. -- The Kirn, Etc.
1820
About the middle of August, my wife and I went to Abbotsford; and we
remained there for several weeks, during which I became familiarized
to Sir Walter Scott's mode of existence in the country. It was
necessary to observe it, day after day, for a considerable period,
before one could believe that such was, during nearly half the year,
the routine of life with the most productive author of his age. The
humblest person who stayed merely for a short visit, must have
departed with the impression that what he witnessed was an occasional
variety; that Scott's courtesy prompted him to break in upon his
habits when he had a stranger to amuse; but that it was physically
impossible that the man who was writing the Waverley romances at the
rate of nearly twelve volumes in the year, could continue, week after
week, and month after month, to devote all but a hardly perceptible
fraction of his mornings to out-of-doors occupations, and the whole of
his evenings to the entertainment of a constantly varying circle of
guests.
The hospitality of his afternoons must alone have been enough to
exhaust the energies of almost any man; for his visitors did not
mean, like those of country-houses in general, to enjoy the landlord's
good cheer and amuse each other; but the far greater proportion
arrived from a distance, for the sole sake of the Poet and Novelist
himself, whose person they had never before seen, and whose voice they
might never again have any opportunity of hearing. No other villa in
Europe was ever resorted to from the same motives, and to anything
like the same extent, except Ferney; and Voltaire never dreamt of
being visible to his _hunters_, except for a brief space of the
day;--few of them even dined with him, and none of them seem to have
slept under his roof. Scott's establishment, on the contrary,
resembled in every particular that of the affluent idler, who, because
he has inherited, or would fain transmit, political influence in some
province, keeps open house--receives as many as he has room for, and
sees their apartments occupied, as soon as they vacate them, by
another troop of the same description. Even on gentlemen guiltless of
inkshed, the exercise of hospitality upon this sort of scale is found
to impose a heavy tax; few of them, nowadays, think of maintaining it
for any large portion of the year: very few indeed below the highest
rank of the nobility--in whose case there is usually a staff of
led-captains, led-chaplains, servile dandies, and semi-professional
talkers and jokers from London, to take the chief part of the burden.
Now, Scott had often in his mouth the pithy verses,--
"Conversation is but carving:--
Give no more to every guest,
Than he's able to digest;
Give him always of the prime,
And but little at a time;
Carve to all but just enough,
Let them neither starve nor stuff,
_And that you may have your due,
Let your neighbors carve for you:_"--
and he, in his own familiar circle always, and in other circles where
it was possible, furnished a happy exemplification of these rules and
regulations of the Dean of St. Patrick's. But the same sense and
benevolence which dictated adhesion to them among his old friends and
acquaintance, rendered it necessary to break them when he was
receiving strangers of the class I have described above at Abbotsford:
he felt that their coming was the best homage they could pay to his
celebrity, and that it would have been as uncourteous in him not to
give them their fill of his talk, as it would be in your every-day
lord of manors to make his casual guests welcome indeed to his
venison, but keep his grouse-shooting for his immediate allies and
dependents.
Every now and then he received some stranger who was not indisposed to
take his part in the _carving_; and how good-humoredly he surrendered
the lion's share to any one that seemed to covet it--with what perfect
placidity he submitted to be bored even by bores of the first water,
must have excited the admiration of many besides the daily observers
of his proceedings. I have heard a spruce Senior Wrangler lecture him
for half an evening on the niceties of the Greek epigram; I have heard
the poorest of all parliamentary blunderers try to detail to him the
_pros_ and _cons_ of what he called the _Truck System_; and in either
case the same bland eye watched the lips of the tormentor. But, with
such ludicrous exceptions, Scott was the one object of the Abbotsford
pilgrims; and evening followed evening only to show him exerting, for
their amusement, more of animal spirits, to say nothing of
intellectual vigor, than would have been considered by any other man
in the company as sufficient for the whole expenditure of a week's
existence. Yet this was not the chief marvel; he talked of things that
interested himself, because he knew that by doing so he should give
most pleasure to his guests. But how vast was the range of subjects on
which he could talk with unaffected zeal; and with what admirable
delicacy of instinctive politeness did he select his topic according
to the peculiar history, study, pursuits, or social habits of the
stranger!--How beautifully he varied his style of letter-writing,
according to the character and situation of his multifarious
correspondents, the reader has already been enabled to judge; but to
carry the same system into practice _at sight_--to manage utter
strangers, of many and widely different classes, in the same fashion,
and with the same effect--called for a quickness of observation, and
fertility of resource, such as no description can convey the slightest
notion of to those who never witnessed the thing for themselves. And
all this was done without approach to the unmanly trickery of what is
called _catching the tone_ of the person one converses with. Scott
took the subject on which he thought such a man or woman would like
best to hear him speak--but not to handle it in their way, or in any
way but what was completely, and most simply his own;--not to flatter
them by embellishing, with the illustration of his genius, the views
and opinions which they were supposed to entertain,--but to let his
genius play out its own variations, for his own delight and theirs, as
freely and easily, and with as endless a multiplicity of delicious
novelties, as ever the magic of Beethoven or Mozart could fling over
the few primitive notes of a village air.
It is the custom in some, perhaps in many country-houses, to keep a
register of the guests, and I have often regretted that nothing of the
sort was ever attempted at Abbotsford. It would have been a curious
record--especially if so contrived (as I have seen done) that the
names of each day should, by their arrangement on the page, indicate
the exact order in which the company sat at dinner. It would hardly, I
believe, be too much to affirm, that Sir Walter Scott entertained,
under his roof, in the course of the seven or eight brilliant seasons
when his prosperity was at its height, as many persons of distinction
in rank, in politics, in art, in literature, and in science, as the
most princely nobleman of his age ever did in the like space of
time.--I turned over, since I wrote the preceding sentence, Mr.
Lodge's compendium of the British Peerage, and on summing up the
titles which suggested _to myself_ some reminiscence of this kind, I
found them nearly as one out of six.--I fancy it is not beyond the
mark to add, that of the eminent foreigners who visited our island
within this period, a moiety crossed the Channel mainly in consequence
of the interest with which his writings had invested Scotland--and
that the hope of beholding the man under his own roof was the crowning
motive with half that moiety. As for countrymen of his own, like him
ennobled, in the higher sense of that word, by the display of their
intellectual energies, if any one such contemporary can be pointed out
as having crossed the Tweed, and yet not spent a day at Abbotsford, I
shall be surprised.
It is needless to add, that Sir Walter was familiarly known, long
before the days I am speaking of, to almost all the nobility and
higher gentry of Scotland; and consequently, that there seldom wanted
a fair proportion of them to assist him in doing the honors of his
country. It is still more superfluous to say so respecting the heads
of his own profession at Edinburgh: _Sibi et amicis_--Abbotsford was
their villa whenever they pleased to resort to it, and few of them
were ever absent from it long. He lived meanwhile in a constant
interchange of easy visits with the gentlemen's families of Teviotdale
and the Forest; so that, mixed up with his superfine admirers of the
Mayfair breed, his staring worshippers from foreign parts, and his
quick-witted coevals of the Parliament House--there was found
generally some hearty homespun laird, with his dame--the young laird,
a bashful bumpkin, perhaps, whose ideas did not soar beyond his gun
and pointer--or perhaps a little pseudo-dandy, for whom the Kelso
race-course and the Jedburgh ball were "Life," and "the World;" and
not forgetting a brace of "Miss Rawbolds,"[98] in whom, as their mamma
prognosticated, some of Sir Walter's young Waverleys or Osbaldistones
might peradventure discover a Flora MacIvor or a Die Vernon. To
complete the _olla podrida_, we must remember that no old
acquaintance, or family connections, however remote their actual
station or style of manners from his own, were forgotten or lost sight
of. He had some, even near relations, who, except when they visited
him, rarely, if ever, found admittance to what the haughty dialect of
the upper world is pleased to designate exclusively as _society_.
These were welcome guests, let who might be under that roof; and it
was the same with many a worthy citizen of Edinburgh, habitually
moving in the obscurest of circles, who had been in the same class
with Scott at the High School, or his fellow-apprentice when he was
proud of earning threepence a page by the use of his pen. To dwell on
nothing else, it was surely a beautiful perfection of real universal
humanity and politeness, that could enable this great and good man to
blend guests so multifarious in one group, and contrive to make them
all equally happy with him, with themselves, and with each other.
[Footnote 98:
"There were the six Miss Rawbolds--pretty dears!
All song and sentiment; whose hearts were set
Less on a convent than a coronet."
_Don Juan_, canto xiii. st. 85.]
I remember saying to William Allan one morning as the whole party
mustered before the porch after breakfast, "A faithful sketch of what
you at this moment see would be more interesting a hundred years
hence, than the grandest so-called historical picture that you will
ever exhibit at Somerset House;" and my friend agreed with me so
cordially, that I often wondered afterwards he had not attempted to
realize the suggestion. The subject ought, however, to have been
treated conjointly by him (or Wilkie) and Edwin Landseer. It was a
clear, bright September morning, with a sharpness in the air that
doubled the animating influence of the sunshine, and all was in
readiness for a grand coursing-match on Newark Hill. The only guest
who had chalked out other sport for himself was the stanchest of
anglers, Mr. Rose;--but he, too, was there on his _shelty_, armed with
his salmon-rod and landing-net, and attended by his humorous squire
Hinves, and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom, in those days the most
celebrated fisherman of the district. This little group of Waltonians,
bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, remained lounging about to
witness the start of the main cavalcade. Sir Walter, mounted on Sibyl,
was marshalling the order of procession with a huge hunting-whip; and
among a dozen frolicsome youths and maidens, who seemed disposed to
laugh at all discipline, appeared, each on horseback, each as eager as
the youngest sportsman in the troop, Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston,
and the patriarch of Scottish belles-lettres, Henry Mackenzie. The Man
of Feeling, however, was persuaded with some difficulty to resign his
steed for the present to his faithful negro follower, and to join Lady
Scott in the sociable, until we should reach the ground of our
_battue_. Laidlaw, on a long-tailed wiry Highlander, yclept _Hoddin
Grey_, which carried him nimbly and stoutly, although his feet almost
touched the ground as he sat, was the adjutant. But the most
picturesque figure was the illustrious inventor of the safety-lamp. He
had come for his favorite sport of angling, and had been practising it
successfully with Rose, his travelling companion, for two or three
days preceding this, but he had not prepared for coursing fields, or
had left Charlie Purdie's troop for Sir Walter's on a sudden thought;
and his fisherman's costume--a brown hat with flexible brims,
surrounded with line upon line, and innumerable fly-hooks--jack-boots
worthy of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian surtout dabbled with the
blood of salmon, made a fine contrast with the smart jackets,
white-cord breeches, and well-polished jockey-boots of the less
distinguished cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was in black, and,
with his noble serene dignity of countenance, might have passed for a
sporting archbishop.[99] Mr. Mackenzie, at this time in the
seventy-sixth year of his age, with a white hat turned up with green,
green spectacles, green jacket, and long brown leathern gaiters
buttoned upon his nether anatomy, wore a dog-whistle round his neck,
and had all over the air of as resolute a devotee as the gay Captain
of Huntly Burn. Tom Purdie and his subalterns had preceded us by a few
hours with all the greyhounds that could be collected at Abbotsford,
Darnick, and Melrose; but the giant Maida had remained as his master's
orderly, and now gambolled about Sibyl Grey, barking for mere joy like
a spaniel puppy.
[Footnote 99: [William Hyde Wollaston, the distinguished physiologist,
chemist, and physicist.]]
The order of march had been all settled, and the sociable was just
getting under weigh, when _the Lady Anne_ broke from the line,
screaming with laughter, and exclaimed, "Papa, papa, I knew you could
never think of going without your pet." Scott looked round, and I
rather think there was a blush as well as a smile upon his face, when
he perceived a little black pig frisking about his pony, and evidently
a self-elected addition to the party of the day. He tried to look
stern, and cracked his whip at the creature, but was in a moment
obliged to join in the general cheers. Poor piggy soon found a strap
round its neck, and was dragged into the background:--Scott, watching
the retreat, repeated with mock pathos the first verse of an old
pastoral song,--
"What will I do gin my hoggie[100] die?
My joy, my pride, my hoggie!
My only beast, I had nae mae,
And wow! but I was vogie!"
--the cheers were redoubled--and the squadron moved on.
[Footnote 100: _Hog_ signifies in the Scotch dialect a young sheep
that has never been shorn. Hence, no doubt, the name of the Poet of
Ettrick--derived from a long line of shepherds. Mr. Charles Lamb,
however, in one of his sonnets suggests this pretty origin of _his_
"Family Name:"--
"Perhaps some shepherd on Lincolnian plains,
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks,
Received it first amid the merry mocks
And arch allusions of his fellow swains."]
This pig had taken--nobody could tell how--a most sentimental
attachment to Scott, and was constantly urging its pretensions to be
admitted a regular member of his _tail_ along with the greyhounds and
terriers; but, indeed, I remember him suffering another summer under
the same sort of pertinacity on the part of an affectionate hen. I
leave the explanation for philosophers--but such were the facts. I
have too much respect for the vulgarly calumniated donkey to name him
in the same category of pets with the pig and the hen; but a year or
two after this time, my wife used to drive a couple of these animals
in a little garden chair, and whenever her father appeared at the door
of our cottage, we were sure to see Hannah More and Lady Morgan (as
Anne Scott had wickedly christened them) trotting from their pasture
to lay their noses over the paling, and, as Washington Irving says of
the old white-haired hedger with the Parisian snuff-box, "to have a
pleasant crack wi' the laird."
But to return to our _chasse_. On reaching Newark Castle, we found
Lady Scott, her eldest daughter, and the venerable Mackenzie, all
busily engaged in unpacking a basket that had been placed in their
carriage, and arranging the luncheon it contained upon the mossy rocks
overhanging the bed of the Yarrow. When such of the company as chose
had partaken of this refection, the Man of Feeling resumed his pony,
and all ascended the mountain, duly marshalled at proper distances, so
as to beat in a broad line over the heather, Sir Walter directing the
movement from the right wing--towards Blackandro. Davy, next to whom
I chanced to be riding, laid his whip about the fern like an
experienced hand, but cracked many a joke, too, upon his own
jack-boots, and surveying the long eager battalion of bushrangers,
exclaimed, "Good heavens! is it thus that I visit the scenery of The
Lay of the Last Minstrel?" He then kept muttering to himself, as his
glowing eye (the finest and brightest that I ever saw) ran over the
landscape, some of those beautiful lines from the _Conclusion_ of the
Lay:--
---- "But still,
When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill,
And July's eve, with balmy breath,
Waved the blue-bells on Newark heath,
When throstles sung in Hareheadshaw,
And corn was green on Carterhaugh,
And flourished, broad, Blackandro's oak,
The aged harper's soul awoke," etc.
Mackenzie, spectacled though he was, saw the first sitting hare, gave
the word to slip the dogs, and spurred after them like a boy. All the
seniors, indeed, did well as long as the course was upwards, but when
puss took down the declivity, they halted and breathed themselves upon
the knoll--cheering gayly, however, the young people, who dashed at
full speed past and below them. Coursing on such a mountain is not
like the same sport over a set of fine English pastures. There were
gulfs to be avoided and bogs enough to be threaded--many a stiff nag
stuck fast--many a bold rider measured his length among the
peat-hags--and another stranger to the ground besides Davy plunged
neck-deep into a treacherous well-head, which, till they were
floundering in it, had borne all the appearance of a piece of delicate
green turf. When Sir Humphry emerged from his involuntary bath, his
habiliments garnished with mud, slime, and mangled water-cresses, Sir
Walter received him with a triumphant _encore!_ But the philosopher
had his revenge, for joining soon afterwards in a brisk gallop, Scott
put Sibyl Grey to a leap beyond her prowess, and lay humbled in the
ditch, while Davy, who was better mounted, cleared it and him at a
bound. Happily there was little damage done--but no one was sorry that
the sociable had been detained at the foot of the hill.
I have seen Sir Humphry in many places, and in company of many
different descriptions; but never to such advantage as at Abbotsford.
His host and he delighted in each other, and the modesty of their
mutual admiration was a memorable spectacle. Davy was by nature a
poet--and Scott, though anything but a philosopher in the modern sense
of that term, might, I think it very likely, have pursued the study of
physical science with zeal and success, had he happened to fall in
with such an instructor as Sir Humphry would have been to him, in his
early life. Each strove to make the other talk--and they did so in
turn more charmingly than I ever heard either on any other occasion
whatsoever. Scott in his romantic narratives touched a deeper chord of
feeling than usual, when he had such a listener as Davy; and Davy,
when induced to open his views upon any question of scientific
interest in Scott's presence, did so with a degree of clear energetic
eloquence, and with a flow of imagery and illustration, of which
neither his habitual tone of table-talk (least of all in London), nor
any of his prose writings (except, indeed, the posthumous Consolations
of Travel) could suggest an adequate notion. I say his prose
writings--for who that has read his sublime quatrains on the doctrine
of Spinoza can doubt that he might have united, if he had pleased, in
some great didactic poem, the vigorous ratiocination of Dryden and the
moral majesty of Wordsworth? I remember William Laidlaw whispering to
me, one night, when their "rapt talk" had kept the circle round the
fire until long after the usual bedtime of Abbotsford: "Gude preserve
us! this is a very superior occasion! Eh, sirs!" he added, cocking his
eye like a bird, "I wonder if Shakespeare and Bacon ever met to screw
ilk other up?"
Since I have touched on the subject of Sir Walter's autumnal
diversions in these his later years, I may as well notice here two
annual festivals, when sport was made his pretext for assembling his
rural neighbors about him--days eagerly anticipated, and fondly
remembered by many. One was a solemn bout of salmon-fishing for the
neighboring gentry and their families, instituted originally, I
believe, by Lord Somerville, but now, in his absence, conducted and
presided over by the Sheriff. Charles Purdie, already mentioned, had
charge (partly as lessee) of the salmon-fisheries for three or four
miles of the Tweed, including all the water attached to the lands of
Abbotsford, Gala, and Allwyn; and this festival had been established
with a view, besides other considerations, of recompensing him for the
attention he always bestowed on any of the lairds or their visitors
that chose to fish, either from the banks or the boat, within his
jurisdiction. His selection of the day, and other precautions,
generally secured an abundance of sport for the great anniversary; and
then the whole party assembled to regale on the newly caught prey,
boiled, grilled, and roasted in every variety of preparation, beneath
a grand old ash, adjoining Charlie's cottage at Boldside, on the
northern margin of the Tweed, about a mile above Abbotsford. This
banquet took place earlier in the day or later, according to
circumstances; but it often lasted till the harvest moon shone on the
lovely scene and its revellers. These formed groups that would have
done no discredit to Watteau--and a still better hand has painted the
background in the Introduction to The Monastery: "On the opposite bank
of the Tweed might be seen the remains of ancient enclosures,
surrounded by sycamores and ash-trees of considerable size. These had
once formed the crofts or arable ground of a village, now reduced to a
single hut, the abode of a fisherman, who also manages a ferry. The
cottages, even the church which once existed there, have sunk into
vestiges hardly to be traced without visiting the spot, the
inhabitants having gradually withdrawn to the more prosperous town of
Galashiels, which has risen into consideration within two miles of
their neighborhood. Superstitious eld, however, has tenanted the
deserted grove with aerial beings, to supply the want of the mortal
tenants who have deserted it. The ruined and abandoned churchyard of
Boldside has been long believed to be haunted by the Fairies, and the
deep broad current of the Tweed, wheeling in moonlight round the foot
of the steep bank, with the number of trees originally planted for
shelter round the fields of the cottagers, but now presenting the
effect of scattered and detached groves, fill up the idea which one
would form in imagination for a scene that Oberon and Queen Mab might
love to revel in. There are evenings when the spectator might believe,
with Father Chaucer, that the
----'Queen of Faery,
With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
Were dwelling in the place.'"
Sometimes the evening closed with a "burning of the water;" and then
the Sheriff, though now not so agile as when he practised that rough
sport in the early times of Ashestiel, was sure to be one of the party
in the boat,--held a torch, or perhaps took the helm,--and seemed to
enjoy the whole thing as heartily as the youngest of his company,--
"'T is blithe along the midnight tide,
With stalwart arm the boat to guide--
On high the dazzling blaze to rear,
And heedful plunge the barbed spear;
Rock, wood, and scaur, emerging bright,
Fling on the stream their ruddy light,
And from the bank our band appears
Like Genii armed with fiery spears."[101]
[Footnote 101: See _Poetical Works_, vol. xi. pp 334, 335 [Cambridge
Ed. p. 467].]
The other "superior occasion" came later in the season; the 28th of
October, the birthday of Sir Walter's eldest son, was, I think, that
usually selected for _the Abbotsford Hunt_. This was a coursing-field on
a large scale, including, with as many of the young gentry as pleased to
attend, all Scott's personal favorites among the yeomen and farmers of
the surrounding country. The Sheriff always took the field, but latterly
devolved the command upon his good friend Mr. John Usher, the ex-laird
of Toftfield; and he could not have had a more skilful or a
better-humored lieutenant. The hunt took place either on the moors above
the Cauldshiels Loch, or over some of the hills on the estate of Gala,
and we had commonly, ere we returned, hares enough to supply the wife of
every farmer that attended, with soup for a week following. The whole
then dined at Abbotsford, the Sheriff in the chair, Adam Ferguson
croupier, and Dominie Thomson, of course, chaplain. George, by the way,
was himself an eager partaker in the preliminary sport; and now he would
favor us with a grace, in Burns's phrase, "as long as my arm," beginning
with thanks to the Almighty, who had given man dominion over the fowls
of the air, and the beasts of the field, and expatiating on this text
with so luculent a commentary, that Scott, who had been fumbling with
his spoon long before he reached his Amen, could not help exclaiming as
he sat down, "Well done, Mr. George! I think we've had everything but
the view holla!" The company, whose onset had been thus deferred, were
seldom, I think, under thirty in number, and sometimes they exceeded
forty. The feast was such as suited the occasion--a baron of beef,
roasted, at the foot of the table, a salted round at the head, while
tureens of hare-soup, hotchpotch, and cocky-leeky, extended down the
centre, and such light articles as geese, turkeys, entire sucking-pigs,
a singed sheep's head, and the unfailing haggis, were set forth by way
of side dishes. Blackcock and moorfowl, bushels of snipe, _black
puddings_, _white puddings_, and pyramids of pancakes, formed the
second course. Ale was the favorite beverage during dinner, but there
was plenty of port and sherry for those whose stomachs they suited. The
quaighs of Glenlivet were filled brimful, and tossed off as if they held
water. The wine decanters made a few rounds of the table, but the hints
for hot punch and toddy soon became clamorous. Two or three bowls were
introduced, and placed under the supervision of experienced
manufacturers,--one of these being usually the Ettrick Shepherd,--and
then the business of the evening commenced in good earnest. The faces
shone and glowed like those at Camacho's wedding: the chairman told his
richest stories of old rural life, Lowland or Highland; Ferguson and
humbler heroes fought their peninsular battles o'er again; the stalwart
Dandie Dinmonts lugged out their last winter's snowstorm, the parish
scandal, perhaps, or the dexterous bargain of the Northumberland
_tryste_; and every man was knocked down for the song that he sung best,
or took most pleasure in singing. Sheriff-Substitute Shortreed (a
cheerful, hearty, little man, with a sparkling eye and a most infectious
laugh) gave us Dick o' the Cow, or Now Liddesdale has ridden a Raid; his
son Thomas (Sir Walter's assiduous disciple and assistant in Border
Heraldry and Genealogy) shone without a rival in The Douglas Tragedy and
The Twa Corbies; a weather-beaten, stiff-bearded veteran, _Captain_
Ormistoun, as he was called (though I doubt if his rank was recognized
at the Horse-Guards), had the primitive pastoral of Cowdenknowes in
sweet perfection; Hogg produced The Women Folk, or The Kye comes Hame;
and, in spite of many grinding notes, contrived to make everybody
delighted, whether with the fun or the pathos of his ballad; the Melrose
doctor sang in spirited style some of Moore's masterpieces; a couple of
retired sailors joined in Bould Admiral Duncan upon the High Sea;--and
the gallant croupier crowned the last bowl with Ale, good Ale, thou art
my Darling! Imagine some smart Parisian _savant_--some dreamy pedant of
Halle or Heidelberg--a brace of stray young Lords from Oxford or
Cambridge, or perhaps their prim college tutors, planted here and there
amidst these rustic wassailers--this being their first vision of the
author of Marmion and Ivanhoe, and he appearing as heartily at home in
the scene as if he had been a veritable _Dandie_ himself--his face
radiant, his laugh gay as childhood, his chorus always ready. And so it
proceeded until some worthy, who had fifteen or twenty miles to ride
home, began to insinuate that his wife and bairns would be getting
sorely anxious about the fords, and the Dumples and Hoddins were at last
heard neighing at the gate, and it was voted that the hour had come for
_doch an dorrach_--the stirrup-cup--to wit, a bumper all round of the
unmitigated _mountain dew_. How they all contrived to get home in
safety, Heaven only knows--but I never heard of any serious accident
except upon one occasion, when James Hogg made a bet at starting that he
would leap over his wall-eyed pony as she stood, and broke his nose in
this experiment of "o'ervaulting ambition." One comely goodwife, far off
among the hills, amused Sir Walter by telling him, the next time he
passed her homestead after one of these jolly doings, what her husband's
first words were when he alighted at his own door: "Ailie, my woman, I'm
ready for my bed, and oh lass (he gallantly added), I wish I could sleep
for a towmont, for there's only ae thing in this warld worth living for,
and that's the Abbotsford Hunt!"
It may well be supposed that the President of the Boldside Festival
and the Abbotsford Hunt did not omit the good old custom of _the
Kirn_. Every November, before quitting the country for Edinburgh, he
gave a _harvest-home_, on the most approved model of former days, to
all the peasantry on his estate, their friends and kindred, and as
many poor neighbors besides as his barn could hold. Here old and
young danced from sunset to sunrise,--John of Skye's bagpipe being
relieved at intervals by the violin of some Wandering Willie;--and the
laird and all his family were present during the early part of the
evening--he and his wife to distribute the contents of the first tub
of whiskey-punch, and his young people to take their due share in the
endless reels and hornpipes of the earthen floor. As Mr. Morritt has
said of him as he appeared at Laird Nippy's kirn of earlier days, "To
witness the cordiality of his reception might have unbent a
misanthrope." He had his private joke for every old wife or "gausie
carle," his arch compliment for the ear of every bonny lass, and his
hand and his blessing for the head of every little _Eppie Daidle_ from
Abbotstown or Broomielees.
"The notable paradox," he says in one of the most charming of his
essays, "that the residence of a proprietor upon his estate is of as
little consequence as the bodily presence of a stockholder upon
Exchange, has, we believe, been renounced. At least, as in the case of
the Duchess of Suffolk's relationship to her own child, the vulgar
continue to be of opinion that there is some difference in favor of
the next hamlet and village, and even of the vicinage in general, when
the squire spends his rents at the manor-house, instead of cutting a
figure in France or Italy. A celebrated politician used to say he
would willingly bring in one bill to make poaching felony, another to
encourage the breed of foxes, and a third to revive the decayed
amusements of cock-fighting and bullbaiting--that he would make, in
short, any sacrifice to the humors and prejudices of the country
gentlemen, in their most extravagant form, provided only he could
prevail upon them to 'dwell in their own houses, be the patrons of
their own tenantry, and the fathers of their own children.'"[102]
[Footnote 102: Essay on Landscape Gardening, _Miscellaneous Prose
Works_, vol. xxi. p. 77.]