THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD
The first purchase of land was close on a hundred and ten acres,
half of which were to be planted, and the remainder kept in pasture
and tillage. An ornamental cottage with a pillared porch--a
print of which is still preserved--after the style of an English
vicarage, was agreed upon, and it was here that Scott passed the
first years of his Abbotsford life. He had many correspondents
during this period. Daniel Terry, an architect turned actor, was
probably his chief adviser as to Abbotsford and its furnishings, no
end of letters passing between them. Morritt of Rokeby was much in
his confidence, and Joanna Baillie, 'our immortal Joanna,' whose
'Family Legend,' had been produced at Edinburgh the previous year
under Scott's auspices. The plans for his house were at first of
the simplest. He thus describes them to Miss Baillie: 'My dreams
about my cottage go on. My present intention is to have only two
spare bedrooms, with dressing-rooms, each of which on a pinch will
have a couch-bed; but I cannot relinquish my Border principle of
accommodating all the cousins and _duniwastles_, who will rather
sleep on chairs, and on the floor, and in the hayloft, than be
absent when folks are gathered together.'
To Morritt we find him writing: 'I have fixed only two points
respecting my intended cottage--one is that it shall be _in_ my
garden, or rather kailyard; the other, that the little drawing-room
shall open into a little conservatory, in which conservatory there
shall be a fountain. These are articles of taste which I have long
since determined upon; but I hope before a stone of my paradise
is begun we shall meet and collogue upon it'; but soon after, as
an excuse for beginning 'Rokeby,' his fourth verse romance, he
says: 'I want to build my cottage a little better than my limited
finances will permit out of my ordinary income.' Later on he tells
Lord Byron that 'he is labouring to contradict an old proverb, and
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear--namely, to convert a bare
haugh and brae into a comfortable farm'; and to Sarah Smith, a
London tragic actress, he writes: 'Everybody, after abusing me for
buying the ugliest place on Tweedside, begins now to come over
to my side. I think it will be pretty six or seven years hence,
whoever may come to see and enjoy, for the sweep of the river is
a very fine one of almost a mile in length, and the ground is
very unequal, and therefore well adapted for showing off trees.'
Scott, as was said, took a profound interest in tree-planting. Had
he not been able to add by purchase the neighbouring hills to his
original lands, it was said that he would have requested permission
of the owners to plant the grounds, for the mere pleasure of the
occupation, and to beautify the landscape. 'I saunter about,' he
said to Lady Abercorn, 'from nine in the morning till five at
night with a plaid about my shoulders and an immense bloodhound
at my heels, and stick in sprigs which are to become trees when I
shall have no eyes to look at them! He had a painter's as well as
a poet's eye for scenery: 'You can have no idea of the exquisite
delight of a planter,' he said; 'he is like a painter laying on
his colours--at every moment he sees his effects coming out.
There is no art or occupation comparable to this; it is full of
past, present, and future enjoyment. I look back to the time when
there was not a tree here, only bare heath; I look round and see
thousands of trees growing up, all of which--I may say almost each
of which--have received my personal attention. I remember five
years ago looking forward, with the most delighted expectation,
to this very hour, and as each year has passed the expectation
has gone on increasing. I do the same now; I anticipate what this
plantation and that one will presently be, if only taken care of,
and there is not a spot of which I do not watch the progress.
Unlike building, or even painting, or indeed any other kind of
pursuit, this has no end, and is never interrupted, but goes on
from day to day and from year to year with a perpetually augmenting
interest. Farming I hate; what have I to do with fattening and
killing beasts, or raising corn only to cut it down, and to wrangle
with farmers about prices, and to be constantly at the mercy of
the seasons? There can be no such disappointments or annoyances in
planting trees.'
Scott left Ashestiel at Whitsunday, 1812--a rather comical
'flitting,' according to his own account of it. 'The neighbours,'
he writes to Lady Alvanley, 'have been much delighted with the
procession of my furniture, in which old swords, bows, targets,
and lances made a very conspicuous show. A family of turkeys was
accommodated within the helmet of some _preux_ chevalier of
ancient Border fame; and the very cows, for aught I know, were
bearing banners and muskets. I assure your ladyship that this
caravan, attended by a dozen of ragged, rosy peasant children,
carrying fishing-rods and spears, and leading ponies, greyhounds,
and spaniels, would, as it crossed the Tweed, have furnished no
bad subject for the pencil, and really reminded me of one of the
gypsy groups of Callot upon their march.' The year 1812 was one of
his busiest. Five days every week until the middle of July he did
Court duty at Edinburgh. Saturday evening saw him at Abbotsford.
On Monday he superintended the licking into shape of his new
domicile, and at night he was coaching it to the city. During
the Court recess he pegged away at 'Rokeby' and other work under
circumstances that must have been trying enough. 'As for the house
and the poem,' he writes to Morritt, 'there are twelve masons
hammering at the one and one poor noddle at the other.' He did
not then know the luxury of a private 'den' as at Castle Street.
A window corner, curtained off in the one habitable room which
served for dining-room, drawing-room, and school-room, constituted
his earliest Abbotsford study. There, amid the hammer's incessant
fall, and the hum of many voices, and constant interruptions, he
plodded on, and got through a fair amount. The letters to Terry
commence in September, 1812, and show that some little progress had
been made: 'We have got up a good garden-wall, complete stables
in the haugh, and the old farm-yard enclosed with a wall, with
some little picturesque additions in front. The new plantations
have thriven amazingly well, the acorns are coming up fast, and
Tom Purdie is the happiest and most consequential person in the
world.' To Joanna Baillie he sends this characteristic note, in
the beginning of 1813: 'No sooner had I corrected the last sheet
of 'Rokeby' than I escaped to this Patmos as blithe as bird on
tree, and have been ever since most decidedly idle--that is to say
with busy idleness. I have been banking, and securing, and dyking
against the river, and planting willows, and aspens, and weeping
birches. I have now laid the foundations of a famous background of
copse, with pendent trees in front; and I have only to beg a few
years to see how my colours will come out of the canvas. Alas! who
can promise that? But somebody will take my place--and enjoy them,
whether I do or no'; and in March he adds: 'What I shall finally
make of this villa work I don't know, but in the meantime it is
very entertaining'; and again: 'This little place comes on as fast
as can be reasonably hoped.' To Lady Louisa Stuart he writes: 'We
are realizing the nursery tale of the man and his wife who lived in
a vinegar bottle, for our only sitting-room is just 12 feet square,
and my Eve alleges that I am too big for our paradise.' In October,
1813, Terry is told that 'these are no times for building,' but in
the following spring, pressing the Morritts to visit him, he says:
'I am arranging this cottage a little more conveniently, to put off
the plague and expense of building another year, and I assure you
I expect to spare you and Mrs. Morritt a chamber in the wall, with
a dressing-room and everything handsome about you. You will not
stipulate, of course, for many square feet.' In a letter to Terry,
dated November 10, 1814--the year of 'Waverley'--further progress
is reported: 'I wish you saw Abbotsford, which begins this season
to look the whimsical, gay, odd cabin that we had chalked out. I
have been obliged to relinquish Stark's (the Edinburgh architect,
who died before the building was well begun) plan, which was
greatly too expensive. So I have made the old farm-house my _corps
de logis_ with some outlying places for kitchen, laundry, and two
spare bedrooms, which run along the east wall of the farmcourt, not
without some picturesque effect. A perforated cross, the spoils of
the old kirk of Galashiels, decorates an advanced door, and looks
very well.' Not much was done during the next two years, but in
November, 1816, a new set of improvements was under consideration.
Abbotsford was rapidly losing its cottage character. The 'romance'
period was begun. A notable addition--connecting the farm-house
with the line of buildings on the right--was then agreed upon, on
which Scott communicates with Terry: 'Bullock[5] will show you the
plan, which I think is very ingenious, and Blore has drawn me a
very handsome elevation, both to the road and to the river. This
addition will give me a handsome boudoir opening into the little
drawing-room, and on the other side to a handsome dining-parlour
of 27 feet by 18, with three windows to the north and one to
the south, the last to be Gothic and filled with stained glass.
Besides these commodities there is a small conservatory, and a
study for myself, which we design to fit up with ornaments from
Melrose Abbey.' In the same letter he says: 'I expect to get some
decorations from the old Tolbooth of Edinburgh, particularly the
copestones of the doorway, and a niche or two. Better get a niche
_from_ the Tolbooth than a niche _in_ it to which such building
operations are apt to bring the projectors.'
By July, 1817, the foundation of the existing house, which extends
from the hall westwards to the original courtyard, had been laid,
and Scott found a new source of constant occupation in watching
the proceedings of his masons. In consequence of a blunder or
two during his absence, 'I perceive the necessity,' he said, 'of
remaining at the helm.' To Joanna Baillie he writes in September:
'I get on with my labours here; my house is about to be roofed
in, and a comical concern it is.' There is some correspondence in
October between Scott and Terry relative to the tower, a leading
feature of the building. Scott mentions that (Sir) David Wilkie,
who had just been his guest, 'admires the whole as a composition,
and that is high authority.' 'I agree with you that the tower
will look rather rich for the rest of the building, yet you may
be assured that, with diagonal chimneys and notched gables, it
will have a very fine effect, and is in Scotch architecture by no
means incompatible.' In the beginning of 1818, he again writes to
Terry: 'I am now anxious to complete Abbotsford. I have reason to
be proud of the finishing of my castle, for even of the tower,
for which I trembled, not a stone has been shaken by the late
terrific gale which blew a roof clean off in the neighbourhood.'
Lockhart, who saw Abbotsford for the first time in 1818, confesses
that the building presented a somewhat 'fantastic appearance,' the
new and old by no means harmonizing (see the chapter on Lockhart
for a further account of his visit). In the spring of 1820 Scott
writes to his wife from London, whither he had gone to receive
his baronetcy: 'I have got a delightful plan for the addition
at Abbotsford, which, I think, will make it quite complete, and
furnish me with a handsome library, and you with a drawing-room
and better bedroom. It will cost me a little hard work to meet the
expense, but I have been a good while idle.' The plans for these
new buildings, including the wall and gateway of the courtyard and
the graceful stone screen which divides it from the garden, were
made by Blore, although the screen--with its carvings taken from
details of stone-work at Melrose Abbey--was originally devised by
Sir Walter himself. During the winter of 1821 the new operations
were commenced. By the spring of 1822 they were in full swing. 'It
is worth while to come,' he writes to Lord Montagu, 'were it but
to see what a romance of a house I am making'; and to Terry later
on: 'The new castle is now roofing, and looks superb--in fact, a
little too good for the estate; but we must work the harder to make
the land suitable.' That same summer the place was besieged by
visitors from the South, who, after witnessing the King's reception
at Edinburgh, hastened out to see Abbotsford. In October, 1822, he
writes to his son Walter: 'My new house is quite finished as to
masonry, and we are now getting on the roof just in time to face
the bad weather.' In November, 1822, and January, 1823, there are
long letters to Terry: 'The house is completely roofed. I never
saw anything handsomer than the grouping of towers, chimneys,
etc., when seen at a proper distance.' With Terry all sorts of
subjects were discussed--bells, and a projected gas installation,
along with a constant enumeration of curios and relics, on which
he is urged to spare no expense. 'About July,' Scott writes at the
beginning of 1824, 'Abbotsford will, I think, be finished, when I
shall, like the old Duke of Queensberry who built Drumlanrig, fold
up the accounts in a sealed parcel, with a label bidding "the deil
pike out the een" of any of my successors that shall open it.' By
Christmas, it was completed, and with the New Year's festivities a
large and gay party celebrated the 'house-warming,' of which Basil
Hall's sprightly 'Journal,' incorporated in the 'Life,' supplies
a singularly agreeable account. But there is no room to quote. It
was a doubly joyous occasion, marking not only the realization
of Scott's long-cherished scheme as to his 'castle,' but the
engagement of his eldest son, with whom, as he must have felt at
the time, were the fortunes of the future Abbotsford. Of the year
entered so auspiciously, none dreamt what the end was to be.
[Illustration: THE GATEWAY, ABBOTSFORD]
'Master of Abbotsford!
Magician strange and strong,
Whose voice of power is heard
By an admiring throng,
From court to peasant's cot
We come, but thou art gone;
We speak, thou answerest not--
Thy work is done.'
In the creation of Abbotsford not only was the cottage of 1812
transformed to the castle of 1824, but the estate itself was
continually enlarging. Possession of land was a crowning passion
with Scott. He was always driving bargains, as he declared--on
the wrong side of his purse, however--with the needy, greedy
cock-lairds of the locality. 'It rounds off the property so
handsomely,' he says in one of his letters. Once, on his friend
Ferguson remarking that he had paid what appeared to be one of his
usual fabulous prices for a particular stretch, Scott answered
quite good-humouredly, 'Well, well, it is only to me the scribbling
of another volume more of nonsense.' The first purchase was, as we
have seen, the hundred odd acres of Clarty Hole. In 1813 he made
his second purchase, which consisted of the hilly tract stretching
from the Roman road near Turn-Again towards Cauldshiels Loch, then
a desolate and naked mountain mere. To have this at one end of his
property as a contrast to the Tweed at the other 'was a prospect
for which hardly any sacrifice would have appeared too much.' It
cost him about £4,000. In 1815, Kaeside--Laidlaw's home--on the
heights between Abbotsford and Melrose, passed into his hands for
another £4,000, and more than doubled the domain. The house has
changed considerably since Laidlaw's halcyon days. By 1816 the
estate had grown to about 1,000 acres. In 1816 and 1817 he paid
£16,000 for the two Toftfields, altering the name of the new and
unfinished mansion to Huntlyburn, from a supposed but absolutely
erroneous association with the 'Huntlee Bankis'[6] of the Thomas
the Rhymer romance. In 1820, Burnfoot, afterwards Chiefswood, and
Harleyburn fell to his hands for £2,300, and there were many minor
purchases of which Lockhart takes no notice. Scott was very anxious
to acquire the estate of Faldonside,[7] adjoining Abbotsford to the
west, and actually offered £30,000 for it, but without success. He
was similarly unsuccessful with Darnick Tower, which lay into his
lands on the east, and which he was extremely desirous of including
in Abbotsford. Scott's suggestion rather spurred the owner, John
Heiton, to restore the ancient peel-house as a retreat for his own
declining days, and it is still in excellent preservation--one of
the best-preserved peels on the Border--and a veritable museum,
crammed from floor to ceiling with curios, relics, and mementos
both of the past and present.
[Illustration: DARNICK TOWER]
'Oft have I traced within thy fort,
Of mouldering shields the mystic sense,
Scutcheons of honour, or pretence,
Quarter'd in old armorial sort,
Remains of rude magnificence.'
But even 'yerd-hunger' must be satisfied, and in Scott's case
there was nothing for it save to steel the flesh against further
desire. In November, 1825, there is the following entry in his
diary: 'Abbotsford is all I can make it, so I resolve on no more
building and no purchases of land till times are quite safe.' But
times were never safe again. Abbotsford was all but within sound
of the 'muffled drum.' Very soon--December 18, 1825--Scott was to
write these words: 'Sad hearts at Darnick and in the cottages of
Abbotsford. I have half resolved never to see the place again.
How could I tread my hall with such a diminished crest! How live
a poor, indebted man where I was once the wealthy, the honoured!'
And again on January 26, 1826: 'I have walked my last on the
domains I have planted, sat the last time in the halls I have
built'--reflections happily unrealized, though, as a matter of
fact, Scott was then the laird of Abbotsford in name only, and
nothing more.
The building and furnishing of Abbotsford are estimated to have
cost over £25,000. The contract for the 1824 edifice was in the
capable hands of the Smiths of Darnick, with whom Scott was on the
most cordial terms. John Smith (the sculptor of the Wallace statue
at Bemersyde) was a singularly able craftsman, and his staff of
workmen, with Adam Paterson for foreman, were known all over the
Border. For the interior decorations--painting, papering, etc.,
and even for some of the carvings and casts--Scott generally gave
employment to local labour. Much of the costlier furniture was
shipped from London, but the great bulk of the work was carried
through by tradesmen in the district, selected by Scott himself,
and in whom he placed implicit confidence. The estate, all told,
must have cost at least £60,000. It extended to 1,500 acres, and
the annual rental in Scott's day was only about £350.
Such was the creation of Scott's Abbotsford, a real 'romance in
stone and lime,' to use the Frenchman's hackneyed phrase. Never had
Sir Walter deeper delight than when its walls were rising skywards,
and the dream of his youth taking steady shape by the silvery side
of the Tweed. But for Abbotsford he would not have been _our_
Scott--our man among men--our Immortal. If Abbotsford was his
dream, it was also his Delilah. It is at once a reminder of his
success, and of the most gigantic literary collapse of the century.
So far as monuments to Scott go, there is none to equal it, not
even the most splendid and costly pile which is one of Edinburgh's
proudest adornments. Yet of all his creations, Abbotsford will
be the soonest to perish, for 'Waverley' and its fellows are
imperishable. Still, so long as it lasts, it will be the memorial
of a pride, unjustifiable in many respects, but chivalrous withal,
and of a fall to depths seldom touched, but., best of all, of a
restoration than which there has been none more illustrious--none
more heroic in literary craftsmanship. 'I have seen much, but
nothing like my ain house,' he cried--a broken, dying man returned
to Abbotsford, only to be borne forth again. Nor has history been
slow to add its Amen.
SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD