The years intervening between this calamity and Scott's death form one
of the saddest and at the same time most heroic chapters in the history
of literature. The fragile health of Lady Scott succumbed almost
immediately to the crushing blow, and she died in a few months. Scott
surrendered Abbotsford to his creditors and took up humble lodgings in
Edinburgh. Here, with a pride and stoical courage as quiet as it was
splendid, he settled down to fill with the earnings of his pen the vast
gulf of debt for which he was morally scarcely responsible at all. In
three years he wrote _Woodstock_, three _Chronicles of the Canongate_,
the _Fair Maid of Perth_, _Anne of Geierstein_, the first series of the
_Tales of a Grandfather_, and a _Life of Napoleon_, equal to thirteen
volumes of novel size, besides editing and annotating a complete edition
of his own works. All these together netted his creditors £40,000.
Touched by the efforts he was making to settle their claims, they now
presented him with Abbotsford, and thither he returned to spend the few
years remaining to him. In 1830 he suffered a first stroke of paralysis;
refusing to give up, however, he made one more desperate rally to
recapture his old power of story-telling. _Count Robert of Paris_ and
_Castle Dangerous_ were the pathetic result; they are not to be taken
into account, in any estimate of his powers, for they are manifestly the
work of a paralytic patient. The gloomy picture is darkened by an
incident which illustrates strikingly one phase of Scott's character.
The great Reform Bill was being discussed throughout Scotland, menacing
what were really abuses, but what Scott, with his intense conservatism,
believed to be sacred and inviolable institutions. The dying man roused
himself to make a stand against the abominable bill. In a speech which
he made at Jedburgh, he was hissed and hooted by the crowd, and he left
the town with the dastardly cry of "Burk Sir Walter!" ringing in his
ears.
Nature now intervened to ease the intolerable strain. Scott's anxiety
concerning his debt gradually gave way to an hallucination that it had
all been paid. His friends took advantage of the quietude which followed
to induce him to make the journey to Italy, in the fear that the severe
winter of Scotland would prove fatal. A ship of His Majesty's fleet was
put at his disposal, and he set sail for Malta. The youthful
adventurousness of the man flared up again oddly for a moment, when he
insisted on being set ashore upon a volcanic island in the Mediterranean
which had appeared but a few days before and which sank beneath the
surface shortly after. The climate of Malta at first appeared to benefit
him; but when he heard, one day, of the death of Goethe at Weimar, he
seemed seized with a sudden apprehension of his own end, and insisted
upon hurrying back through Europe, in order that he might look once more
on Abbotsford. On the ride from Edinburgh he remained for the first two
stages entirely unconscious. But as the carriage entered the valley of
the Gala he opened his eyes and murmured the name of objects as they
passed, "Gala water, surely--Buckholm--Torwoodlee." When the towers of
Abbotsford came in view, he was so filled with delight that he could
scarcely be restrained from leaping out. At the gates he greeted
faithful Laidlaw in a voice strong and hearty as of old: "Why, man, how
often I have thought of you!" and smiled and wept over the dogs who came
rushing as in bygone times to lick his hand. He died a few days later,
on the afternoon of a glorious autumn day, with all the windows open, so
that he might catch to the last the whisper of the Tweed over its
pebbles.
"And so," says Carlyle, "the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott
is with us no more. A possession from him does remain; widely
scattered; yet attainable; not inconsiderable. It can be said of him,
when he departed, he took a Man's life along with him. No sounder piece
of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time.
Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and
goodness, when we saw it latterly on the Edinburgh streets, was all worn
with care, the joy all fled from it--plowed deep with labor and sorrow.
We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir
Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell."