[Illustration: Cover]
[Frontispiece: The Gateway, Abbotsford]
[Illustration: Title page]
Beautiful Britain
Abbotsford
London
Adam & Charles Black
Soho Square W
1912
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. From Cartleyhole to Abbotsford
II. The Creation of Abbotsford
III. Scott at Abbotsford
IV. The Wizard's Farewell to Abbotsford
V. The Later Abbotsford
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. The Gateway, Abbotsford . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
2. The Eildon Hills and River Tweed
3. The Cross, Melrose
4. Sir Walter Scott's Desk and 'Elbow Chair' in the Study, Abbotsford
5. Jedburgh Abbey
6. Sir Walter's Sundial, Abbotsford
7. Darnick Tower
8. The Dining-Room, Abbotsford
9. The Garden, Abbotsford
10. The Entrance-Hall, Abbotsford
11. Dryburgh Abbey
12. Abbotsford from the River Tweed
CHAPTER I
FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD
Thousands of persons from all parts of the world visit Abbotsford
annually. There is no diminution in the pilgrimage to this chief
shrine of the Border Country, nor is there likely to be. Scott's name,
and that of Abbotsford, are secure enough in the affections of men
everywhere.
It is scarcely necessary to recall that Scott on both sides of his
house was connected with the Border Country--the 'bold bad Border' of a
day happily long dead. He would have been a reiver himself, more than
likely, and one of its nameless bards to boot, had he lived before the
Border felt the subdued spirit of modern times. A descendant of Wat of
Harden, linked to the best blood of the Border, and with every phase of
his life redolent of the Border feeling, history has had no difficulty
in claiming Sir Walter Scott as the most representative Border man the
world has seen. He was not born in the Border Country, but practically
all his life was spent there. He came to the Border a sickly, delicate
child, between his third and fourth year, and for threescore years and
one he seldom left it for any lengthened interval. Edinburgh was the
arena of much of his professional career. But he was happiest, even
amid the most crushing sorrows of his life, when within earshot of the
Tweed. There was not a blither or sunnier boyhood than Scott's at
Rosebank, where even then he was 'making' himself, and dreaming of the
days that were to be. At Ashestiel, the birthplace of the most popular
poetry of the century before Byron blazed upon the literary horizon,
his life was singularly untrammelled. Ashestiel, from being off the
beaten track perhaps, seems to have lost favour somewhat with the Scott
student. At any rate, it is not the shrine it should be, although in
several respects it is more interesting to lovers of Scott than even
Abbotsford itself. As for Abbotsford, may we not say that it is at
once the proudest, and the most stimulating, and the saddest memorial
ever associated with a man of letters? All these places, comprising
the three periods of Scott's life--Rosebank, Ashestiel, Abbotsford--lie
as close to the Tweed as can be--none of them more than a few hundred
paces from it at the outside. And when the great Borderer's task was
accomplished, where more fitly could he have rested than with the river
of his love and of his dreams singing ceaseless requiem around his last
low bed?
It will be interesting to have a glimpse of Tweedside just as Scott
appeared upon the scene. Since his day the valley in many of its
aspects has not been without change. Even the remote uplands, long
untouched by outside influences, have not escaped the modern spirit.
The river must needs remain _in statu quo_, but the contrast between
Sir Walter's Tweedside and ours is considerable. A century of commerce
and agriculture has wrought marvels on the once bare and featureless
and uncultivated banks of the Tweed. And none would have rejoiced at
its present picturesque and prosperous condition more than Scott
himself. Of the valley as it was a hundred years since, some early
travellers give their impressions. There is the following from a
Londoner's point of view, for instance--a somewhat sombre picture, true
enough, however, of _the upper reaches_ at the time: 'About four in the
afternoon we were obliged to proceed on our journey to Moffat, a market
town, where we were informed we should meet with good lodging, which
made us ride on the more briskly, but notwithstanding all our speed, we
had such terrible stony ways and tedious miles, that when we thought we
had been near the place, we met a Scotchman, who told us we were not
got half way; this put us almost into the spleen, for we could see
nothing about us but barren mountains on the right and the River Tweed
on the left, which, running thro' the stones and rocks with a terrible
noise, seemed to us like the croaking of a Raven, or the tone of a
Screitch Owle to a dying man, so we were forced to ride on by guesse,
knowing not a step of the way.'
At Scott's day the Tweed valley, in what are now its most luxuriant
reaches, exhibited a markedly naked and treeless character. From
Abbotsford to Norham Castle the scenery was of the openest. Here and
there 'ancestral oaks' still clumped themselves about the great houses,
with perhaps some further attempt at decorating the landscape. But
that was rare enough. Landlords had not learned the art, not to speak
of the wisdom, of tree-planting. It is only within the past hundred
years that planting has become frequent, and the modern beauty of
Tweedside emerged into being. It is said that Scott was one of the
first to popularize the planting spirit. His operations at Abbotsford
certainly induced the neighbouring proprietors to follow suit. Scott
of Gala, and the lairds of Ravenswood, Drygrange, Cowdenknowes,
Gladswood, Bemersyde, Mertoun, Eildon Hall, and Floors, all took their
lead, more or less, from Abbotsford. Arboriculture was Scott's most
passionate hobby. At least two long articles were penned by him on the
subject, and he practised the art with extraordinary diligence and
foresight. Of botany he knew little, but of trees everything. As we
shall see, not the least important part of Abbotsford's creation was
planning and perfecting that wondrous wealth of woodland--a very
network about the place, on whose full growth his eyes, alas! were not
destined to feast. 'Somebody,' he said, 'will look at them, however,
though I question that they will have the same pleasure in gazing on
the full-grown oaks that I have had in nursing the saplings.'
Another impression of Tweedside comes to us from the pages of Lockhart.
We are dealing now with _the site of Abbotsford_ as it was about the
year 1811. Scott was tenant of Ashestiel. Here he had spent eight of
the pleasantest years of his life. But his lease was out, and the
laird himself--Scott's cousin, General Russell--was returning from
India.
In casting about for a new abode, Scott seems at first to have thought
of Broadmeadows, on the Yarrow, then in the market, a compact little
domain which would have suited him well. Lockhart's one regret was
that Scott did not purchase Broadmeadows. Here, surrounded by large
landed proprietors, instead of a few bonnet-lairds, he would certainly
have escaped the Abbotsford 'yerd-hunger,' and changed, possibly, the
whole of his career. But the Broadmeadows Scott might have been very
different from _our Sir Walter_. Of Newark, also, close by, the scene
of the 'Lay,' he had some fancy, and would fain have fitted it up as a
residence. The ancestral home of Harden itself was proposed to him,
and indeed offered, and he would have removed thither but for its
inconvenience for shrieval duties. After all, however, there was
uppermost in Scott's mind the wish to have a house and land of his
own--to be 'laird of the cairn and the scaur,' as in the case of
Broadmeadows, or 'a Tweedside laird' at best, and later on, perhaps, to
'play the grand old feudal lord again.' Lockhart assures us that Scott
was really aiming at higher game. His ambition was to found a new
Border family, and to become head of a new branch of the Scotts,
already so dominant. He realized his ambition before he died.
[Illustration: THE EILDON HILLS AND RIVER TWEED. Here Scott loved to
linger. "I can stand on the Eildon Hill," he said, "and point out
forty-three places in war and verse."]
About to quit Ashestiel, therefore, his attention was directed to a
small farm-holding not far distant, on the south bank of the Tweed,
some two miles from Galashiels, and about three from Melrose. Scott
knew the spot well. It had 'long been one of peculiar interest for
him,' from the fact of the near neighbourhood of a Border battlefield,
first pointed out to him by his father. By name Newarthaugh, it was
also known as Cartleyhole, or Cartlawhole, and Cartlihole, according to
the Melrose Session Records, in which parish it was situated. The
place was tenanted for a time by Taits and Dicksons. Then it seems to
have passed into the family of Walter Turnbull, school-master of
Melrose, who disposed of it, in the year 1797, to Dr. Robert Douglas,
the enterprising and philanthropic minister of Galashiels. Why Dr.
Douglas purchased this property nobody has been able to understand. It
lay outside his parish, and was never regarded as a desirable or
dignified possession. A shrewd man of business, however, he may, like
Scott, have judged it capable of results, speculating accordingly. He
had never lived at Cartleyhole. The place was laid out in parks, and
the house, of which, curiously, Scott speaks in a recently recovered
letter as 'new and substantial,' was in occupation. The surroundings
were certainly in a deplorably neglected condition. The sole attempt
at embellishment had been limited to a strip of firs so long and so
narrow that Scott likened it to a black hair-comb. 'The farm,'
according to Lockhart, 'consisted of a rich meadow or haugh along the
banks of the river, and about a hundred acres of undulated ground
behind, all in a neglected state, undrained, wretchedly enclosed, much
of it covered with nothing better than the native heath. The farmhouse
itself was small and poor, with a common kailyard on one flank and a
staring barn on the other; while in front appeared a filthy pond
covered with ducks and duckweed, from which the whole tenement had
derived the unharmonious designation of Clarty Hole.'
Melrose Abbey, the most graceful and picturesque ruin in Scotland,
already so celebrated in his verse, was visible from many points in the
neighbourhood. Dryburgh was not far distant. Yonder Eildon's triple
height, sacred to so much of the supernatural in Border lore, reared
his grey crown to the skies. There, the Tweed, 'a beautiful river even
here,' flowed in front, broad and bright over a bed of milk-white
pebbles. Selkirk, his Sheriff's headquarters, was within easy reach.
He was interested in the Catrail, or Picts' Work Ditch, on the opposite
hillside, so often alluded to in his letters to Ellis; and on his own
ground were fields, and mounds, and standing-stones, whose placenames
recalled the struggle of 1526. A Roman road running down from the
Eildons to a ford on the Tweed, long used by the Abbots, the erstwhile
lords of the locality, furnished a new designation for the acres of
hungry haugh-land--'as poor and bare as Sir John Falstaff's
regiment'--upon which was destined to be reared the most venerated, and
probably the most visited shrine in the kingdom.
On May 12, 1811, we find Scott writing to James Ballantyne: 'I have
resolved to purchase a piece of ground sufficient for a cottage and a
few fields. There are two pieces, either of which would suit me, but
both would make a very desirable property indeed, and could be had for
between £7,000 and £8,000--or either separate for about half the sum.
I have serious thoughts of one or both, and must have recourse to my
pen to make the matter easy.' By the end of June one of the pieces
passed into his hands for the sum mentioned--£4,000, half of which,
according to Scott's bad and sanguine habit, he borrowed from his
brother John, raising the remainder on the security of 'Rokeby,' as yet
unwritten. The letter to Dr. Douglas acknowledging his receipt for the
last instalment of the purchase-money has been preserved: 'I received
the discharged bill safe, which puts an end to our relation of debtor
and creditor:
'Now the gowd's thine,
And the land's mine.
I am glad you have been satisfied with my manner of transacting
business, and have equal reason at least to thank you for your kindly
accommodation as to time and manner of payment. In short, I hope our
temporary connection forms a happy contradiction to the proverb, "I
lent my money to my friend; I lost my money and my friend."' A figure
of note in his day, Dr. Douglas was born at the manse of Kenmore, in
1747, and in his twenty-third year was presented to the parish of
Galashiels, where he laboured till his death in 1820. He has been
styled the Father of Galashiels.
Galashiels, when Abbotsford came into being, was a mere thatched
hamlet. Then it could boast of not more than a dozen slated houses.
To-day there is a population of over 13,000.