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.'
[Illustration: Abbotsford from the River Tweed]
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.'
[Illustration: THE CROSS, MELROSE. Believed to be the oldest "Mercat
Cross" on the border.]
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 farm-court, 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[1] 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.'
[1] George Bullock and Edward Blore, London architects and furnishers.
Atkinson was the artist who arranged the interior of Abbotsford.
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. He was there again in 1819, and in February, 1820,
he married Scott's daughter. In the same year 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: SIR WALTER SCOTT'S DESK AND "ELBOW CHAIR," IN THE STUDY,
ABBOTSFORD. At the desk most of the novels were written. Certainly no
other article of furniture has been so intimately associated with
Scott.]
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'[2] 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,[3] 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.
[2] The 'Huntlee Bankis' lie between Melrose and Newtown, on the
eastern slope of the Eildons, on the left side of the highway as it
bends round to the west, going towards, and within about two miles of,
Melrose. The spot is indicated by the famous Eildon Tree Stone.
[3] The place belonged in 1566 to Andrew Ker, one of the murderers of
Rizzio. In 1574 Ker married the widow of John Knox, the Reformer.
Nicol Milne was proprietor in Scott's day.
[Illustration: JEDBURGH ABBEY. This grand ruin is of red sandstone,
and except that it is roofless is in excellent preservation.]
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. '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.