SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD
Of the Abbotsford life in the seven or eight brilliant seasons
preceding the disaster of 1826 Lockhart's exquisite word-pictures are
far the finest things in the Biography. Scott's dream was now fairly
realized. He was not only a lord of acres, but a kind of mediæval
chieftain as well. His cottage was transformed to a superb mansion,
like some creation of the 'Arabian Nights,' and the whole estate,
acquired at a cost far exceeding its real value, had grown to one of
the trimmest and snuggest on Tweedside. A comparative failure at the
Bar, Scott succeeded well otherwise in his professional career. His
income from the Court Clerkship and Sheriffdom totalled £1,600, and
from other sources he had an additional £400 a year. As the most
prosperous book-producer of the period, he was netting an annual profit
of no less than £10,000. His family was grown up, and his home life,
notwithstanding some harsh things said about Lady Scott, was of the
happiest. Unliterary, and Frenchified to a degree, Charlotte Carpenter
was not the ideal helpmeet, perhaps, for a man of Scott's calibre and
temperament. But that they lived comfortably together, that she made
him an excellent wife, and that Scott was much attached to her, must be
taken for granted, else Lockhart and the others are equivocating.
There is at least one glimpse into Scott's heart which cannot savour of
hypocrisy--the occasion of her death. Some of the most touching
passages in the Diary belong to that event. As lover, husband, father,
there is no question of the acuteness with which he felt her loss who
had been his 'thirty years' companion.' Within less than six months
the two biggest blows of his life fell upon Scott. Ruined, then
widowed, his cup of grief was drained to the utmost. But before the
fatal '26 Scott's life was an eminently ideal one. Abbotsford was all
he could make it. He had reached the loftiest rung of the ladder.
Long had he been the celebrity of the hour, not in Britain only, but
throughout Europe itself. Probably no British author of his time was
more widely known, and none, it is certain, was surrounded with so many
of the material comforts. It was truly a summer fulness for Scott at
Abbotsford ere the autumn winds or the biting breath of winter had
begun to chill his cheek.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER'S SUNDIAL, ABBOTSFORD. The dial stone in the
flower garden, inscribed with the motto "For the Night Cometh," is an
object of suggestive interest.]
A glance at the Abbotsford life will bring us nearer Scott as a
man--and as the most lovable of men. Treading, as one does to-day, in
his very footsteps, we shall want to know how he lived there, and in
what manner the pleasant days were spent. Scott's habits at
Abbotsford, as at Ashestiel, were delightfully simple. In the country
he was a rustic of the rustics. Formality vanished to a considerable
extent when he changed his townhouse for the bracing atmosphere of the
Tweed. But always methodical in his literary operations, he never
allowed the freer life of Abbotsford to interfere with whatever tasks
he had on hand. He did not sit late into the night. As a rule, the
Abbotsford day ended for Scott by ten o'clock. He rose at five, lit
his own fire in the season, shaving and dressing with precision.
Attired generally in his green shooting-jacket, he was at his desk by
six, and hard at work till nine. About half-past nine, when the family
met for breakfast, he would enter the room 'rubbing his hands for
glee,' for by that time he had done enough, as he said, 'to break the
neck of the day's work.' After breakfast, he allowed his guests to
fill in the next couple of hours or so for themselves--fishing,
shooting, driving, or riding, with a retinue of keepers and grooms at
command. Meantime he was busy with his correspondence, or a chapter
for Ballantyne to be dispatched by the 'Blucher,' the Edinburgh and
Melrose coach, by which he himself frequently travelled to and from
Abbotsford. At noon he was 'his own man,' and among his visitors, or
felling trees with the workmen on the estate, laying wagers, and
competing with the best of them. When the weather was wet and stormy
he kept to his study for several hours during the day, that he might
have a reserve fund to draw from on good days. To his visitors he
appeared more the man of leisure than the indefatigable author
conferring pleasure on thousands. Only a careful husbanding of the
moments could have enabled him to give the greater part of afternoon
and evening to his guests. 'I know,' said Cadell, the publisher, once
to him, 'that you contrive to get a few hours in your own room, and
that may do for the mere pen-work, but when is it that you think?'
'Oh,' said Scott, 'I lie simmering over things for an hour or so before
I get up, and there's the time I am dressing to overhaul my
half-sleeping, half-waking _projet de chapitre_, and when I get the
paper before me it commonly runs off pretty easily. Besides, I often
take a dose in the plantations, and while Tom marks out a dyke or a
drain as I have directed, one's fancy may be running its ain riggs in
some other world.' His maxim was never to be doing nothing, and in
making the most of the opportunities, he served both himself and his
friends. Lockhart's reminiscences of the Abbotsford life, so
delightfully vivid, convey better than anything else something of the
ideal charm of Scott and his circle. But to Lockhart all may go on
their own account, since lack of space forbids more than a mere
quotation.
[Illustration: DARNICK TOWER. One of the best preserved Peels on the
border. Open to the public and well worth a visit.]
The Abbotsford Hunt, one of the enjoyable annual outings--a coursing
match on an extensive scale--affords material for Lockhart's best vein,
especially the Hunt dinner, which for many of the neighbouring yeomen
and farmers was _the_ event of the year. 'The company were seldom
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 cockieleekie extended down the centre, and such light
articles as geese, turkeys, an entire sucking-pig, a singed sheep's
head, and the unfailing haggis were set forth by way of side-dishes.
Black-cock and moor-fowl, snipe, black and white puddings, and pyramids
of pancakes, formed the second course. Ale was the favourite 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 snow-storm, the parish scandal, perhaps, or the
dexterous bargain of the Northumberland tryst. Every man was knocked
down for the song that he sung best, or took most pleasure in singing.
Shortreed gave "Dick o' the Cow," or "Now Liddesdale has ridden a
raid"; his son Thomas shone without a rival in the "Douglas Tragedy"
and the "Twa Corbies"; a weather-beaten, stiff-bearded veteran,
"Captain" Ormiston, 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 "Bold Admiral Duncan," and the
gallant croupier crowned the last bowl with "Ale, good ale, thou art my
darling." And so it proceeded until some worthy, who had fifteen or
twenty miles to ride, began to insinuate that his wife and bairns would
be getting sorely anxious about the fords, and the Dumpies 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, 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 good-wife, 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, 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."'
Nor was the good old custom of the Kirn omitted at Abbotsford. Every
autumn, before proceeding to Edinburgh, Scott gave a 'Harvest Home,' to
which all the tenantry and their friends--as many as the barn could
hold--were invited. Sir Walter and his family were present during the
first part of the evening, to dispense the good things and say a few
words of farewell. Old and young danced from sunset to sunrise, to the
skirling of John o' Skye's pipes, or the strains of some 'Wandering
Willie's' fiddle, the laird having his private joke for every old wife
or 'gausie carle,' his arch compliment for the ear of every bonnie
lass, and his hand and his blessing for the head of every little Eppie
Daidle from Abbotstown or Broomielees. Hogmanay, and the immemorial
customs of the New Year, as celebrated in Scotland--now fast dying
out--obtained full respect at Abbotsford. Scott said it was uncanny,
and would certainly have felt it very uncomfortable not to welcome the
New Year in the midst of his family and a few cronies in the orthodox
fashion. But nothing gave him such delight as the visit which he
received as laird from all the children on his estate on the last
morning of the year, when, as he was fond of quoting:
'The cottage bairns sing blythe and gay
At the ha' door for hogmanay.'
The words and form of the drama exist in various versions in every part
of the Border Country, almost every parish possessing its own
rendering. The _dramatis personæ_, three or four in number, sometimes
even five, arrayed in fantastic fashion, proceeded from house to house,
generally contenting themselves with the kitchen for an arena, where
the performance was carried through in presence of the entire
household. 'Galations' (not 'Goloshin') is the title of the play.
Some account of it will be found in Chambers' 'Popular Rhymes of
Scotland,' and in Maidment's scarce pamphlet on the subject (1835).
From what has been said, it is not difficult to imagine the ideal
relationship existing between Scott and his dependents at Abbotsford.
They were surely the happiest retainers and domestics in the world.
How considerate he was in the matter of dwellings, for instance! He
realized that he owed them a distinct duty in diffusing as much comfort
and security into their lives as possible. They were not mere goods
and chattels, but beings of flesh and blood, with human sympathies like
himself. And he treated them as such. Amid the severities of winter,
some of his Edinburgh notes to Laidlaw are perfect little gems of their
kind: 'This dreadful weather will probably stop Mercer (the weekly
carrier). It makes me shiver in the midst of superfluous comforts to
think of the distress of others. I wish you to distribute £10 amongst
our poorer neighbours so as may best aid them. I mean not only the
actually indigent, but those who are, in our phrase, _ill off_. I am
sure Dr. Scott (of Darnlee) will assist you with his advice in this
labour of love. I think part of the wood-money, too, should be given
among the Abbotstown folks if the storm keeps them off work, as is
like.' And again: 'If you can devise any means by which hands can be
beneficially employed at Abbotsford, I could turn £50 or £100 extra
into service. If it made the poor and industrious people a little
easier, I should have more pleasure in it than any money I ever spent
in my life.' 'I think of my rooks amongst this snowstorm, also of the
birds, and not a little of the poor. For benefit of the former, I hope
Peggy throws out the crumbs, and a cornsheaf or two for the game, if
placed where poachers could not come at them. For the poor people I
wish you to distribute £5 or so among the neighbouring poor who may be
in distress, and see that our own folks are tolerably well off.' 'Do
not let the poor bodies want for a £5, or even a £10, more or less'--
'We'll get a blessing wi' the lave,
And never miss 't.'
Socially, the bond between Scott and his servants was a characteristic
object-lesson. 'He speaks to us,' said one, 'as if we were blood
relations.' Like Swift, he maintained that an affectionate and
faithful servant should always be considered in the character of a
humble friend. Even the household domestics 'stayed on' year after
year. Some of them grew grey in his service. One or two died. He had
always several pensioners beside him. Abbotsford was like a little
happy world of its own--the most emphatic exception to the cynic's
rule. Scott was 'a hero and a gentleman' to those who knew him most
intimately in the common and disillusionizing routine of domestic life.
In reading Lockhart, one feels that, aristocrat as Scott was, familiar
with the nobility and literary lions of the time, he was most at home,
and happiest, perhaps, in the fellowship of commoner men, such as
Laidlaw, and Purdie, and John Usher, and James Hogg, who were knit to
him as soul to soul. Of some of these he declared that they had become
almost an integral part of his existence. We know how life was
inexpressibly changed for Scott minus Tom Purdie, and to dispense with
Laidlaw, when that had become absolutely necessary, was as the iron
entering his soul. The most perfect pen-portraits in Lockhart are
those of Purdie (the Cristal Nixon of 'Redgauntlet'), that faithful
factotum and friend for whom he mourned as a brother; and 'dear Willie'
Laidlaw, betwixt whom and Scott the most charming of all master and
servant correspondence passed; and 'auld Pepe'--Peter Mathieson, his
coachman, a wondrously devoted soul, content to set himself in the
plough-stilts, and do the most menial duties, rather than quit
Abbotsford at its darkest. John Swanston, too, Purdie's successor, and
Dalgleish, the butler, occupy exalted niches in the temple of humble
and honest worth and sweet sacrificing service for a dear master's sake
who was much more than master to them all. Purdie's grave, close to
Melrose Abbey, with a modest stone erected by Sir Walter Scott, is
probably the most visited of the 'graves of the common people' almost
anywhere. It is eighty-three years since, apparently in the fullest
enjoyment of health and vigour, he bowed his head one evening on the
table, and dropped asleep--for ever. Laidlaw lies at Contin amid the
Highland solitudes. But few from Tweedside have beheld the green turf
beneath which his loyal heart has been long resting, or read the simple
inscription on the white marble that marks a spot so sacred to all
lovers of Abbotsford and Sir Walter.
'Here lie the remains of William Laidlaw,
Born at Blackhouse in Yarrow,
November, 1780. Died at Contin, May 18, 1845.'
No account of the Abbotsford life can fail to take notice of the
extraordinary number of visitors, who, even at that early date, flocked
to the shrine of Sir Walter. The year 1825, as has been said, must be
regarded as the high-water mark in the splendours of Abbotsford. From
the dawn of 'Waverley,' but particularly the period immediately
preceding the crash, Abbotsford was the most sought-after house in the
kingdom. It was seldom without its quota of guests. 'Like a cried
fair,' Scott described it on one occasion. 'A hotel widout de pay,'
was Lady Scott's more matter-of-fact comparison. What a profoundly
interesting and curious record a register of visitors to Abbotsford
would have been!
[Illustration: THE DINING-ROOM, ABBOTSFORD. "His own great parlour" is
not open to the public. It was the first room of any pretension that
Scott built at Abbotsford.]
Scott's first really distinguished visitor from the other side of the
Atlantic was Washington Irving. He was there in August, 1817, whilst
the building operations were in progress. Following Irving, came Lady
Byron for one day only. Though Scott met Byron in London, and they
frequently corresponded, Lord Byron was never at Abbotsford. In that
same year Sir David Wilkie visited Scott to paint his picture, the
'Abbotsford Family.' Sir Humphry Davy was another visitor. One of the
most welcome of all was Miss Edgeworth, who stayed for a fortnight in
1823. Tom Moore came in 1825, and in 1829 Mrs. Hemans, visiting the
Hamiltons at Chiefswood, was daily at Abbotsford. Susan Ferrier,
author of 'Marriage' and 'Inheritance,' visited Scott twice.
Wordsworth, greatest name of all, was the last. He arrived on
September 21, 1831, and two days later Scott, a broken invalid, left
for the Continent.
To the list of Scott's intimate friends, based on the Biography, Thomas
Faed's picture, 'Scott and his Literary Friends,'[1] offers a good
index. The piece is purely imaginary, for the persons represented were
never all at Abbotsford at the same time, two of them, indeed--Crabbe
and Campbell--never having seen it. Scott is represented as reading
the manuscript of a new novel; on his right, Henry Mackenzie, his
oldest literary friend, occupies the place of honour. Hogg, the
intentest figure in the group, sits at Scott's feet to the left. Kit
North's leonine head and shoulders lean across the back of a chair.
Next come Crabbe and Lockhart--at the centre of the table--together
with Wordsworth and Francis (afterwards Lord) Jeffrey. Sir Adam
Ferguson, a bosom cronie, cross-legged, his military boots recalling
Peninsular days and the reading of the 'Lady of the Lake' to his
comrades in the lines of Torres Vedras, immediately faces Scott.
Behind him, Moore and Campbell sit opposite each other. At the end of
the table are the printers Constable and Ballantyne, and at their back,
standing, the painters Allan and Wilkie. Thomas Thomson, Deputy Clerk
Register, is on the extreme left, and Sir Humphry Davy is examining a
sword-hilt. A second and smaller copy of Faed's picture (in the
Woodlands Park collection, Bradford) substitutes Lord Byron and
Washington Irving for Constable and Ballantyne. Allan, Davy, and
Thomson are also omitted. The artist might well have introduced
Scott's lady literary friends, Joanna Baillie and Maria Edgeworth, and
it is a pity that Laidlaw has been left out.
[1] In the possession of Captain Dennistoun of Golfhill. The picture
has been frequently on exhibition, and frequently engraved.
Whilst, however, Abbotsford was a kind of ever open door to an
unparalleled variety of guests, there was another and a much larger
company constantly invading its precincts--the great army of the
uninvited. Such interruptions were a constant source of worry to
Scott. Some came furnished with letters of introduction from friends
for whose sake Scott received them cordially, and treated them kindly.
Others had no introduction at all, but, pencil and note-book in hand,
took the most impertinent liberties with the place and its occupants.
On returning to Abbotsford upon one occasion, Lockhart recalls how
Scott and he found Mrs. Scott and her daughters doing penance under the
merciless curiosity of a couple of tourists, who had been with her for
some hours. It turned out after all that there were no letters of
introduction to be produced, as she had supposed, and Scott, signifying
that his hour for dinner approached, added that, as he gathered they
meant to walk to Melrose, he could not trespass further on their time.
The two lion-hunters seemed quite unprepared for this abrupt escape.
But there was about Scott, in perfection, when he chose to exert it,
the power of civil repulsion. He bowed the overwhelmed originals to
the door, and on re-entering the parlour, found Mrs. Scott complaining
very indignantly that they had gone so far as to pull out their
note-book and beg an exact account, not only of his age, but of her
own. Scott, already half relenting, laughed heartily at this misery,
afterwards saying, 'Hang the Yahoos, Charlotte, but we should have bid
them stay dinner.' 'Devil a bit,' quoth Captain Ferguson, who had come
over from Huntlyburn, 'they were quite in a mistake, I could see. The
one asked Madame whether she deigned to call her new house Tully Veolan
or Tillietudlem, and the other, when Maida happened to lay his head
against the window, exclaimed, "_Pro-di-gi-ous!_"' 'Well, well,
Skipper,' was the reply, 'for a' that, the loons would hae been nane
the waur o' their kail.'
[Illustration: THE GARDEN, ABBOTSFORD. The Courtyard was (in Mr. Hope
Scott's time) planted as a flower garden, with clipped yews at the
corners of the ornamental grass-plots, and beds all ablaze with summer
Bowers.]
Much has been written of Scott and his dogs--not the least important
part of the establishment. All true poets, from Homer downwards, have
loved dogs. Scott was seldom without a 'tail' at his heels. His
special favourites, Camp and Maida (the Bevis of 'Woodstock'), are as
well-known as himself. Both were frequently painted by Raeburn and
others. When Camp died at Castle Street, Scott excused himself from a
dinner-party on account of 'the death of a dear old friend'--a fine
compliment to the canine tribe--a finer index to the heart of the man.
Scott looked upon his dogs as companions, 'not as the brute, but the
mute creation.' He loved them for their marvellously human traits, and
we know how they reciprocated his affection. He was always caring for
them. 'Be very careful of the dogs,' was his last request to Laidlaw
on the eve of setting out for Italy. And when, close on a year
afterwards, he returned so deadly stricken, it was his dogs fondling
about him which for the most part resuscitated the sense of 'home,
sweet home.'