Abbotsford Part 2

There he commenced 'Count Robert of Paris,' the penultimate of his published tales. But the mighty machinery of his mind moved not as of yore. Like Samson, his strength had departed. He was now as other men. By November he suffered from a second stroke, and wrote in his Diary for January: 'Very indifferent, with more awkward feelings than I can well bear up against. My voice sunk, and my head strangely confused.' But a worse shock was coming. Cadell p.r.o.nounced the 'Count' a complete failure. Yet he struggled to recast it. To crown all, he went to the 'hustings'--a hardened anti-Reform Billite. At Jedburgh, as Lockhart tells, the crowd saluted him with blasphemous shouts of 'Burke Sir Walter!'[2]--the unkindest cut of all, which haunted him to the end. By July he had begun 'Castle Dangerous,' and in the middle of the month, accompanied by Lockhart, he started for Lanarkshire to refresh his memory for the setting of his new story.

They ascended the Tweed by Yair, Ashestiel, Elibank, Innerleithen, Peebles, Biggar, places all dear to his heart and celebrated in his writings. Crowds turned out to welcome him. Everywhere he was received with acclamation and the deepest respect. At Douglas the travellers inspected the old Castle, the ruin of St. Bride's, with the monuments and tombs of the 'most heroic and powerful family in Scottish annals.' At Milton-Lockhart, the seat of Lockhart's brother, Scott met his old friend Borthwickbrae. Both were paralytics. Each saw his own case mirrored in the other. They had a joyous--too joyous a meeting, with startling results to the older invalid. On returning to Cleghorn, another shock laid him low, and he was despaired of. When the news reached Scott, he was bent on getting home at once. 'No, William,' he said to his host, urging him to remain, 'this is a sad warning; I must home to work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh when no man can work. I put that text many years ago on my dial-stone, but it often preached in vain.'

[2] The Burke and Hare murders were recent.

Returned, he finished 'Count Robert' and 'Castle Dangerous.' Both novels were really the fruit of a paralytic brain. The 'Magnum Opus,'[3] too, proposed by Cadell (a huge success), engaged much of his attention. But Sir Walter's work was done. At length, doctors'

treatment doing him little good, from his constant determination to be at his desk, it was decided, not without difficulty, that Scott should spend the winter of 1831 in Italy, where his son Charles was attached to the British Legation at Naples. On September 22 all was in readiness. A round of touching adieus, one or two gatherings of old friends, the final instructions to Laidlaw, and Scott quitted Abbotsford practically for ever. He returned, to be sure, but more a dead man than a living one. Of his journey to London (meeting many friends) there is no need to write, nor of the Italian tour--Malta, Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice--for which, no matter the brilliance of their a.s.sociations, he exhibited but a mere pa.s.sive interest. His heart was in the homeland.

[3] A reissue of the Poetry, with biographical prefaces, and a uniform reprint of the Novels, each introduced by an account of the hints on which it had been founded, and ill.u.s.trated throughout by historical and antiquarian annotations.

By June 13, London was again reached, and in the St. James's Hotel, Jermyn Street (now demolished), he lay for three weeks in a state of supreme stupor. Allan Cunningham tells of the extraordinary interest and sympathy which Scott's illness evoked. Walking home late one night, he found a number of working men standing at the corner of Jermyn Street, one of whom asked him, as if there had been only one deathbed in London: 'Do you know, sir, if this is the street where he is lying?' 'Abbotsford!' was his cry in the more lucid intervals that came to him. On July 7 he was carried on board the _James Watt_ steamer, accompanied by Lockhart, Cadell, a medical man--Dr. Thomas Watson--and his two daughters. The Forth was reached on the 9th, and the next two days--the last in his 'own romantic town'--were pa.s.sed, as all the voyage had been, in a condition of absolute unconsciousness.

On the 11th, at a very early hour of the morning, Scott was lifted into his carriage for the final journey homewards. During the first part of the drive he remained torpid, until the veil lifted somewhat at Gala Water. Strange that, after oblivion so profound and prolonged, he should open his eyes and regain a measure of consciousness just here, amid landscapes the most familiar to him in the world. Some good angel must have touched him then. A mere coincidence! Perhaps! But there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. 'Gala Water, surely--Buckholm--Torwoodlee,' he murmured.

When he saw the Eildons--

'Three crests against the saffron sky, Beyond the purple plain, The kind remembered melody Of Tweed once more again'--

he became greatly excited, and in crossing Melrose Bridge, his 'nearest Rialto,' as he called it, he could hardly be kept in the carriage.

Abbotsford, a mile ahead, was soon reached. Laidlaw--a big lump in his throat, we may be sure--was waiting at the door, and a.s.sisted to carry his dying master and friend to the dining-room, where his bed had been prepared. He sat bewildered for a moment or two, then, resting his eyes on Laidlaw, as if trying to recollect, said immediately, 'Ha, Willie Laidlaw! O man, how often have I thought of _you_!' By this time his dogs were around his chair, fawning on him, and licking his hands. Then, indeed, he knew where he was. Between sobs and tears he tried to speak to them, and to stroke them as of yore. But the body, no less than the brain, was exhausted, and gentle sleep closed his eyelids, like a tired child, once more in his own Abbotsford. He lingered for some weeks, alternating between cloud and sunshine--mostly cloud. One day the longing for his desk seized him, and he was wheeled studywards, but the palsied fingers refused their office, and he sank back, a.s.sured at last that the sceptre had departed. Lockhart and Laidlaw were now his constant attendants. Both read to him from the New Testament. 'There is but one Book,' Scott said, and it 'comforted'

him to listen to its soothing and hope-inspiring utterances. Then the cloud became denser. At last delirium and delusion prostrated him, and he grew daily feebler. Now he thought himself administering justice as the Selkirkshire 'Shirra'; anon he was giving Tom Purdie orders anent trees. Sometimes, his fancy was in Jedburgh, and the words, 'Burke Sir Walter,' escaped him in a dolorous tone. Then he would repeat s.n.a.t.c.hes from Isaiah, or the Book of Job, or some grand rugged verse torn off from the Scottish Psalms, or a strain sublimer still from the Romish Litany:

'Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvet saeclum in favilla.'

'As I was dressing on the morning of September 17,' says Lockhart, 'Nicolson came into my room and told me that his master had awoke in a state of composure and consciousness, and wished to see me immediately.

I found him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feebleness.

His eye was clear and calm--every trace of the wild fire of delirium extinguished. "Lockhart," he said, "I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man--be virtuous--be religious--be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here." He paused, and I said: "Shall I send for Sophia and Anne?"

"No," said he, "don't disturb them. Poor souls! I know they were up all night. G.o.d bless you all." With this he sunk into a very tranquil sleep, and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave any sign of consciousness, except for an instant on the arrival of his sons. About half-past one p.m., on September 21, Sir Walter Scott breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day--so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRYBURGH ABBEY. Which, if it cannot boast the architectural glories of Melrose, far surpa.s.ses it for queenly situation.]

He died a month after completing his sixty-first year. On December 7, 1825, almost seven years earlier, we find him taking a survey of his own health in relation to the ages reached by his parents and other members of the family, and then setting down in his Diary the result of his calculations, 'Square the odds, and good-night, Sir Walter, about sixty. I care not, if I leave my name unstained and my family property settled. _Sat est vixisse_.' His prophecy was fulfilled. He lived just a year--but a year of gradual death--beyond his antic.i.p.ations.

His wish, too, was fulfilled; for he died practically free of debt.

The sale of his works, the insurance of his life, and a sum advanced by Cadell, completely cleared his engagements. The copyrights purchased by Cadell were afterwards sold to Messrs. Adam and Charles Black, who therefore hold the exact text of the works.

On September 26--a Wednesday--Sir Walter was buried. Services at Abbotsford, after the simple fashion of the Scottish Kirk, were conducted by the Revs. Princ.i.p.al Baird, of Edinburgh University, Dr.

d.i.c.kson, of St. Cuthbert's, and the minister of Melrose. The courtyard and all the precincts of Abbotsford were crowded with uncovered spectators as the procession (over a mile in length) was arranged. And as it advanced through Darnick and Melrose, and the villages on the route, the whole population appeared at their doors in like manner, almost all in black. From Darnick Tower a broad c.r.a.pe banner waved in the wind, and the Abbey bell at Melrose rang a m.u.f.fled peel. Thence there is a somewhat steep ascent to Gladswood and Bemersyde. On the crest of the road overlooking the 'beautiful bend' the hea.r.s.e came to a curious halt, at the very spot where Scott was accustomed to rein up his horses. It was no 'accident,' as Lockhart imagines. For one of the horses was Sir Walter's own, and must have borne him many a time hither. Peter Mathieson, Laidlaw, and others of Scott's servants carried the plain black coffin to the grave within St. Mary's aisle, at Dryburgh, where it was lowered by his two sons, his son-in-law, and six of his cousins. And thus the remains of Sir Walter Scott--our Scottish Shakespeare--were laid by the side of his wife in the sepulchre of his fathers.

CHAPTER V

THE LATER ABBOTSFORD

Sir Walter's Abbotsford, as we saw, was completed in 1824. For the next thirty years there was practically no alteration on the place. At Scott's death the second Sir Walter came into possession. He does not appear to have lived at Abbotsford after 1832, and indeed for many years previous his time had been spent almost entirely with his regiment, the 15th Hussars, of which, at his father's death, he was Major. He died childless, as his brother did also, and Abbotsford pa.s.sed to Walter Scott Lockhart, son of Scott's elder daughter, who had married J. G. Lockhart. On his death, in 1853, his only sister Charlotte, married to James Robert Hope, Q.C., came into possession, and she and her husband a.s.sumed the name of Scott.

Abbotsford had been sadly neglected since Scott's death in 1832, and everything needed restoration. But Mr. Hope Scott did wonders.

Between the years 1855 and 1857 he built a new west wing to the house, consisting of a Chapel, hall, drawing-room, boudoir, and a suite of bedrooms. The old kitchen was turned into a linen-room, and a long range of new kitchen offices facing the Tweed was erected, which materially raised the elevation of Scott's edifice, and improved the appearance of the whole pile as seen from the river. An ingenious tourist access was also arranged, with other internal alterations.

Outside, the grounds and gardens were completely overhauled, the overgrown plantations thinned, and the old favourite walks cleaned and kept as Scott himself would have wished. In the lifetime of the Great Magician the ground on which he fixed his abode was nearly on a level with the highway running along the south front, and wayfarers could survey the whole domain by looking over the hedge. A high embankment was now thrown up on the road-front of Abbotsford, the road itself shifted several yards back, the avenue lengthened, a lodge built, and the new mound covered with a choice variety of timber, which has now grown into one of the most pleasing features of the Abbotsford approach. The courtyard was at the same time planted as a flower-garden, with clipped yews at the corners of the ornamental gra.s.s-plots, and beds all ablaze with summer flowers. The terraces, on the north, so rich and velvety, date from this period.

Most visitors to Abbotsford have the impression that Sir Walter was responsible for every part of the present edifice, whereas it is at least a third larger from that of Scott's day.

On the death of Mr. Hope Scott (his wife having pre-deceased him), their only living child, the sole surviving descendant of Sir Walter, Mary Monica Hope Scott, came into possession. In 1874 she married the Hon. Joseph Constable-Maxwell, third son of the eleventh Baron Herries of Terregles. Thus direct descendants of the maker of Abbotsford still reign there in the person of his great-granddaughter and her children.

There are two methods of reaching Abbotsford--by rail to Galashiels, thence to Abbotsford Ferry Station on the Selkirk line, alighting at which and crossing the Tweed, a delightful tree-shaded walk of about a mile brings us to the house. But the more popular method is to make the journey from Melrose, three miles distant. The way lies between delicious green fields and bits of woodland--a pleasant country road, exposed somewhat, despite smiling hedgerows on either side. The road teems with reminiscences of the Romancist. Out from the grey town, with its orchards and picturesque gardens, the Waverley Hydropathic is pa.s.sed on the right. In the grounds a handsome seated statue of Scott may be noticed. Further on, to the left, tree-ensconced, lie Chiefswood and Huntlyburn on the Abbotsford estate. Then comes Darnick, with its fine peel, now open to the public, and well worth a visit. At the fork of the roads (that to the right leading by Melrose Bridge to Gattonside and Galashiels) we turn leftwards, and are soon at the visitors' entrance (a modest wicket-gate) to the great Scottish Mecca. But nothing is to be seen yet. Mr. Hope Scott's plantations and 'ingenious tourist arrangement' screen the pile with wonderful completeness. And it is only when within a few paces of the building, at a turn in the lane leading from the highway, that all at once one emerges upon it. The public waiting-room is in the bas.e.m.e.nt, whence parties of ten or twelve are conducted through the house.

In point of picturesqueness, Abbotsford is, of course, best seen from the Tweed--the north bank--or the hillside. But we are then looking, let us remember, at the _back_ of the edifice. Nearly all the photographs present this view for the sake of the river. At first not unfrequently there is a sense of disappointment, especially if one's ideas have been founded on Turner's somewhat fanciful sketches.

As this is not a guide-book, we shall not give here a minute catalogue of the treasures to be seen at Abbotsford, referring the reader instead to Mrs. Maxwell-Scott's excellent catalogue of the 'Armour and Antiquities.' But we are sure that none who visit the place will come away unsatisfied, or will fail to be moved by the personal relics of the Great Wizard, such as his chair, his clothes and writing-desk, which bring before us the man himself, for whose memory Abbotsford is but a shrine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of Abbotsford and grounds]