UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 E. E. Prussing
 
 ABBOTSFORD
 
 ' O bear me back to all to Memory dear, 
 'Twill to my faded brow be health restored 
 To feel the breeze that waves the woods of Abbotsford.'
 
 ABBOTSFORD FROM THE RIVER TWEED 
 
 ' Within that pile he dwelt whose ardent soul 
 Filled with bright dreams, and aspirations high, 
 And boundless knowledge, wonder-chained the 
 
 whole 
 
 Of human kind, but turned its glorious eye 
 Of love on Caledon's bleak hills and cloudy sky.'
 
 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 PAINTED BY 
 
 WILLIAM SMITH, JR. 
 
 DESCRIBED BY 
 
 W. S. CROCKETT 
 
 MINISTEK OF TWKKDSMUIR ; AUTHOR OF ' THK SCOTT COUNTRY,' ETC. 
 
 TWENTY FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 IN COLOUR 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 1905
 
 -L/ Hi 
 
 TO 
 
 SIR WALTER'S SUCCESSORS 
 
 AT 
 
 ABBOTSFORD, 
 
 
 THE HON. MRS. MAXWELL SCOTT, 
 r- 
 
 <^ HIS GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER, 
 
 v, AND 
 
 WALTER MAXWELL SCOTT, 
 
 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDSON, 
 THESE CHAPTERS ARE DEDICATED. 
 
 ^ 
 
 u_ 
 O 
 
 n 
 
 27136
 
 Preface 
 
 THAT Abbotsford merits a volume in the present 
 series will be readily conceded. In preparing the 
 letterpress I have found myself, not unnaturally, 
 playing to some extent the part of a biographer, and 
 in this I have generally followed Lockhart, always 
 the ultimate authority on Sir Walter. A number 
 of fresh facts, however, will be found here and there 
 throughout the work. Mrs. Maxwell Scott has 
 kindly read the proof of ' The Later Abbotsford,' 
 and for the ' Treasures ' chapter I am indebted 
 somewhat to her admirable little ' Catalogue,' which 
 no visitor to Scott's home should miss. 
 
 W. S. CROCKETT. 
 
 THE MANSE, 
 
 TWEEDSMUIR, 
 
 June 15, 1905. 
 
 VII
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ..... . . . I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD ..... 9 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD . . . . . ,27 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD ....... 47 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL . . . . . -75 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL TO ABBOTSFORD . . . 103 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LoCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD . . . . . .123 
 
 ix
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD . . . . . . .149 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD . . . . . . 161; 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD ... ... 207 
 
 INDKX 220
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 1 . Abbotsford from the River Tweed . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 2. The Cross, Melrose ....... 8 
 
 3. The Abbey, Melrose ....... 24 
 
 4. The Gateway, Abbotsford ... 38 
 
 5. Darnick Tower ... .42 
 
 6. Sandyknowe Tower ... ... 80 
 
 7. Cauldshiels Loch . . .92 
 
 8. The Rhymer's Glen ... .98 
 
 9. Melrose Abbey from the Meadows . . .106 
 
 10. Jedburgh Abbey . . .112 
 
 11. Leaderfoot Bridge . .122 
 
 12. The Eildon Hills and River Tweed . .134 
 
 13. Chiefswood . 140 
 
 14. The Garden, Abbotsford . . . 160 
 
 15. Sir Walter's Dial, Abbotsford . .172 
 
 16. Sir Walter Scott's Desk and 'Elbow-chair' in the 
 
 Study, Abbotsford .178 
 
 17. The Entrance Hall, Abbotsford . . 200 
 
 18. The Dining-room, Abbotsford . . ?04 
 
 19. Dryburgh Abbey ... . . 216 
 
 20. Kelso Abbey and Bridge . . .218 
 
 XI
 
 
 INTRODUCTORY
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 LAST year (1904) no fewer than seven thousand 
 persons from all parts of the world visited Abbots- 
 ford.* There is no diminution in the annual pilgrim- 
 age 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. Whilst many would rejoice to 
 see Sir Walter's home on a different footing from a 
 patriotic point of view less of a shilling show-house 
 for one thing there is no reason to quarrel with the 
 present arrangements, which, likely enough, are the 
 best under existing conditions. The order of view- 
 ing the various rooms, however, might well be 
 improved, the public permitted to linger over them 
 a little more leisurely, and also to see something 
 of the exterior of the building. That many ardent 
 
 * Abbotsford, with the accent on the ' ford. 1 A modern 
 pronunciation accentuates the first syllable. This is wrong. 
 Scott himself said Abbotsford. 
 
 3 12
 
 4 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Scott worshippers who flock yearly to Abbotsford 
 would welcome a more ample opportunity for study 
 and reflection within its charmed enclosure goes 
 without saying. Of course, as being still a private 
 residence, there are obvious difficulties in the way 
 of such easier access. But probably that may come 
 by-and-by. 
 
 The best preparation for a visit to Abbotsford is 
 a course of Lockhart. There is no more faithful 
 account of the place, from its purchase to the high- 
 water mark of Scott's happiness there and the 
 troubled years preceding the end. From at least 
 1820, and irrespective of his London life, Lockhart 
 was Scott's companion and confidant at Abbotsford . 
 Seldom has the fellowship of letters shown a friend- 
 ship so strong and true. It was sympathy other 
 than that of a son-in-law which Lockhart brought 
 to the writing of his great Biography, and which 
 has made it one of the masterpieces of literature. 
 Never, surely, was a great man more fortunate in 
 his life-story than Scott at the hands of Lockhart, 
 one of the most maligned and misunderstood men 
 of his day, indeed, but a kindly, lovable soul withal. 
 To understand Abbotsford, it is a necessity that one 
 should study the life of its originator and owner, 
 with whose name, notwithstanding any subsequent
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 occupation, the ' romance in stone and lime ' is 
 indissolubly connected. 
 
 In Scott's earliest association with Abbot sford, 
 or, rather, with the site on which Abbotsford stands, 
 is there not theme alike for painter and poet ? 
 Lockhart tells how Scott used to relate that, 
 travelling in boyhood with his father from Selkirk 
 to Melrose, the old man desired the carriage to 
 halt at the foot of an eminence, and said : ' We 
 must get out here, Walter, and see a thing 
 quite in your line.' His father then conducted 
 him to a rude stone * on the edge of an acclivity 
 about half a mile from the Tweed, at which spot 
 the last great clan-battle of the Borders was 
 fought between Scott s and Kers for the posses- 
 sion of King James V., the young Prince himself 
 being a spectator of the contest. From a child 
 Scott had exhibited a marked precocity for Border 
 history and Border lore in general, and even 
 then, as a boy, there were few to excel him as 
 a story-teller. The printed page was in the dim 
 
 * Turn-Again, where Ker of Cessford was slain and the 
 victorious party turned from the pursuit. Skirmish Hill, 
 Charge Law, and Cock-a-Pistol are other landmarks of the 
 fight. The Waverley Hydropathic is said to mark the 
 immediate scene of the struggle.
 
 6 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 distance, but already he could command an audience 
 no less wonder-struck with that fair silver tongue of 
 his, which in the budding Edinburgh days won him 
 the heart of Mrs. Alison Cockburn and her coterie. 
 We may be sure that the elder Walter had a 
 more than average pride in the boy's tastes and 
 promise for the future, nor would the opportunity 
 be lacking by which these were encouraged and 
 enriched. The road between Selkirk and Melrose 
 has other memories, recalled, doubtless, that day 
 as they drove along, but to a boy whose mind 
 seemed ever bent on 
 
 ' Old, unhappy, far-off things, 
 And battles long ago/ 
 
 the near neighbourhood of a Border battle-field was 
 quite an event. Hence the picture of Scott and 
 his father surveying the spot where, in the year 
 
 1526, 
 
 * gallant Cessford's heart-blood dear 
 Reeked on dark Elliot's Border spear,' 
 
 might well lend inspiration for some artist's canvas. 
 For there is more in the subject than the mere 
 suggestion of a future great author touching for 
 the first time the land to be immortalized by his 
 genius. Were it that only, we should have an
 
 INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 endless succession of canvases ; but it is the 
 suggestiveness of strongest personal association 
 rather. Comparatively few recollect the incident 
 which appealed so to Scott, both in his boyhood 
 and later life. But everybody knows that practi- 
 cally all the arena of that fateful struggle most of 
 the landscape on which his youthful vision long 
 and rapturously rested by-and-by became his 
 own possession. We may suppose that at least a 
 quarter of a century lay between that day and the 
 purchase of his first hundred acres as Laird of 
 Abbotsford, and the gradual growth, almost year 
 by year, of the lands of Abbotsford, still holds a big 
 place in the popular imagination. As a battle 
 scene, it was significant of his own career. What 
 conquests were these fields not again to witness 
 and what defeats ! What heroism of the pen, no less 
 noble than that of the sword ! What determination 
 in the face of fearful odds to do his best at Duty's call, 
 no less honoured and no less magnificent in achieve- 
 ment than the doughtiest deed of arms in ancient 
 or modern days ! That Abbotsford should attract 
 its tens of thousands from all ends of the earth was 
 to be expected after such a strenuous life as Scott's. 
 Human nature must always pay homage at the 
 shrine of the truly great, and if it be true that no
 
 8 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 writer has given pleasure to vaster multitudes, and 
 that never has the life of his country been so well 
 limned as by this master-hand, it will be equally 
 true of Abbotsford that it will never want those 
 to whom everything about it and its very dust 
 is dear.
 
 THE CROSS, MELROSE 
 
 ' And thou hast stood how strange the story ! 
 
 In Melrose Square seven hundred years or more : 
 Saw the gray Abbey in its pomp and glory 
 
 Looked round on hill and valley long before 
 Men gave up being mosstroopers and reivers, 
 And settled down as shopkeepers and weavers !
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO 
 ABBOTSFORD
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 sub- 
 dued spirit of modern times. In the many-sided 
 story of the Border, however, with its rare wealth 
 of romanticism, Scott found his life-work. So that 
 it was the Border which made him the force he is 
 in the world of letters. No Borderer no Scots- 
 man, indeed, has taken truer and firmer hold of his 
 countrymen. 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 
 
 11 22
 
 12 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 spent there. His environment throughout was that 
 of a Borderer. He belongs, to be sure, to every 
 country. Like Shakespeare and Burns, Scott is 
 one of the cosmopolitan heroes of literature, whose 
 works are as widely cherished abroad as at home. 
 Not a summer in the Border Country the true 
 ' Scott Country ' but is evidence of his univer- 
 sality. Scott gloried in the heritage that came 
 to him from generations of Border ancestors, 
 their cattle-lifting propensities notwithstanding. 
 To belong to the Border to Tweedside, to use his 
 pet phrase was never a superficial boast. It was 
 because his most personal interests were bound up 
 therein, and because he clung with a whole-hearted 
 passion to the Border and to the Tweed, that these 
 are to-day the most familiar of Scottish names. 
 * It is part of my creed,' he writes in an early letter 
 to Patrick Murray, ' that the Tweed and Teviot 
 yield to none in the world ; nor do I fear that even 
 in your eyes, which have been feasted on classic 
 ground, they will greatly sink in comparison with 
 the Tiber or Po !' Calais was not more indelible on 
 Mary's heart than the Tweed was on Scott's. All the 
 joyful strength of his life, says Ruskin, was spent in 
 the Tweed valley. He came to the Border a 
 sickly, delicate child, between his third and fourth
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 13 
 
 year, and for threescore years and one he seldom 
 left it for any lengthened interval. Edinburgh was 
 his school, and his office, and the arena of much of 
 his professional career. At a later period it was 
 crowded with many painful memories. 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 ' him- 
 self, 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 untram- 
 melled. 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 asso- 
 ciated with a man of letters ? All these, compris- 
 ing 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 outset. And when the great
 
 14 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 ? 
 
 Tt 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 un- 
 cultivated banks of the Tweed. And none would 
 have rejoiced at its present picturesque and pros- 
 perous 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,
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 15 
 
 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, and 
 meeting none to direct us, till at last, coining up 
 a hill, we spyed some waggons going over another 
 mountain before us, and resolving to press somebody 
 into our service, we rode on as fast as we could to 
 overtake them, and then we were told we had still 
 twelve long miles to Moffat.' 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's diary (1803) of a day by 
 the Tweed below Peebles the middle portion of 
 the stream is a pleasanter memory : ' We had a 
 day's journey before us along the banks of the 
 Tweed, a name which has been sweet to my ears 
 almost as far back as I can remember. After the 
 first mile or two our road was seldom far from the 
 river, which flowed in gentleness, though perhaps
 
 16 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 never silent ; the hills on either side high, and 
 sometimes stony, but excellent pasture for sheep. . . . 
 In one very sweet part of the vale a gate crossed 
 the road, which was opened by an old woman who 
 lived in a cottage close to it. I said to her, " You 
 live in a very pretty place !" " Yes," she replied, 
 "the water of Tweed is a bonny water." The 
 lines of the hills are flowing and beautiful, the 
 reaches of the vale long ; in some places appear the 
 remains of a forest, in others you will see as lovely 
 a combination of forms as any traveller who goes 
 in search of the picturesque need desire, and yet 
 perhaps without a single tree ; or, at least, if trees 
 there are, they shall be very few.' And writing 
 about the same time the Rev. Richard Warner 
 afterwards the author of a work on the Waverley 
 Novels describes the lower half of the river between 
 Berwick and Kelso : ' The country around Berwick, 
 though swelling into hills and sinking into vales, has 
 neither beauty nor variety, the one being uniform 
 and lumpish, the other wide and unwooded. A 
 naked surface everywhere presents itself, unadorned 
 with those indispensable features in agreeable land- 
 scape, lofty trees and spreading shrubs. The river 
 Tweed, also, disappointed our expectations of 
 picturesque beauty. Associated as the name of
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 17 
 
 this river had hitherto been in our minds with 
 poetical and pastoral ideas, we were prepared to 
 admire its fringed banks and sacred shades, the 
 haunt of many a water-nymph and sylvan deity ; 
 but alas ! no solemn woods lifted their lofty heads 
 over these celebrated waters. All was original 
 nakedness. . . . The scenery is more animated 
 and cheerful in the neighbourhood of Kelso, where 
 wood is more frequent. Tweed's velvet banks 
 were here and there spotted with little clumps of 
 trees, presenting a fairer subject for tender and 
 elegiac poetry than it had before done.' 
 
 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 popu- 
 larize the planting spirit. His operations at 
 
 3
 
 18 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 Abbots- 
 ford. 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 won- 
 drous 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.' 
 A fourth 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 his cousin, General Russell was return- 
 ing from India.
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 19 
 
 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. Lock- 
 hart'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 dif- 
 ferent 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. 
 And did he not succeed ? It is not strictly true to 
 
 32
 
 20 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 say that he failed. He realized his ambition, and 
 he died in that belief. He built his * castle,' as he 
 playfully calls it, with more grandeur about it than 
 he had, mayhap, dreamed of. Honours of the 
 highest were heaped upon him. And at his death, 
 at any rate, there was a prospect of his line being 
 continued. Only one ugly shadow stood between 
 his monetary troubles. It is easy to say at this 
 time of day that Scott was defeated in his most 
 cherished hopes. He was defeated, as hundreds 
 are, through the accidents of history. But in 
 himself he was surely a noble success, and at his 
 passing most of his plans had prospered. Scott 
 towered so much above his fellows in intellectual 
 strength, and he had such perfect faith in himself 
 and the power of his own transcendent capabilities, 
 that it is scarcely fair to pass censure on the ambi- 
 tions and ideals which governed him, and the steady 
 purpose that made him one of the truest and best 
 of men one of the world's greatest men. There 
 is no occasion to bemoan Scott's career, no need to 
 reflect on its ' might-have-beens.' His course he 
 had mapped out for himself, and it was the only 
 course destined to give us Scott as he wished to 
 be, and as the generations should best remember 
 him.
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 21 
 
 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 
 incident mentioned in the foregoing chapter. By 
 name Newarthaugh a name almost forgotten in 
 the story of Abbotsford it was also known as 
 Cartleyhole, or Cartlawhole, and Cartlihole, accord- 
 ing 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,'
 
 22 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 was in occupation. The surroundings were cer- 
 tainly 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,' accord- 
 ing 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.'* A 
 local reminiscence emphasizes Lockhart 's descrip- 
 tion : ' The first time I saw Cartley Hole, or, as it 
 is more appropriately called, Clarty Hole, which 
 you are probably aware is the Scotch term for 
 dirty, was in 1807 or 1808. I was on my first 
 holiday visit to an uncle in Darnick. It was a 
 
 * Lockhart and others have fallen (not unnaturally per- 
 haps) into the error of supposing that * Clarty Hole ' was the 
 real designation. Cartleyhole, however, was a very old name. 
 Some wag possibly nicknamed the place ' the Clarty Hole,' 
 which seems to have stuck to it.
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 23 
 
 low-built, one-story house, standing in what was 
 literally a hole, and it had anything but a pre- 
 possessing appearance. It may have had attics, 
 but of this I am not quite sure. It had nothing 
 to recommend it as a site for a stately mansion, 
 save its proximity to the Tweed. The scenery 
 around was bare, and did not boast of a single 
 natural beauty.' But to Scott's far-seeing eye 
 matters were not so hopeless. There were, he felt, 
 possibilities in the place. Moreover, it was his wish 
 to create, as far as he could, the home that was to be 
 his own. Cartleyhole offered in many respects an 
 ideal site for the purpose he had in prospect. It 
 lay at almost the centre of the Border district. 
 All around w r ere the grand historic and romantic 
 associations of the Border, the subjects in which 
 Scott revelled. Melrose Abbey, the most graceful 
 and picturesque ruin in Scotland, already so cele- 
 brated 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
 
 24 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 place- 
 names 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 borr6wed from his brother 
 John, raising the remainder on the security of
 
 THE ABBEY, MELROSE 
 
 ' If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, 
 Go visit it by the pale moonlight ; 
 For the gay beams of lightsome day 
 Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray. 
 When the broken arches are black in night, 
 And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 
 When the cold light's uncertain shower 
 Streams on the ruined central tower ; 
 When buttress and buttress alternately 
 Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; 
 When silver edges the imagery 
 And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die ; 
 When distant Tweed is heard to rave, 
 And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, 
 Then go but go alone the while 
 Then view St. David's ruined pile ; 
 And, home returning, soothly swear 
 Was never scene so sad and fair ! '
 
 FROM CARTLEYHOLE TO ABBOTSFORD 25 
 
 ' Rokeby,' as yet unwritten. The letter to Dr. 
 Douglas acknowledging his receipt for the last in- 
 stalment 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 lancTs 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 con- 
 tradiction 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. Much of his 
 money he inherited a fortune from his brother, 
 a Captain in the Indian Army was lent without 
 stint to the manufacturers of that period, who 
 were struggling out of their old-time condition as 
 country weavers, and endeavouring to establish the 
 woollen trade as a staple industry in the town. 
 Galashiels, when Abbotsford came into being, was 
 
 4
 
 26 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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. Dr. Douglas's 
 friendship with Scott continued for many years. 
 He was the ' reverend and unbigoted ' clergyman 
 to whom Scott addressed ' Paul's Letter ' on 
 Religion in France, and was himself the author 
 of a carefully compiled essay on 'Agriculture in 
 the Counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk.' Perhaps 
 most interesting to recall, it was to Dr. Douglas 
 that Mrs. Cockburn of Fairnalee penned her epistle 
 wherein mention is made of Scott in his seventh 
 year as ' the most extraordinary genius of a boy 
 I ever saw.' Four-and-thirty years lay between 
 that evening and the purchase of Cartleyhole ' a 
 poor thing, but mine own.' Scott had taken a 
 further, and as yet the most important, step up 
 the ladder of his ambition. Things were going 
 well with him, and it was a joy to send such 
 welcome news to his brother-in-law on the other 
 side of the world :* ' This is the greatest incident 
 which has lately taken place in our domestic con- 
 cerns, and I assure you we are not a little proud of 
 being greeted as Laird and Lady of Abbotsford.' 
 
 * Charles Carpenter, in the Indian Civil Service at Salem, 
 Madras.
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 
 
 42
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 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 
 
 29
 
 30 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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.' 
 
 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 con- 
 servatory 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
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 31 
 
 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 there- 
 fore 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 1 
 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,
 
 32 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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. ' 
 
 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 con- 
 spicuous show. A family of turkeys was accom- 
 modated within the helmet of some preux chevalier
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 33 
 
 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, carry- 
 ing 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, 
 
 5
 
 34 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 and the hum of many voices, and constant in- 
 terruptions, he plodded on, and got through a fair 
 amount. The letters to Terry commence in Sep- 
 tember, 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 planta- 
 tions 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 plant- 
 ing willows, and aspens, and weeping birches. I 
 have now laid the foundations of a famous back- 
 ground 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
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 35 
 
 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 con- 
 veniently, 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 hand- 
 some 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 build- 
 ing was well begun) plan, which was greatly too 
 expensive. So I have made the old farm-house 
 
 52
 
 36 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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. Abbots- 
 ford was rapidly losing its cottage character. The 
 ' romance ' period was begun. A notable addition 
 connecting the farm-house with the line of build- 
 ings on the right was then agreed upon, on which 
 Scott communicates with Terry : ' Bullock* will 
 show you the plan, which I think is very in- 
 genious, and Blore has drawn me a very hand- 
 some 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 com- 
 
 * George Bullock and Edward Blore, London architects 
 and furnishers. Atkinson was the artist who arranged the 
 interior of Abbotsford.
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 37 
 
 modities there is a small conservatory, and a study 
 for myself, which we design to fit up with orna- 
 ments 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.' 
 
 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 con- 
 sequence 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 composi- 
 tion, and that is high authority.' ' I agree with 
 you that the tower will look rather rich for the 
 
 'WV-i *Jfl 
 Ofw / JU5O
 
 38 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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: '1 
 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 some- 
 what 'fantastic appearance,' the new and old by 
 no means harmonizing (see the chapter on Lock- 
 hart for a further account of his visit). In the spring 
 of 1820 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,
 
 THE GATEWAY, ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ' Master of Abbotsford ! 
 
 Magician strange and strong, 
 Whose voice of power is heard 
 
 By an admiring throng, 
 From court to peasant's cot 
 
 We come, but thou art gone ; 
 We speak, thou answerest not 
 
 Thy work is done. '
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 39 
 
 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 recep- 
 tion 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 hand- 
 somer 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
 
 40 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 Queens- 
 berry 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. 
 
 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.
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 41 
 
 * 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 pur- 
 chase 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 stretch- 
 ing 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 sup- 
 posed but absolutely erroneous association with 
 
 6
 
 42 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 the ' Huntlee Bankis '* 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 Lock- 
 hart takes no notice. Scott was very anxious to 
 acquire the estate of Faldonside,t adjoining Abbots- 
 ford to the west, and actually offered 30,000 for 
 it, but without success. He was similarly un- 
 successful 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. 
 
 * The ' Huntlee Bankis "* lie between Melrose and New- 
 town, 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 indi- 
 cated by the famous Eildon Tree Stone. 
 
 t 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.
 
 DARNICK TOWER 
 
 1 Oft have I traced within thy fort, 
 
 Of mouldering shields the mystic sense, 
 Scutcheons of honour, or pretence, 
 Quarter'd in old armorial sort, 
 Remains of rude magnificence.'
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 43 
 
 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 
 
 62
 
 44 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 of the Wallace statue at Bemersyde) was a singu- 
 larly able craftsman, and his staff of workmen, with 
 Adam Paterson for foreman, were known all over 
 the Border. For the interior decorations paint- 
 ing, papering, etc., and even for some of the 
 carvings and casts Scott generally gave employ- 
 ment to local labour. Much of the costlier furni- 
 ture 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. 
 But for Abbotsford he would not have been our 
 Scott our man among men our Immortal. If 
 Abbotsford was his dream, it was also his Delilah. 
 It is at once a reminder of his success, and of the 
 most gigantic literary collapse of the century. So 
 far as monuments to Scott go, there is none to
 
 THE CREATION OF ABBOTSFORD 45 
 
 equal it, not even the most splendid and costly pile 
 which is one of Edinburgh's proudest adornments. 
 Yet of all his creations, Abbotsford will be the 
 soonest to perish, for ' Waverley ' and its fellows 
 are imperishable. Still, so long as it lasts, it will 
 be the memorial of a pride, unjustifiable in many 
 respects, but chivalrous withal, and of a fall to 
 depths seldom touched, but. best of all, of a restora- 
 tion than which there has been none more illustrious 
 none more heroic in literary craftsmanship. ' I 
 have seen much, but nothing like my ain house,' 
 he cried a broken, dying man returned to Abbots- 
 ford, only to be borne forth again. Nor has history 
 been slow to add its Amen.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 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 mediaeval 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 
 
 49 7
 
 50 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 comfort- 
 ably 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. Abbots- 
 ford 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
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 51 
 
 the material comforts. It was truly a summer ful- 
 ness for Scott at Abbotsford ere the autumn winds 
 or the biting breath of winter had begun to chill his 
 cheek. 
 
 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 town- 
 house 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 
 
 72
 
 52 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 53 
 
 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. Several of Lock- 
 hart's reminiscences of the Abbotsford life are so 
 delightfully vivid, conveying probably better than 
 anything else something of the ideal charm of 
 Scott and his circle, that the following may well 
 be printed in full : 
 
 ' I remember saying to (Sir) William Allan one 
 morning, as the whole party mustered before the 
 porch after breakfast, " A faithful sketch of what 
 you at this moment see would be more interesting 
 a hundred years hence than the grandest so-called 
 historical picture that you will ever exhibit in 
 Somerset House "; and my friend agreed with 
 me so cordially that I often wondered afterwards 
 he had not attempted to realize the suggestion.* 
 
 * See, however, facsimile of Allan's ' Gala Day at Abbots- 
 ford" a sepia sketch in Scott Centenary Exhibition 
 Catalogue.
 
 54 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 The subject ought, however, to have been treated 
 conjointly by him (or Wilkie) and Edwin Landseer. 
 ' It was a clear, bright September morning, with 
 a sharpness in the air that doubled the animating 
 influence of the sunshine, and all was in readiness 
 for a grand coursing match on Newark Hill. The 
 only guest who had chalked out other sport for 
 himself was the staunchest of anglers, Mr. Rose ; 
 but he, too, was there on his shelty, armed with 
 his salmon -rod and landing-net, and attended by 
 his humorous squire, Hinves, and Charlie Purdie, 
 a brother of Tom, in those days the most celebrated 
 fisherman of the district. This little group of 
 Waltonians, bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, 
 remained lounging about to witness the start of 
 the main cavalcade. Sir Walter, mounted on 
 Sybil, was marshalling the order of procession 
 with a huge hunting-whip ; and among a dozen 
 frolicsome youths and maidens, who seemed dis- 
 posed to laugh at all discipline, appeared, each on 
 horseback, each as eager as the youngest sportsman 
 in the troop, Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston, 
 and the patriarch of Scottish belles-lettres, Henry 
 Mackenzie. The Man of Feeling, however, was 
 persuaded with some difficulty to resign his steed 
 for the present to his faithful negro follower, and 
 to join Lady Scott in the sociable, until we should 
 reach the ground of our battue. Laidlaw, on a 
 long-tailed, wiry Highlander, yclept Hoddin Grey, 
 which carried him nimbly and stoutly, although
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 55 
 
 his feet almost touched the ground as he sat, 
 was the adjutant. But the most picturesque 
 figure was the illustrious inventor of the safety- 
 lamp. He had come for his favourite sport of 
 angling, and had been practising it successfully 
 with Rose, his travelling companion, for two or 
 three days preceding this, but he had not prepared 
 for coursing fields, and had left Charlie Purdie's 
 troop for Sir Walter's on a sudden thought ; and 
 his fisherman's costume a brown hat with flexible 
 brim, surrounded with line upon line, and innumer- 
 able fly-hooks, jack-boots worthy of a Dutch 
 smuggler, and a fustian surtout dabbled with the 
 blood of salmon made a fine contrast with the 
 smart jackets, white -cord breeches, and well- 
 polished jockey-boots of the less distinguished 
 cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was in 
 black, and, with his noble, serene dignity of 
 countenance, might have passed for a sporting 
 archbishop. Mr. Mackenzie, at this time in the 
 seventy-sixth year of his age, with a white hat 
 turned up with green, green spectacles, green 
 jacket, and long brown leathern gaiters buttoned 
 upon his nether anatomy, wore a dog-whistle 
 round his neck, and had all over the air of as 
 resolute a devotee as the gay Captain of Huntly- 
 burn. Tom Purdie and his subalterns had preceded 
 us by a few hours with all the greyhounds that 
 could be collected at Abbotsford, Darnick, and 
 Melrose ; but the giant Maida had remained as
 
 56 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 his master's orderly, and now gambolled about 
 Sybil Grey, barking for mere joy, like a spaniel 
 puppy. 
 
 ' The order of march had been all settled, and 
 the sociable was just getting under weigh, when 
 the Lady Anne broke from the line, screaming 
 with laughter, and exclaimed, " Papa ! papa ! I 
 knew you could never think of going without your 
 pet." Scott looked round, and I rather think there 
 was a blush as well as a smile upon his face, when 
 he perceived a little black pig frisking about his 
 pony, and evidently a self-elected addition to the 
 party of the day. He tried to look stern, and 
 cracked his whip at the creature, but was in a 
 moment obliged to join in the general cheers. 
 Poor piggy soon found a strap round his neck, and 
 was dragged into the background. Scott, watching 
 the retreat, repeated with mock pathos the first 
 verse of an old pastoral song : 
 
 ' What will I do gin my hoggie die ? 
 
 My joy, my pride, my hoggie ! 
 My only beast, I had nae mae, 
 And wow ! but I was vogie I 1 
 
 The cheers were redoubled, and the squadron 
 moved on. This pig had taken, nobody could tell 
 how, a most sentimental attachment to Scott, and 
 was constantly urging its pretension to be admitted 
 a regular member of his tail, along with the grey- 
 hounds and terriers ; but, indeed, I remember him
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 57 
 
 suffering another summer under the same sort of 
 pertinacity on the part of an affectionate hen. I 
 leave the explanation for philosophers ; but such 
 were the facts. I have too much respect for the 
 vulgarly calumniated donkey to name him in the 
 same category of pets with the pig and the hen ; 
 but, a year or two after this time, my wife used to 
 drive a couple of these animals in a little garden 
 chair, and whenever her father appeared at the 
 door of our cottage, we were sure to see Hannah 
 More and Lady Morgan (as Anne Scott had 
 wickedly christened them) trotting from their 
 pasture to lay their noses over the paling, and, 
 as Washington Irving says of the old white-haired 
 hedger with the Parisian snuff-box, " to have a 
 pleasant crack with the laird." 
 
 The Abbotsford Hunt, another of the great 
 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 
 
 8
 
 58 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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.
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 59 
 
 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 dock an dorrack, 
 the stirrup-cup, a bumper all round of the un- 
 mitigated 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 
 
 82
 
 60 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 com- 
 pliment 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.
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 61 
 
 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 1 door for hogmanay.' 
 
 * Yesterday (December 31, 1825) being Hog- 
 manay,' says Basil Hall's ' Journal ' the clearest, 
 cleverest, most picturesque sketch of the Abbots- 
 ford life from an outsider's point of view 'there 
 was a constant succession of guizards boys dressed 
 up in fantastic caps, with their shirts over their 
 jackets, and with wooden swords in their hands. 
 These players acted a sort of scene before us, of 
 which the hero was one Goloshin, who gets killed 
 in a battle for love, but is presently brought to 
 life again by a doctor of the party. As may be 
 imagined, the taste of our host is to keep up these
 
 62 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 old ceremonies. Thus, in the morning, I observed 
 crowds of boys and girls coming to the back-door, 
 where each got a penny and an oaten-cake. No 
 less than seventy pennies were thus distributed 
 and very happy the little bodies looked with their 
 well-stored bags.' Guizarding that is, masquerad- 
 ing, guising has lost practically all the scope and 
 popularity it once had in the South of Scotland. 
 The present writer well remembers how, as a boy, 
 he took part scores of times during Christmas and 
 New Year weeks in the grotesque but picturesque 
 play referred to. 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 personce, three or four in 
 number, sometimes five, arrayed in the fashion 
 described above, 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
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 63 
 
 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 super- 
 fluous comforts to think of the distress of others. I 
 wish you to distribute 10 amongst our poorer neigh- 
 bours so as may best aid them. I mean not only the 
 actually indigent, but those who are, in our phrase, 
 /// off. 1 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
 
 64 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 more pleasure in it than any money I ever spent in 
 my life.' ' I think of my rooks amongst this snow- 
 storm, 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 ' 
 
 ' Well get a blessing wi 1 the lave, 
 And never miss 't. 1 
 
 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 faith- 
 ful 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
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 65 
 
 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 neces- 
 sary, 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 coach- 
 man, 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 Dal- 
 gleish, the butler, occupy exalted niches in the 
 
 9
 
 66 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 Scott (see closing chapter), is 
 probably the most visited of the 'graves of the 
 common people ' almost anywhere. It is seventy- 
 six 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 rest- 
 ing, 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
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 67 
 
 ' Waverley,' but particularly the period immedi- 
 ately 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 Abbots- 
 ford would have been ! We may regret, like 
 Lockhart, that none was ever attempted. His 
 pages, however, supply to some extent the lack of 
 such a list. One is amazed at its vastness and cos- 
 mopolitanism. Scott's visitors came from all parts 
 of the compass. Even then the ubiquitous American 
 led the way, much less reticent and more irre- 
 pressible than his modern representative. Of Con- 
 tinental visitors to Britain in the early part of last 
 century, not a few, Lockhart says, crossed the 
 Channel, chiefly as a consequence of their interest 
 in Scott's writings, and in the hope of seeing the 
 man himself under his own roof. As for the more 
 intellectual of his own countrymen, Lockhart will 
 be surprised if it can be shown that any of them 
 crossed the Tweed without spending a day at 
 Abbotsford. 
 
 It was Scott's ambition to assemble at his board 
 
 92
 
 68 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 some of the best blood of the country, and at the 
 height of his prosperity he is said to have entertained 
 as many persons of distinction in rank, politics, art, 
 literature, and science, as the foremost nobleman of 
 his age ever did in the like space of time. Lock- 
 hart computes that one out of every six of the 
 British Peerage had dined at Scott's table. Prince 
 Leopold, afterwards Leopold I. of the Belgians, 
 husband of the Princess Charlotte, and the exiled 
 Crown Prince Gustavus of Sweden, were guests at 
 Abbotsford in 1819 and 1820 respectively. With 
 the leading Border families Scott was on the best 
 of terms, and the neighbouring gentry were all, 
 more or less, included within the Abbotsford circle. 
 Of his literary friendships some account will be 
 found in the next chapter. 
 
 Nor was Scott above introducing his poorer 
 relations to Abbotsford. No old acquaintance or 
 family connections, however remote their station 
 or style of manners, were forgotten or lost sight of. 
 These were welcome guests, whoever might be 
 under his roof; and it was the same with many an 
 old classmate, or the fellow-apprentice who had 
 faced him at the desk when he was proud to earn 
 threepence a page in drudging pen- work. ' To 
 dwell on nothing else,' says Lockhart, 'it was
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 69 
 
 surely a beautiful perfection of real universal 
 humanity and politeness that could enable this 
 great and good man to blend guests so multifarious 
 in one group, or contrive to make them all equally 
 happy with him, with themselves, and with each 
 other.' 
 
 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 con- 
 stant source of worry to Scott. Lockhart counted 
 in one day no fewer than sixteen parties begging 
 admittance. It was impossible at that time, it was 
 said, to pass between Melrose and Abbotsford 
 ' without encountering some odd figure, armed with 
 a sketch-book, evidently bent on a peep at the 
 Great Unknown.' 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 im- 
 pertinent 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
 
 70 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 merciless curiosity of a couple of tourists who had 
 been with her for some hours. They were rich 
 specimens tall, lanky young men, both of them 
 rigged out in new jackets and trousers of the 
 Macgregor tartan, the one a lawyer, the other a 
 Unitarian preacher from New England. These 
 gentlemen, when told on their arrival that Scott 
 was not at home, had shown such signs of im- 
 patience that the servant took it for granted they 
 must have serious business, and asked if they 
 would wish to speak a word with his lady. They 
 grasped at this, and so conducted themselves in the 
 interview that Mrs. Scott never doubted they had 
 brought letters of introduction to her husband, and 
 invited them accordingly to partake of her luncheon. 
 They had been walking about the house and 
 grounds with her and her daughters ever since that 
 time, and appeared at the porch, when the Sheriff 
 and his party returned to dinner, as if they had 
 been already fairly enrolled on his visiting-list. 
 For the moment he too was taken in ; he fancied 
 that his wife must have received and opened their 
 credentials, and shook hands with them with 
 courteous cordiality. But Mrs. Scott, with all her 
 overflowing good nature, was a sharp observer ; 
 and she, before a minute had elapsed, interrupted
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 71 
 
 the ecstatic compliments of the strangers by re- 
 minding them that her husband would be glad to 
 have the letters of the friends who had been so 
 good as to write by them. It then turned out 
 that there were no letters to be produced, and 
 Scott, signifying that his hour for dinner approached, 
 added that, as he supposed they meant to walk to 
 Melrose, he could not trespass further on their 
 time. The two lion-hunters seemed quite un- 
 prepared 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, after- 
 wards 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
 
 72 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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.' 
 
 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. 
 When the financial cloud burst, there is this touch- 
 ing record in the Diary : ' I was to have gone there 
 (Abbotsford) on Saturday in joy and prosperity to 
 receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in 
 vain. It is foolish, but the thought of parting with 
 these dumb creatures has moved me more than any 
 of the painful reflections 1 have put down. Poor
 
 SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD 73 
 
 things ! I must get them kind masters ! There 
 may be yet those who, loving me, may love my 
 dog, because it has been mine. ... I feel my 
 dogs' feet on my knees ; I hear them whining and 
 seeking me everywhere. This is nonsense, but it is 
 what they would do could they know how things 
 may be.' * 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.' 
 
 10
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 
 
 10-2
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 
 
 OF Scott's friendships in the world of letters, 
 Lockhart's account runs like a silver thread through 
 the Life. Many of his strongest ties were on the 
 literary side. His attitude to literature was a curious 
 one, however. Notwithstanding the unique place 
 which he held, and his unrivalled popularity, his 
 successes, from an author's point of view, were 
 accepted with singular sang-froid. Nor was he 
 ever heard to profess a love of literature for its 
 own sake. Carlyle's statement that, with Scott, 
 literature was mainly a means to an end and a 
 material enough one at that it is to be feared, is 
 only too true. His fictional work was made 
 entirely subsidiary to the other and more 
 tangible creations of his imagination and ambition 
 Abbotsford, and the race of Abbotsford Scotts. 
 Literary reputation, he was fond of saying, while 
 a bright enough feather in one's cap, is never a 
 substantial covering for the head. ' He never 
 
 77
 
 78 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 considered,' says Lockhart, ' any amount of literary 
 distinction as entitled to be spoken of in the same 
 breath with mastery in the higher departments of 
 practical life least of all, with the glory of a first- 
 rate captain. To have done things worthy to be 
 written was a dignity to which no man made any 
 approach who had only written things worthy to 
 be read.' Of his own work he seldom spoke, 
 except to his intimates. The making of a book he 
 held to be no great matter, and to the glory which 
 might be won thereby ' one is apt,' he said, 
 ' to ascribe an undue degree of consequence.' 
 Recounting his introduction to the Iron Duke, 
 he told Ballantyne that he had felt awed and 
 abashed as never before in the presence of the 
 man whom he regarded not only as the greatest 
 soldier, but also as the greatest statesman of the 
 age. Ballantyne suggested that, on his part, the 
 Duke had seen before him a great poet, and 
 the greatest novelist of the age. Scott smiled. 
 ' What,' said he, ' would the Duke of Wellington 
 think of a few bits of novels^ which perhaps he had 
 never read, and for which the strong probability is 
 that he would not care a sixpence if he had ?' ' I 
 have more than once,' said Laidlaw, ' heard Sir 
 Walter assert that, had his father left him an estate
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 79 
 
 of 500 or 600 a year, he would have spent his 
 time in miscellaneous reading, not writing.' This, 
 to a certain extent, might have been the case. It 
 is hardly likely, however. Had he not tasted 
 blood in the success of the * Minstrelsy,' and the 
 magnificent reception given to the verse romances, 
 matters might have been different. But, so singu- 
 larly successful at the first venture, it was not 
 possible for Scott to restrain himself from further 
 achievements. Writing was as natural to him as 
 breathing. From boyhood he had a penchant for 
 letters. And had he not been ' making himself ' 
 right on from Sandyknowe and Kelso to Lasswade 
 and Ashestiel? The fruit came late, but what a 
 crop ! Still, it was nothing for him, in one aspect 
 of it, to be the uncrowned king of his country's 
 literature. So far as it made him Scott of Abbots- 
 ford, that was a much more real matter. 
 
 We have seen how Abbotsford, in its palmy 
 days, was the most popular guest-house in the 
 kingdom. To the intellectual lions of the time its 
 doors offered a specially gracious welcome. Never 
 did gatherings glisten with a more resplendent genius 
 or such genuine good-fellowship. An Abbotsford 
 ' noctes ' was worth dozens at Ambrose's, as Lock- 
 hart and the contemporary biographies evidence.
 
 80 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 To the present bead-roll, which is based almost 
 entirely on the Biography, Thomas Faed's picture, 
 ' Scott and his Literary Friends,'* 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 Mend, 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 
 
 * In the possession of Captain Dennistoun of Golfhill. 
 The picture has been frequently on exhibition, and frequently 
 engraved.
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 81 
 
 back, standing, the painters Allan and Wilkie. 
 Thomas Thomson, Deputy Clerk Register, is on 
 the extreme left, and Sir Humphry Davy is ex- 
 amining a sword-hilt. A second and smaller copy 
 of Faed's picture (in the Woodlands Park collec- 
 tion, Bradford) substitutes Lord Byron and Wash- 
 ington 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. 
 
 Such a picture suggests instinctively the table- 
 talk of Abbotsford. One cannot help regretting 
 the absence of a volume on the subject, apart 
 from Lockhart. What would ' Bozzy ' not have 
 given for the opportunity ! Lockhart, naturally, 
 scorned to ' Boswellize' his hero. Notwithstanding 
 the sterling excellence of the Biography, with 
 its reproductions of many rare conversations and 
 chronicling of scores of delightful little incidents, 
 some of the finest things that fell from Scott's lips 
 and from his guests must have perished irretrievably. 
 Laidlaw, it is said, was urged to play the role of 
 Boswell, but declined, yet few could have done it 
 better. He was part of the establishment, and 
 hardly any company was considered complete 
 
 11
 
 82 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 without his quiet and sagacious presence. Scott 
 once remarked when they were alone, after a 
 specially brilliant night, that many a one, meeting 
 such people and hearing such talk, might make 
 excellent * copy ' out of it in a very lively and 
 entertaining book, which would be sure to be read 
 with interest. Hence the value of the ' Abbots- 
 ford Notanda' Laidlaw's correspondence and other 
 papers, collected and edited by Robert Carruthers 
 with no thought, possibly, on Laidlaw's part, of 
 their ever being printed. It is a perfect little gem 
 of its kind one of the sweetest pictures of the 
 Abbotsford life and of that winsomely ideal relation- 
 ship which existed between Sir Walter and his 
 steward. No student of Scott can overlook it. As 
 the writer, be it noted also, of one of the most 
 touching and characteristic Scottish ballads, 'Lucy's 
 Flittin',' and an enthusiastic collaborateur with 
 Scott in the ' Minstrelsy,' Laidlaw will always 
 merit the most honourable remembrance. 
 
 It is interesting to recall that Scott's first really 
 distinguished visitor from the arena of letters was 
 from the other side of the Atlantic Washington 
 Irving, an American of the Americans. Irving's 
 visit, doubtless, helped to modify Scott's estimate of 
 his countrymen. He did not at first care for many
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 83 
 
 of his Yankee admirers, but by-and-by not a few of 
 them became friends for life. Campbell introduced 
 Irving to Scott. ' When you see Tom Campbell,' 
 wrote Scott to Richardson of Kirklands, 'tell 
 him, with my best love, that I have to thank him 
 for making me known to Mr. Washington Irving, 
 who is one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances 
 I have made this many a day.' Irving was the 
 guest if we except Basil Hall at a later period 
 who made the most of his brief stay at Abbotsford. 
 He was there in August. 1817, whilst the building 
 operations were in progress. Some parts of his 
 famous and classical essay are too good and too 
 graphic not to be quoted at length. 
 
 * While the postilion was on his errand, I had 
 time to survey the mansion. It stood some short 
 distance below the road, on the side of a hill 
 sweeping down to the Tweed ; and was as yet but a 
 snug gentleman's cottage, with something rural 
 and picturesque in its appearance. The whole 
 front was overrun with evergreens, and immediately 
 above the portal was a great pair of elk horns, 
 branching out from beneath the foliage, and giving 
 the cottage the look of a hunting-lodge. The huge 
 baronial pile, to which this modest mansion in a 
 manner gave birth, was just emerging into existence; 
 part of the walls, surrounded by scaffolding, already 
 
 112
 
 84 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 had risen to the height of the cottage, and the 
 court-yard in front was encumbered by masses of 
 hewn stone. 
 
 * The noise of the chaise had disturbed the quiet 
 of the establishment. Out sallied the warder of the 
 castle, a black greyhound, and, leaping on one of 
 the blocks of stone, began a furious barking. His 
 alarm brought out the whole garrison of dogs, all 
 open-mouthed and vociferous. In a little while the 
 "lord of the castle " himself made his appearance. 
 I knew him at once by the descriptions I had read 
 and heard, and the likenesses that had been 
 published of him. He was tall, and of a large and 
 powerful frame. His dress was simple, and almost 
 rustic. An old green shooting-coat, with a dog- 
 whistle at the buttonhole, brown linen pantaloons, 
 stout shoes that tied at the ankles, and a white hat 
 that had evidently seen service. He came limping 
 up the gravel walk, aiding himself by a stout 
 walking-staff, but moving rapidly and with vigour. 
 By his side jogged along a large iron-grey staghound 
 of most grave demeanour, who took no part in the 
 clamour of the canine rabble, but seemed to consider 
 himself bound, for the dignity of the house, to give 
 me a courteous reception. 
 
 * Before Scott had reached the gate he called out 
 in a hearty tone, welcoming me to Abbotsford, and 
 asking news of Campbell. Arrived at the door of 
 the chaise, he grasped me warmly by the hand : 
 " Come, drive down, drive down to the house,"
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 85 
 
 said he ; " you're just in time for breakfast, and 
 afterwards ye shall see all the wonders of the 
 Abbey." 
 
 ' I would have excused myself, on the plea of 
 having already made my breakfast. " Hout, man," 
 cried he, " a ride in the morning in the keen air of 
 the Scotch hills is warrant enough for a second 
 breakfast." 
 
 ' I was accordingly whirled to the portal of the 
 cottage, and in a few moments found myself seated 
 at the breakfast-table. There was no one present 
 but the family, which consisted of Mrs. Scott, her 
 eldest daughter Sophia, then a fine girl about 
 seventeen, Miss Anne Scott, two or three years 
 younger, Walter, a well-grown stripling, and 
 Charles, a lively boy, eleven or twelve years of age. 
 I soon felt myself quite at home, and my heart in 
 a glow with the cordial welcome I experienced. I 
 had thought to make a mere morning visit, but 
 found I was not to be let off so lightly. " You 
 must not think our neighbourhood is to be read in 
 a morning, like a newspaper," said Scott. " It takes 
 several days of study for an observant traveller that 
 has a relish for auld-world trumpery. After break- 
 fast you shall make your visit to Melrose Abbey. 
 When you come back, I'll take you out on a ramble 
 about the neighbourhood. To-morrow w r e will 
 take a look at the Yarrow, and the next day we 
 will drive over to Dry burgh Abbey, which is a fine 
 old ruin well worth your seeing." In a word, before
 
 86 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Scott had got through with his plan, I found myself 
 committed for a visit of several days, and it seemed 
 as if a little realm of romance was suddenly opened 
 before me. . . . 
 
 * After my return from Melrose Abbey, Scott 
 proposed a ramble to show me something of the 
 surrounding country. As we sallied forth, every 
 dog in the establishment turned out to attend us. 
 There was the old staghound Maida, a noble 
 animal, and a great favourite of Scott's ; and 
 Hamlet, the black greyhound, a wild, thoughtless 
 youngster, not yet arrived to years of discretion ; 
 and Finette, a beautiful setter, with soft silken 
 hair, long pendent ears, and a mild eye the par- 
 lour favourite. When in front of the house, we 
 were joined by a superannuated greyhound, who 
 came from the kitchen wagging his tail, and was 
 cheered by Scott as an old friend and comrade. 
 
 ' In our walks, Scott would frequently pause in 
 conversation to notice his dogs and speak to them, 
 as if rational companions ; and, indeed, there appears 
 to be a vast deal of rationality in these faithful 
 attendants on man, derived from their close in- 
 timacy with him. Maida deported himself with 
 a gravity becoming his age and size, and seemed 
 to consider himself called upon to preserve a great 
 degree of dignity and decorum in our society. As 
 he jogged along a little distance ahead of us, the 
 young dogs would gambol about him, leap on his 
 neck, worry at his ears, and endeavour to tease
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 87 
 
 him into a frolic. The old dog would keep on for 
 a long time with imperturbable solemnity, now 
 and then seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his 
 young companions. At length he would make a 
 sudden turn, seize one of them, and tumble him in 
 the dust ; then, giving a glance at us, as much as 
 to say, " You see, gentlemen, I can't help giving 
 way to this nonsense," would resume his gravity 
 and jog on as before. 
 
 * Scott amused himself with these peculiarities. 
 " I make no doubt," said he, " when Maida is alone 
 with these young dogs he throws gravity aside, 
 and plays the boy as much as any of them ; but he 
 is ashamed to do so in our company, and seems to 
 say, * Ha' done with your nonsense, youngsters ; 
 what will the laird and that other gentleman think 
 of me if I give way to such foolery ?' " . . . 
 
 ' We rambled on among scenes which had been 
 familiar in Scottish song, and rendered classic by 
 the pastoral muse, long before Scott had thrown 
 the rich mantle of his poetry over them. What a 
 thrill of pleasure did I feel when first I saw the 
 broom-covered tops of the Cowdenknowes peeping 
 above the grey hills of the Tweed ! and what 
 touching associations were called up by the sight 
 of Ettrick Vale, Gala Water, and the Braes of 
 Yarrow ! Every turn brought to mind some 
 household air some almost forgotten song of the 
 nursery, by which I had been lulled to sleep in my 
 childhood ; and with them the looks and voices of
 
 88 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 those who had sung them, and who were now no 
 more. It is these melodies, chanted in our ears in 
 the days of infancy, and connected with the 
 memory of those we have loved, and who have 
 passed away, that clothe Scottish landscape with 
 such tender associations. . . . 
 
 * Our ramble took us on the hills, commanding an 
 extensive prospect. " Now," said Scott, " I have 
 brought you, like the pilgrim in the ' Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress,' to the top of the Delectable Mountains, 
 that I may show you all the goodly regions here- 
 abouts. Yonder is Lammermoor and Smailholm ; 
 and there you have Galashiels, and Torwoodlee, 
 and Gala Water ; and in that direction you see 
 Teviotdale, and the Braes of Yarrow, and Ettrick 
 stream, winding along, like a silver thread, to 
 throw itself into the Tweed." 
 
 * He went on thus to call over names celebrated 
 in Scottish song, and most of which had recently 
 received a romantic interest from his own pen. In 
 fact, I saw a great part of the Border Country 
 spread out before me, and could trace the scenes 
 of those poems and romances which had, in a 
 manner, bewitched the world. I gazed about me 
 for a time with mute surprise, I may almost say 
 with disappointment. I beheld a mere succession 
 of grey waving hills, line beyond line, as far as my 
 eye could reach, monotonous in their aspect, and 
 so destitute of trees that one could almost see a 
 stout fly walking along their profile ; and the far-
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 89 
 
 famed Tweed appeared a naked stream, flowing 
 between bare hills, without a tree or thicket on its 
 banks ; and yet, such had been the magic web of 
 poetry and romance thrown over the whole, that it 
 had a greater charm for me than the richest scenery 
 I beheld in England. 
 
 ' I could not help giving utterance to my thoughts. 
 Scott hummed for a moment to himself, and looked 
 grave ; he had no idea of having his muse com- 
 plimented at the expense of his native hills. "It 
 may be partiality," said he, at length ; " but to my 
 eye, these grey hills and all this wild Border Country 
 have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the 
 very nakedness of the land ; it has something bold, 
 and stern, and solitary about it. When I 'have 
 been for some time in the rich scenery about Edin- 
 burgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I 
 begin to wish myself back again among my honest 
 grey hills ; and if I did not see the heather at least 
 once a year, / think I should die /" The last words 
 were said with an honest warmth, accompanied with 
 a thump on the ground with his staff, by way of 
 emphasis, that showed his heart was in his speech.' 
 
 Following Irving's visit came Lady Byron for 
 a day only spent on the banks of the Yarrow. 
 Lord Byron never was at Abbotsford. Scott and 
 he met at John Murray's London house and else- 
 where, and they frequently corresponded. Like 
 
 12
 
 90 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 the old heroes in Homer, they exchanged gifts. 
 Scott gave Byron a beautiful dagger mounted with 
 gold, which had been the property of the redoubted 
 Elfi Bey, and some time after, Byron sent to 
 Abbotsford a large sepulchral vase of silver, filled 
 with dead men's bones from the Piraeus, and suitably 
 inscribed. A letter from the noble poet accom- 
 panying the gift was filched from the vase, much to 
 Scott's annoyance. 
 
 That same year, 1817, Sir David Wilkie painted 
 his incongruous ' Abbotsford Family ' (in the 
 Scottish National Gallery), wherein Scott figures 
 as a miller and the rest of the group as peasants. 
 Sir Adam Ferguson, who commissioned the pic- 
 ture, was depicted as a poacher. Wilkie's im- 
 pressions of Abbotsford, in a letter to his sister, 
 reveal the pleasant nature of his visit. ' I have 
 never been in any place,' he says, ' where there is so 
 much real good humour and merriment. There is 
 nothing but amusement from morning till night, and 
 if Scott is really writing " Rob Roy," it must be while 
 we are sleeping.' (That was practically so.) 'He 
 is either out planting trees, superintending the 
 masons, or erecting fences, the whole of the day. 
 He goes frequently out hunting, and this morning 
 there was a whole cavalcade of us out hunting hard.'
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 91 
 
 Lockhart at Abbotsford, which he first saw in 
 1818, merits a chapter to himself. Sir Humphry 
 Davy and Dr. Wollaston, natural philosophers 
 both, Henry Mackenzie, and William Stewart 
 Rose, translator of Ariosto, to whom Scott dedi- 
 cated the first canto of ' Marmion,' were at Abbots- 
 ford in 1820. Of their doings (unliterary) some 
 account will be found in the preceding pages. 
 The year 1823, when Miss Edgeworth visited 
 Abbotsford, Lockhart believes to be the happiest 
 in Scott's life. Probably no more welcome guest 
 crossed his threshold. Scott and she corresponded 
 occasionally. As a matter of fact, it was Maria's 
 delightful delineations of Irish life and character 
 which inspired him to try his own hand at fiction. 
 Long had he hoped to meet her. At last the 
 novelist of * Castle Rackrent ' and ' The Absentee ' 
 was in Scotland, with Abbotsford as her objective. 
 Barely had she and her sister reached Edinburgh 
 before a note came from Scott begging them to 
 venture to his house that very night, late as it was. 
 and just as they were, to hear the Laird of Staffa 
 and some of his clansmen singing Highland boat- 
 songs. ' Ten o'clock struck,' writes Miss Edge- 
 worth, ' as I read this note. We were tired ; we 
 were not fit to be seen ; but I sent for a hackney. 
 
 122
 
 92 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 and just as we were, without dressing, we went. 
 As the coach stopped, we saw the hall lighted, and 
 the moment the. door opened, heard the joyous 
 sounds of loud singing. Three servants : * The 
 Miss Edgeworths !' sounded from hall to landing- 
 place ; and as I paused for a moment in the ante- 
 room, I heard the first sound of Walter Scott's 
 voice ' The Miss Edgeworths ? come !' Thus 
 the eventful meeting took place, and the friendship 
 of two lives long intimate, so far as correspondence 
 can be said to create intimacy, seems to have grown 
 to its full height, literally at their first hand-clasp. 
 Here is Scott's opinion of the ' little Irish lioness,' 
 as he called her : * It is scarcely possible to say 
 more of this remarkable person than that she not 
 only completely answered, but exceeded the ex- 
 pectations which I had formed. I am particularly 
 pleased with the naivete and good - humoured 
 ardour of mind which she unites with such formid- 
 able powers of acute observation.' ' Never did I see 
 a brighter day at Abbotsford,' says Lockhart, 'than 
 that on which Miss Edgeworth first arrived there ; 
 never can I forget her look and accent when she 
 was received by Scott at his archway, and ex- 
 claimed : ' Everything about you is exactly what 
 one ought to have had wit enough to dream !' The
 
 CAULDSHIELS LOCH 
 
 1 The westland wind is hush and still, 
 The lake lies sleeping at my feet.'
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 93 
 
 visit was a series of fetes. The weather, on its 
 good behaviour, allowed of an out-of-doors life to 
 the full. One day they picnicked at Cauldshiels. 
 Another, the whole party feasted by the Rhymer's 
 Waterfall in the Glen, and the stone on which Maria 
 sat was ever afterwards called ' Edgeworth's stone.' 
 A third day they drove to the Upper Yarrow, and 
 about sunset the baskets were unpacked beside 
 St. Mary's Chapel of the Lowes, or all that remains 
 of it, high up on the hillside, overlooking the 
 shining waters of the Loch. The young ladies 
 trimmed their hair with heather and blue-bells, and 
 some of the party sang, and Scott recited, until it 
 was time to go home beneath the softest of harvest 
 moons. So passed that halcyon fortnight, and Miss 
 Edgeworth never saw Abbotsford again. But 
 exactly two years later, Mr. Lovell Edgeworth 
 threw open the doors of his classical mansion at 
 Edgeworthstown to the Wizard of the North, and 
 Maria, with her brother and sister, accompanied 
 him to Killarney amid a succession of festive gaiety 
 wherever they halted. 
 
 John Leycester Adolphus, author of the ' Letters 
 to Heber,' unmasking the ' Great Unknown ' in 
 proof that * Marmion ' and ' Waverley ' were from 
 the same pen, was a frequent guest from 1823
 
 94 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 onwards. His ' Memoranda, like Irving's and 
 Hall's, discloses interesting little sidelights of Scott 
 as seen by an outsider. There is nothing better 
 than his exquisite description of Scott's laugh : 
 * Never, perhaps, did a man go through all the 
 gradations of laughter with such complete enjoy- 
 ment and a countenance so radiant. The first 
 dawn of a humorous thought would show itself 
 sometimes, as he sat silent, by an involuntary 
 lengthening of the upper lip, followed by a shy 
 sidelong glance at his neighbours, indescribably 
 whimsical, and seeming to ask from their looks 
 whether the spark of drollery should be suppressed 
 or allowed to blaze out. In the full tide of mirth 
 he did, indeed, laugh the heart's laugh, like 
 Walpole, but it was not boisterous and over- 
 powering, nor did it check the course of his words. 
 He could go on telling or descanting, while his 
 lungs did * crow like chanticleer,' his syllables, in 
 the struggle, growing more emphatic, his accent 
 more strongly Scotch, and his voice plaintive with 
 excess of merriment.' 
 
 Tom Moore came in 1825 the culminating 
 year. Scott and he had only once met, in public, 
 some twenty years earlier. Abbotsford, curiously, 
 but luckily for Moore, was absolutely guestless
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 95 
 
 during his visit. Scott enjoyed having the author 
 of * Lalla Rookh ' all to himself, and sacrificed his 
 mornings, usually sacred to work, in honour of the 
 occasion. The liking between the two men was 
 immediate, but none the less profound. To 
 Moore and tired, doubtless, of the long mask- 
 wearing Scott confessed the Novels' authorship, 
 the first avowal outside his own circle. On the 
 third day Moore's Diary notes that Scott, ' laying 
 his hand cordially on my breast, said : " Now, my 
 dear Moore, we are friends for life." Together 
 they called on Laidlaw at Kaeside, the Fergusons 
 at Huntlyburn, saw Melrose, and in the evening 
 Scott * collected his neighbours to enjoy his guest, 
 with the wit and humour of Sir Adam Ferguson, 
 his picturesque stories of the Peninsula, and his 
 inimitable singing of the old Jacobite ditties.' ' I 
 parted from Scott,' says Moore, ' with the feeling 
 that all the world might admire him in his works, 
 but that those only could learn to love him as he 
 deserved who had seen him at Abbotsford.' And 
 there is no passage in Moore's memoirs more 
 evidently sincere than that in which he expresses 
 (only a few months later) his ' deep and painful 
 sympathy ' in the news of Scott's financial mis- 
 fortune : ' For poor devils like me (who have never
 
 96 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 known better) to fag and to be pinched for means, 
 becomes, as it were, a second nature ; but for Scott, 
 whom I saw living in such luxurious comfort, and 
 dispensing such cordial hospitality, to be thus 
 suddenly reduced to the necessity of working his 
 way is too bad, and I grieve for him from my heart.' 
 Arthur Henry Hallam, of ' In Memoriam,' cut 
 off in the very bloom of life and genius, accom- 
 panied by his father, the historian, was at Abbots- 
 ford in 1829. His beautiful verses, 'written after 
 visiting Melrose Abbey in company of Scott,' have 
 been often reprinted : 
 
 ' I lived an hour in fair Melrose ; 
 
 It was not when the " pale moonlight " 
 Its magnifying charm bestows ; 
 
 Yet deem I that I " viewed it right. 1 " 
 The wind-swept shadows fast careered, 
 Like living things that joyed or feared, 
 Adown the sunny Eildon Hill, 
 And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crowned well. 
 
 * I inly laughed to see that scene 
 
 Wear such a countenance of youth, 
 Though many an age those hills were green, 
 
 And yonder river glided smooth, 
 Ere in these now disjointed walls 
 The Mother Church held festivals, 
 And full-voiced anthemings the while 
 Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the echoing 
 aisle.
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 97 
 
 * I coveted that Abbey's doom ; 
 
 For if, I thought, the early flowers 
 Of our affection may not bloom, 
 
 Like those green hills, through countless hours, 
 Grant me at least a tardy waning, 
 Some pleasure still in age's paining ; 
 Though lines and forms must fade away, 
 Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay ! 
 
 ' But looking toward the grassy mound 
 
 Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie 
 Who, living, quiet never found, 
 
 I straightway learnt a lesson high : 
 For there an old man sat serene, 
 And well I knew that thoughtful mien 
 Of him whose early lyre had thrown 
 Over these mouldering walls the magic of its tone. 
 
 ' Then ceased I from my envying state, 
 
 And knew that aweless intellect 
 Hath power upon the ways of fate, 
 
 And works through time and space unchecked. 
 That minstrel of old chivalry 
 In the cold grave must come to be, 
 But his transmitted thoughts have part 
 In the collective mind, and never shall depart. 
 
 * It was a comfort, too, to see 
 
 Those dogs that from him ne'er would rove, 
 And always eyed him reverently, 
 
 With glances of depending love. 
 They know not of that eminence 
 Which marks him to my reasoning sense ; 
 They know but that he is a man, 
 And still to them is kind, and glads them all he can. 1 
 
 13
 
 98 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 That same summer Mrs. Hemans, visiting the 
 Hamiltons at Chiefswood, was daily at Abbotsford. 
 Lockhart has no mention of the occasion. See, 
 however, the references in the 'Journal.' As with 
 Miss Edge worth, Scott piloted the ' poet of woman- 
 hood ' to Yarrow, and over into Ettrick, and in the 
 Rhymer's Glen he related the incident which gave 
 origin to her inspiring * Rhine Song.'* At parting 
 with her, he said, ' There are some whom we meet 
 and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin ; 
 and you are one of these.' Susan Ferrier, authoress 
 of ' Marriage,' ' Inheritance,' etc., novels of the 
 older school (in need of modern revival), visited 
 Scott in 1829, and again in 1831. 'This gifted 
 personage,' says the ' Journal,' besides having great 
 talents, has conversation the least eocigeante of any 
 author female, at least whom I have ever seen 
 among the long list I have encountered simple, 
 full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee ; 
 and all this without the least affectation of the blue- 
 stocking, 'f 
 
 * See * Memoir of Mrs. Hemans ' and her beautiful poem 
 on ' The Funeral-Day of Sir Walter Scott. 1 
 
 t See ' Memoir and Correspondence of Susan Ferrier, 1 
 edited by J. A. Doyle, for account of her visits to Ashestiel 
 and Abbotsford.
 
 THE RHYMER'S GLEN 
 
 1 Come now, O Queen of Faery, 
 
 With the first love-steps of spring ; 
 The larch holds out its tassels. 
 The birks their splendour fling. 
 
 Thy Rhymer's Glen is yearning, 
 Methinks thou tarriest long, 
 
 While breeze, and bird, and burnie 
 Sing one expectant song."
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 99 
 
 Wordsworth was the last of the giants to visit 
 Scott at Abbot sford. They met for the first time 
 at Lasswade Cottage as far back as 1803, and at 
 least on four other occasions, both in Scotland and 
 England. But how altered the circumstances of their 
 present meeting ! Scott, a confirmed invalid, was 
 on the eve of saying farewell to Abbotsford practi- 
 cally for ever. Wordsworth arrived on Septem- 
 ber 21, 1831, and Scott was to leave on the 23rd. 
 On the 22nd the last day at home, and the last 
 one of real enjoyment the two friends spent the 
 morning together in a visit to Newark. ' It was 
 a day to deepen both in Scott and Wordsworth 
 whatever of sympathy either of them had with the 
 very different genius of the other '; and that it had 
 this result in Wordsworth's case we know from the 
 very beautiful poem ' Yarrow Revisited,' and the 
 Sonnet (' A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping 
 rain '), which the occasion also produced. As 
 long as English poetry lives, so will the memory 
 of that last day of the Last Minstrel at 
 Newark : 
 
 ' Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day, 
 
 Their dignity installing 
 In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves 
 Were on the bough, or falling ; 
 
 132
 
 100 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed- 
 
 The Forest to embolden ; 
 Reddened the fiery hues, and shot 
 
 Transparence through the golden. 
 
 ' For thee, O Scott ! compelled to change 
 
 Green Eildon Hill and Cheviot 
 For warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes ; 
 
 And leave thy Tweed and Teviot 
 For mild Sorrento's breezy waves ; 
 
 May classic Fancy, linking 
 With native Fancy her fresh aid, 
 
 Preserve thy heart from sinking ! 
 
 ' O ! while they minister to thee, 
 
 Each vying with the other, 
 May Health return to mellow Age 
 
 With Strength, her venturous brother 
 And Tiber, and each brook and rill 
 
 Renowned in song and story, 
 With unimagined beauty shine, 
 
 Nor lose one ray of glory ! 
 
 ' For Thou, upon a hundred streams, 
 
 By tales of love and sorrow, 
 Of faithful love, undaunted truth, 
 
 Hast shed the power of Yarrow ! 
 And streams unknown, hills yet unseen, 
 
 Wherever they invite Thee, 
 At parent Nature's grateful call, 
 
 With gladness must requite Thee.'
 
 AN ABBOTSFORD BEAD-ROLL 101 
 
 Sitting in the Library that same night, the talk 
 turned on Smollett and Fielding, both driven 
 abroad, as Scott recalled, like himself, through 
 declining health, and we hardly wonder if there 
 was the feeling present to his mind that, like them, 
 he, too, might not return. 
 
 Mention of Yarrow instinctively calls up the 
 name of James Hogg, a true friend of Scott, 
 notwithstanding Lockhart's farrago. Hogg and 
 Lockhart were constantly misunderstanding one 
 another. In one sense, they were wide as the poles 
 asunder Lockhart aristocratic to the finger-tips, 
 Hogg excessively plebeian. But that should have 
 made no difference. It made no difference with 
 Scott. Lockhart undoubtedly tried to help Hogg 
 a good deal, which Hogg resented more than once ; 
 hence Lockhart's strictures. But for all that, the 
 Shepherd is a picturesque and lovable figure, even 
 in the pages of Lockhart. Hogg's alleged * insult ' 
 to the dust of Scott the ' Scorpion's ' most stinging 
 charge against him amounts, after all, to very 
 little. That Hogg was never further from insult in 
 the writing of his little brochure* seems perfectly 
 clear. There are, to be sure, some things that had 
 
 * * Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter 
 Scott, 1 first published 1834 ; reprinted 1882.
 
 102 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 been better left unsaid. But the book is, neverthe- 
 less, one of the brightest and most natural pen- 
 portraits of Scott that we have. Hogg was a 
 regular visitor at Abbotsford. Laidlaw denies that 
 he ever, even in his cups, descended to * Wattie ' 
 and ' Charlotte.' Scott smiled at Hogg's inordinate 
 vanity, and Hogg had one or two stupid estrange- 
 ments with him. But Sir Walter's attachment to 
 his more humble compeer was never lessened in the 
 least until the day when the two friends parted for 
 ever at the Gordon Arms in Yarrow the dearest 
 vale on earth to them both.* 
 
 * Of other Abbotsford visitors, mention may be made of 
 Skene of Rubislaw, a friend of long standing; Sir David 
 Brewster, who lived at Allerly, on the Gattonside bank of 
 the Tweed ; William Scrope, author of ' Days and Nights of 
 Salmon Fishing on the Tweed," 1 who leased the Pavilion, 
 * and lived on terms of affectionate intimacy with Scott '; 
 G. P. R. James, the novelist, who rented Maxpoffle, near 
 Bowden; Thomas Hamilton, Lockharfs tenant at Chiefs- 
 wood ; Lord Cockburn, a frequent guest ; J. M. W. Turner, 
 R.A., and a host of artists who found their way at all seasons 
 to Abbotsford. Of celebrated visitors after Scott's day, 
 there were Queen Victoria in 1867 ; George Eliot in 1845 ; 
 Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, Edward FitzGerald, William 
 Howitt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, R. L. Stevenson, with men 
 and women of note from every land.
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL TO 
 ABBOTSFORD
 
 THE WIZARDS FAREWELL TO ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ON March 5, 1817, at Castle Street, in the midst 
 of a merry dinner-party, Scott was seized with a 
 sudden illness the first since his childhood. The 
 disorder was cramp in the stomach of an unusually 
 severe type. From Gillies's ' Recollections ' we 
 learn that, although disabled and compelled to 
 retire to his room, he was unwilling that the 
 festivity of the evening should be broken up, and 
 actually sent a message to Mrs. Siddons that 
 nothing would do him so much good as to hear her 
 sing. He would, he said, be all right in the 
 morning. But the illness lasted a week, and was 
 more serious than had been anticipated. It was, 
 indeed, the first of a series of such paroxysms, which 
 for years visited him periodically, and from which 
 he never absolutely recovered. Probably the best 
 index to his feelings at this period is found in 
 what may be described as the most pathetically 
 poetic verses he ever penned. He was at Abbots- 
 
 105 14
 
 106 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ford, battling with depression and melancholy, and 
 seldom without a sense of pain. On the bare 
 height above Cauldshiels, with its then magnificent 
 prospect of Melrose and the open valley of the 
 Tweed, hemmed in on the west by the Selkirkshire 
 uplands, he wrote, on one lovely autumn evening, 
 these exquisite lines exquisite because expressing 
 the deepest passion of his soul at the moment : 
 
 ' The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill, 
 
 In Ettrick's vale, is sinking sweet ; 
 The westland wind is hush and still 
 
 The lake lies sleeping at my feet. 
 Yet not the landscape to mine eye 
 
 Bears those bright hues that once it bore, 
 Though evening with her richest dye 
 
 Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore. 
 
 ' With listless look along the plain 
 
 I see Tweed's silver current glide, 
 And coldly mark the holy fane 
 
 Of Melrose rise in ruin'd pride. 
 The quiet lake, the balmy air, 
 
 The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree 
 Are they still such as once they were, 
 
 Or is the dreary change in me ? 
 
 ' Alas ! the warp'd and broken board, 
 How can it bear the painter's dye ! 
 The harp of strain'd and tuneless chord, 
 How to the minstrel's skill reply !
 
 ' Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright ; 
 There's a golden gleam on the distant height ; 
 There's a silver shower on the alders dank 
 And the drooping willows that wave on the bank. 
 I see the Abbey, both turret and tower 
 It is all astir for the vesper hour ; 
 The monks for the c lapel are leaving each cell, 
 But where's Father Philip, should toll the bell?'
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 107 
 
 To aching eyes each landscape lowers, 
 To feverish pulse each gale blows chill, 
 
 And Araby's or Eden's bowers 
 
 Were barren as this moorland hill. 1 
 
 The ' change ' in himself was visible enough. He 
 was worn almost to a skeleton, and sat on his horse 
 slanting, as if unable to hold himself upright. His 
 dress was threadbare and disordered, his countenance 
 meagre, haggard, and of the deadliest olive brown. 
 Afterwards, a single season blanched his hair snow- 
 white. The last days of the Last Minstrel seemed 
 to have come. Lockhart parted on one occasion 
 with * dark prognostications ' that it was for the 
 last time. Scott, too, despaired of himself. Calling 
 his children about his bed, he took leave of 
 them with solemn tenderness, adding, * For my- 
 self, my dears, I am unconscious of ever having 
 done any man an injury, or omitted any fair 
 opportunity of doing any man a benefit. I well 
 know that no human life can appear otherwise 
 than weak and filthy in the eyes of God ; but I 
 rely on the merits and intercession of our Redeemer.' 
 * God bless you !' he again said to each of them, 
 laying his hand on their heads. ' Live so that you 
 may all hope to meet each other in a better place 
 hereafter.' Presently he fell into a profound 
 
 142
 
 108 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 slumber, and on awaking, the crisis was seen to 
 be over. A gradual re-establishment of health 
 followed. Of the ' Bride of Lammermoor,' and 
 ' Ivanhoe,' written under the most adverse circum- 
 stances, whilst he still suffered acutely, one is 
 surprised to find both romances in the very front 
 rank of his creations. He was under opiates, more 
 or less, when the ' Bride ' was on the stocks, 
 dictating nearly the whole of it to Laidlaw and 
 John Ballantyne. It is a most curious fact psycho- 
 logically, for of its characters, scenes, humour, and 
 all that connected him with the authorship of the 
 story, he recollected nothing. A more extra- 
 ordinary incident literature has not known.* But 
 work which cut him short in the end was the saving 
 of his life in this instance. The mind was a con- 
 stant conquest over the weaker physical framework. 
 k It is my conviction,' he declared to Gillies, ' that 
 by a little more hearty application you might 
 forget, and lose altogether, the irritable sensations 
 of an invalid, and I don't, in this instance, preach 
 what I have not endeavoured to practise. Be 
 assured that if pain could have prevented my 
 application to literary labour, not a page of 
 
 * Dickens, however, had a somewhat similar experience, 
 though not, of course, to the like extent.
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 109 
 
 " Ivanhoe " would have been written ; for, from 
 beginning to end of that production, which has 
 been a good deal praised, I was never free from 
 suffering. It might have borne a motto somewhat 
 analogous to the inscription which Frederick the 
 Great's predecessor used to affix to his attempts at 
 portrait-painting when he had the gout : " Freder- 
 icus I., in tormentis pinxit." Now, if I had given 
 way to mere feelings and ceased to work, it is a 
 question whether the disorder might not have 
 taken deeper root, and become incurable. The 
 best way is, if possible, to triumph over disease by 
 setting it at defiance, somewhat on the same 
 principle as one avoids being stung by boldly 
 grasping a nettle.' 
 
 By 1820 he was enjoying tolerably good health, 
 with no cramp recurrences for a time. But in 
 1823, when busy with ' Peveril,' an arresting 
 hand laid itself upon Scott in the shape of a slight 
 stroke of apoplexy. As a matter of fact, and as 
 Lockhart suspected, this was only one of several 
 such shocks which he had been carefully concealing. 
 ' " Peveril " will, I fear, smell of the apoplexy,' he 
 afterwards admitted. Hence, no doubt, ' Peveril's ' 
 dulness. He rallied, notwithstanding, and up to 
 Christmas, 1825, his health was excellent. But
 
 110 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 from 1826 the year of his crowning sorrows 
 the record of Scott's life reads like a long martyr- 
 dom. Rheumatism, hallucinations, strange memory 
 lapses, began to steal from Scott all the little joy 
 that was left. On February 5, 1830, the blow fell 
 which, like Damocles' sword, had been hanging over 
 him for years. It fell with unmistakable meaning. 
 It was his first real paralytic seizure long dreaded, 
 long expected. On his return from the Parliament 
 House, in his usual health, he found an old friend 
 waiting to consult him about a memoir of her 
 father which he had promised to revise for the 
 press. Whilst examining the IMS. the stroke 
 came, a slight contortion passing over his features. 
 In a minute or two he rose, staggered to the 
 drawing-room, where were Miss Anne Scott and 
 Miss Lockhart, but fell to the floor speechless 
 and insensible. A surgeon quickly at hand cupped 
 him, after the old-fashioned treatment for such 
 complaints. By night, speech had returned, and 
 in a day or two he had resumed his Court duties. 
 But he was never the same again. People in 
 general did not remark any difference. Doctors 
 and patient, however, knew well enough that it 
 was the beginning of the end. Both his parents 
 had succumbed to paralysis, and ' considering the
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 111 
 
 terrible violence and agitation and exertion,' says 
 Lockhart, ' to which he had been subjected during 
 the four preceding years, the only wonder is that 
 this blow was deferred so long ; there can be none 
 that it was soon followed by others.' 
 
 Still he plodded on. Even with half a brain he 
 should not ' lag superfluous on the stage.' And 
 heedless of innumerable warnings, he was at his 
 desk day after day, writing and dictating by turns. 
 He now resigned his Clerkship, on an 800 a year 
 allowance, surrendered his Edinburgh house, and 
 settled permanently at Abbotsford, lonely and 
 desolate, an old man before his time, but indomit- 
 able to the core. 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 
 pronounced the ' Count ' a complete failure. Yet 
 he struggled to recast it. To crown all, he went 
 to the ' hustings ' a hardened anti-Reform Billite.
 
 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 At Jedburgh, as Lockhart tells, the crowd saluted 
 him with blasphemous shouts of ' Burke Sir 
 Walter !'* 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 Lanark- 
 shire 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 
 * The Burke and Hare murders were recent.
 
 JEDBURGH ABBEY 
 
 ' The sacred tapers' lights are gone, 
 
 Gray moss has clad the altar stone, 
 
 The holy image is o'erthrown, 
 The bell has ceased to toll ; 
 
 The long ribb'd aisles are burst and shrunk, 
 
 The holy shrines to ruin sunk ; 
 
 Departed is the pious monk- 
 God's blessing on his soul ! '

 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 113 
 
 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.' 
 
 Returned, he finished 'Count Robert' and ' Castle 
 Dangerous.' Both novels were really the fruit of 
 a paralytic brain. The ' Magnum Opus,'* 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 
 
 * 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 
 illustrated throughout by historical and antiquarian annota- 
 tions. 
 
 15
 
 114 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 again with Moore, Milman, Croker, Wilkie, and 
 Washington Irving) there is no need to write, 
 nor of the Italian tour Malta, Naples, Rome,* 
 Florence, Venice for which, no matter the bril- 
 liance of their associations, he exhibited but a mere 
 passive interest. His heart was in the homeland. 
 Its voices had the strongest appeal for him ; an 
 exile song rang in his ears : 
 
 ' Hame ! hame ! hame ! O hame fain wad I be ! 
 O hame ! hame ! hame ! to my ain countrie. 1 
 
 Not a little of the scenery reminded him of 
 Scotland Edinburgh, the Eildons, Cauldshiels, 
 Abbotsford. A peasant's lilt recalled the melodies 
 of the Border, and pathetically he repeated some 
 lines from ' Jock o' Hazeldean ' and his boyhood's 
 ' Hardyknute.' When, on March 22, he heard of 
 Goethe's death, whom he hoped to visit, he ex- 
 claimed : ' Alas for Goethe ! but he at least died at 
 home ; let us to Abbotsford !' Then, by-and-by, 
 the return journey was begun, via Switzerland, the 
 Tyrol, Munich, Heidelberg, to Frankfort and the 
 
 * Scott resided for a month in the Casa Bernini. In 1882 
 the Earl of Haddington unveiled a marble tablet in com- 
 memoration of the visit, when the venerable Due deSalmonetta, 
 with whom Sir Walter travelled in Italy, was present and 
 took part in the proceedings.
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 115 
 
 Rhine. At Nimeguen, on June 9, he had another 
 attack of apoplexy, combined with paralysis. It 
 was the crowning blow. By the 13th, London was 
 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 was 
 in London then, and 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 ?' ' Abbots- 
 ford !' was his cry in the more lucid intervals that 
 came to him. All its summer beauty seemed to be 
 standing out before him, and to beckon him north- 
 wards. 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 passed, as all the voyage had 
 been, in a condition of absolute unconsciousness. 
 On the llth, 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 
 
 152
 
 116 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 drive he remained torpid, until the veil lifted some- 
 what 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 assisted 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
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 117 
 
 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, alter- 
 nating 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, assured 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 utter- 
 ances. 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 snatches 
 from Isaiah, or the Book of Job, or some grand
 
 118 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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. God 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
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 119 
 
 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.' 
 
 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 anticipations. 
 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, com- 
 pletely cleared his engagements.* 
 
 * As all the world knows, Scott stood indebted in 1826, 
 on the Ballantyne-Constable crash, for no less a sum than 
 ^120,000, and a further <10,000 raised on Abbotsford with 
 the view of averting the disaster. He determined to give 
 every man his own. ' If my life is spared, nobody shall lose a 
 penny by me, 1 he said, ' and this right hand shall work it all off.' 
 Between 1826 and 1832 the debt was diminished by ^66,000,
 
 120 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 On September 26 a Wednesday Sir Walter 
 was buried. Services at Abbotsford, after the 
 
 an average of 11,000 a year. Against the remaining 
 .54,000, a sum of .22,000 was received for his life insurance, 
 and a generous advance from Cadell enabled his executors to 
 settle in full with the Ballantyne creditors. By 1847 the 
 loan was reduced to one-half, and the mortgage on the lands 
 to .8,500. On May 11, 1847, Lockhart writes to Croker : 
 ' I have finally settled all our Sir Walter's affairs. There 
 remained debt secured on the lands, ,8,500; to Cadell, 
 16,000 ; and sundries, .1,000. I have taken the .1,000 
 on myself, and Cadell obliterates the 24,500 on condition 
 of getting the whole remaining copyright of Scott's works, 
 and also of the Life. 1 At the time of the failure Scott 
 surrendered his Collection at Abbotsford to his creditors ; 
 but so pleased were they with his fair and honourable response 
 to their claims that they requested him to accept the furni- 
 ture, plate, paintings, library, and museum, as a mark of 
 sympathy and appreciation of his conduct. He valued his 
 Collection at =10,000, and left it in his will to his eldest son, 
 burdened to the extent of =5,000, for division among his 
 younger children. In order to effect this, the second Sir 
 Walter would have been obliged to disperse the Collection 
 but for a subscription raised among a number of Scott's 
 admirers to purchase the Abbotsford Collection and hold it 
 in trust for the public and the family. This trust is vested 
 in the Dean and Council of the Faculty of Advocates, who 
 are empowered to leave the Collection in the charge and 
 keeping of Scott's representatives at Abbotsford, or, should 
 occasion arise, to remove it to some other building. The 
 copyrights purchased by Cadell in 1847 were sold in 1851 by
 
 THE WIZARD'S FAREWELL 121 
 
 simple fashion of the Scottish Kirk, were conducted 
 by the Revs. Principal Baird, of Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity, Dr. Dickson, of St. Cuthbert's, and the 
 minister of Melrose. The courtyard and all the 
 precincts of Abbotsford were crowded with un- 
 covered 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 crape banner waved in 
 the wind, and the Abbey bell at Melrose rang a 
 muffled peel. At Leaderfoot the Tweed was 
 crossed for the last time. Thence there is a some- 
 what steep ascent to Gladswood and Bemersyde. 
 On the crest of the road overlooking the * beautiful 
 bend ' the hearse 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 
 
 private bargain for .27,000 to Messrs. Adam and Charles 
 Black, the publishers of the present volume. Messrs. Black's 
 editions of Scott's works may, therefore, be trusted to contain 
 the exact text as left in the 'Magnum Opus,' the MSS. of 
 which are still in their possession. 
 
 * Scott was an intense favourite with the Darnickers, who 
 playfully dubbed him ' Duke of Darnick.' 
 
 16
 
 122 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 own, and must have borne him many a time 
 hither. Hence the explanation of an incident 
 which, strangely enough, seems to have puzzled 
 Lockhart, and was long regarded with a sort of 
 superstitious awe. It was late in the day about 
 half-past five before the memorable procession 
 reached Dryburgh. The wide enclosure was 
 thronged with old and young. Peter Mathieson, 
 Laidlaw, and others of Scott's servants carried the 
 plain black coffin to the grave within St. Mary's 
 aisle, where it was lowered by his two sons, his son- 
 in-law, and six of his cousins, Archdeacon Williams 
 reading the Burial Service of the Church of England. 
 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, 'in sure and 
 certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ.'
 
 LEADERFOOT BRIDGE 
 
 ' Sing Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes, 
 
 Where Homes had ance commanding ; 
 And Drygrange, with the milk-white yowes, 
 Twixt Tweed and Leader standing.'
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 
 
 162
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 
 
 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, next to Boswell the 
 greatest of British biographers, though Mr. Saints- 
 bury is inclined to class him even above Boswell, 
 was born in the manse of Cambusnethan, June 12, 
 1794.* He came of an ancestry of which he might 
 well be proud. Some of the best blood of Scotland 
 ran in his veins. Lockhart of Lee, in Lanarkshire, 
 was probably the source of his family. The 
 Lockharts had owned territory in the Upper 
 Ward for centuries, Symington, or Symon's Town, 
 famous now chiefly as a junction on the Caledonian 
 Railway, being, perhaps, their earliest possession. 
 The name is thought to be derived from Symon 
 Locard, who founded its church and assumed 
 lordship of the locality in the reign of Malcolm the 
 
 * Mr. Lang's * Life of Lockhart ' gives the date as July 14 ; 
 the month is probably a printer's error, however. At Dryburgh 
 the date is June 14 ; but the Cambusnethan Records read 
 June 12. 
 
 125
 
 126 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Maiden. Lee itself may have been acquired about 
 the close of the thirteenth century by William 
 Locard, whose son, another Symon, was companion 
 to ' the Good ' Sir James Douglas on his hazardous 
 mission with the heart of Bruce. Every schoolboy 
 knows how Douglas fell on a blood-red field of 
 Spain, how he flung the royal casket in front of 
 him with the cry, ' Forward, brave heart, as thou 
 wert wont ; Douglas will follow thee or die,' and 
 how Locard assumed the lead, rescued the King's 
 heart and the body of his comrade, and, like a wise 
 man, returned to Scotland. Bruce's heart he laid by 
 the high altar at Melrose, the Douglas with his own 
 dear dust in the Kirk of St. Bride, among the Lanark- 
 shire uplands. It was this Symon who brought to 
 Scotland the famous Lee Penny Scott's ' Talis- 
 man,' the most celebrated charm in the country a 
 heart-shaped, dark-red stone now set in a groat of 
 Edward IV., with a silver chain and ring attached, 
 and long sought after by the superstitious as a posi- 
 tive cure for the worst ailments of man and beast. 
 
 Following Sir Symon Locard there comes on 
 the scene Sir Stephen Lockhart,* as the name 
 
 * There is no foundation for the fanciful etymology of the 
 name Lockhart, quasi Lock-heart (purely post facto). There 
 were Locards in Scotland long before 1830.
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 127 
 
 was now spelled, who held the lands of Cleghorn, in 
 the same county. He was the direct male ancestor 
 of John Gibson Lockhart, and almost certainly a 
 cadet of the Lee family. His son, Allan Lock- 
 hart of Cleghorn, married for his second wife a 
 daughter of the third Lord Somerville, by whom 
 he had a son Stephen, Laird of Wicketshaw, also in 
 Lanarkshire. In 1606 another Stephen, grandson 
 of the latter, married Grizel Carmichael, a sister of 
 the first Lord Carmichael, and by her he had three 
 sons : William, heir to Wicketshaw ; Robert of 
 Birkhill, in the parish of Lesmahagow ; and Walter 
 of Kirkton. From the second of these, a noted 
 Covenanter and leader of the Lanark Whigs at 
 Bothwell, Scott's biographer had his immediate 
 descent. William Lockhart, grandson of Robert 
 of Birkhill, and his wife, Violet Inglis, of Core- 
 house, had two sons, the second of whom was 
 the Rev. John Lockhart, D.D., minister of 
 Cambusnethan, and for nearly half a century of the 
 College Kirk, Glasgow. Dr. Lockhart was twice 
 married, and it was his second wife, Elizabeth 
 Gibson, daughter of the Rev. John Gibson, senior 
 minister of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, w r ho became 
 the mother of John Gibson Lockhart. Lockhart 's 
 ancestry on his mother's side connects him with
 
 128 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 James Nimmo the Covenanter, with the Erskines 
 of Cardross, and the Pringles of Torwoodlee. 
 
 While the boy was still young his parents re- 
 moved to Glasgow. There Lockhart matriculated, 
 and blossomed into a scholar of brilliant parts, 
 winning such academic blue ribbons as the Greek 
 Blackstone and a Snell Exhibition, which took 
 him to Oxford. He was at Balliol for some 
 years, and left in 1813 with a 'first' in Classics. 
 After a Continental visit (conversing with Goethe 
 at Weimar), he studied law at Edinburgh, and in 
 1816 was called to the Scottish Bar. His Parlia- 
 ment House career came to a rather curious end, 
 however. Speechifying was not in his line. He 
 flustered and floundered upon every attempt, and 
 was a complete failure. And he might have per- 
 ambulated the boards of the Parliament Hall long 
 enough. For, like Scott, 'deil a ane speered his 
 price.' ' Gentlemen,' said he, in happy allusion to 
 this infirmity on the occasion of a banquet in his 
 honour long after he had relinquished the Bar, 
 ' you know that if I could speak we would not be 
 here.'* 
 
 * Yet we find Lockhart, at the Jedburgh circuit of 1823, 
 ' pleading," so Scott says, * for a clansman of mine (Rob Scott), 
 who, having sustained an affront from two men on the road
 
 129 
 
 It was in the realm of literature (more alluring 
 than law) that Lockhart was fated to shine. 
 Already he had shown talent in that direction in 
 his 'Heraldry' article for Brewster's 'Encyclopaedia,' 
 and a translation of Schlegel's ' Lectures on the 
 History of Literature.' And when Black-wood's 
 Magazine soared into the arena (1817), Lockhart 
 and John Wilson divided its chief honours. It 
 was largely under Lockhart that ' Maga ' made its 
 position as the most pronounced Tory organ of the 
 day. In his earlier career Lockhart adopted the 
 slash -style of criticism (the tomahawk type) 
 incisive, irritating, and keenly offensive, as a rule. 
 He was a master of satire, blazing away to his 
 heart's content, with many to fear him, but none 
 to stay his unsparing pen. If he could not speak, 
 he could at least write to purpose and with effect. 
 He had now come to his kingdom when the whole 
 torrent of thought, imagination, and genius, which 
 the Bar may have held in check, burst forth in 
 its full brilliance. He was then barely five-and- 
 twenty, and a handsomer fellow <j never stepped on 
 shoe-leather tall, with dark Italian-like features 
 
 home from Earlston Fair,^nobly waylaid and murdered them 
 both, single-handed. 1 Lockhart lost his case, and his client 
 was hanged. 
 
 17
 
 130 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 inherited from his mother, close, tight lips, a mobile 
 chin, and temples clustering with huge masses of 
 curly jet hair. There is an admirable pen-portrait 
 of him in the ' Noctes ' when Wilson makes the 
 Shepherd say : ' Wasna't me that first prophesied 
 his great abeelities when he was only an Oxford 
 Collegian wi' a pale face and a black toozy head, but 
 an e'e like an eagle's, an' a sort o' lauch about the 
 screwed-up mouth o' him that fules ca'd no canny ?' 
 Though Lockhart must have seen Scott frequently 
 in public in the Law Courts, the book-shops, 
 and elsewhere he does not appear to have met 
 him in private society till the General Assembly 
 of May, 1818. The incident of the ' hand,' some 
 years previously, is so interesting, however, as 
 not to be overlooked in any notice of Lockhart 
 and Scott. Happening to pass through Edin- 
 burgh in June, 1814, Lockhart relates how, along 
 with a band of budding barristers, he dined at 
 a friend's house in George Street whose windows 
 overlooked at right angles the back of Scott's 
 town-house and study at 39, Castle Street. As 
 the merry evening advanced, Lockhart observed a 
 strange dulness settling over his friend's demeanour, 
 and fear of his being unwell bade him put the 
 question. ' No,' said he, ' I shall be well enough
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 131 
 
 presently if you will only let me sit where you 
 are, and take my chair ; for there is a confounded 
 hand in sight of me here which has often bothered 
 me before, and now it won't let me fill my 
 glass with a goodwill.' * I rose to change places 
 with him,' says Lockhart, ' and he pointed out 
 to me this hand, which, like the writing on Bel- 
 shazzar's wall, disturbed his hour of hilarity/ 
 ' Since we sat down,' he said, ' I have been watching 
 it ; it fascinates my eye ; it never stops ; page after 
 page is finished and thrown on that heap of manu- 
 script, and still it goes on unwearied and so it will 
 be till candles are brought in, and God knows how 
 long after that. It is the same every night ; I can't 
 stand a sight of it when I am not at my books.' 
 ' Some stupid, dogged, engrossing clerk, probably,' 
 exclaimed Lockhart, 'or some other giddy youth 
 in the company.' * No, boys,' said their host, ' I 
 well know what hand it is 'tis Walter Scott's.' 
 This was the hand which in the evenings of three 
 summer weeks wrote the two last volumes of 
 * Waverley.' Lockhart was introduced to Scott at 
 a society function in the house of Home Drum- 
 mond, of Blair-Drummond, grandson of Lord 
 Kames. ' Mr. Scott,' he says, ' ever apt to consider 
 too favourably the literary efforts of others, and 
 
 172
 
 132 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 more especially of very young persons, received 
 me, when I was presented to him, with a cordiality 
 which I had not been prepared to expect from one 
 rilling a station so exalted. When the ladies retired 
 from the dinner-table I happened to sit next him, 
 and he, having heard that I had lately returned 
 from a tour in Germany, made that country and 
 its recent literature the subject of some conversa- 
 tion. He appeared particularly interested when I 
 described Goethe as I first saw him alighting from 
 a carriage crammed with wild plants and herbs 
 which he had picked up in the course of his morn- 
 ing's botanizing among the hills above Jena.' * I 
 am glad,' said he, ' that my old master has pursuits 
 somewhat akin to my own. I am no botanist, 
 properly speaking ; and though a dweller on the 
 banks of the Tweed, shall never be knowing about 
 Flora's beauties ; but how I should like to have a 
 talk with him about trees !' 
 
 A few days afterwards, on Scott's initiative, 
 Lockhart was given the compilation of the historical 
 part of the * Edinburgh Annual Register,' worth 
 500 a year, plus daily intimacy with Scott a 
 lucky asset for one so young. Apparently, Scott 
 had taken at once to the younger writer, then only 
 half his age, and for the next fourteen years
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 133 
 
 Lockhart was Scott's right-hand man. No more 
 fortunate and happy relationship was ever formed. 
 It was said of Sir Walter's own sons that they left 
 little record behind them. They fell back into the 
 common crowd, and perished in the direct line, 
 leaving no children to carry on his name. But 
 Lockhart was the son of his heart, his confidant 
 and faithfullest friend through all the troubles that 
 followed, and his children were the only heirs of 
 Abbotsford and their great forebear's glory. 
 
 Of the Edinburgh life, the Castle Street domes- 
 ticities, with Lockhart's picture of the ' den,' we are 
 not now concerned. In October of that same year, 
 1818, along with Wilson, Lockhart saw Abbotsford 
 for the first time. Scott was in high feather. The 
 second of his building schemes had just been com- 
 pleted, and the famous tower, the cynosure of the 
 edifice, was his main topic. When his guests rose 
 from table, he was eager to take them all to the 
 top for a moonlight view of the valley. Some the 
 more youthful members assented, and Scott led 
 the way up the narrow, dark stairs. 'Nothing 
 could have been more lovely,' says Lockhart, ' than 
 the panorama, all the harsher and more naked 
 features being lost in the delicious moonlight ; the 
 Tweed and the Gala winding and sparkling beneath
 
 134 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 our feet ; and the distant ruins of Melrose appearing 
 as if carved of alabaster, under the black mass of 
 the Eildons.' The poet, leaning on his battlement, 
 seemed to hang over the beautiful vision as if he 
 had never seen it before. ' If I live,' he exclaimed, 
 ' I will build me a higher tower, with a more 
 spacious platform, and a staircase better fitted for 
 an old fellow's scrambling.' Then to John of Skye 
 (John Bruce), whose pipes were heard retuning on 
 the lawn beneath, he called for ' Lochaber no more,' 
 and as the music rose, softened by the distance and 
 the murmur of the river, Scott crooned what Lock- 
 hart calls the ' melancholy words of the song of 
 exile.' In the new dining-room, unfinished, but 
 brilliantly illuminated for the occasion, music and 
 dance and whisky-punch passed the remainder of 
 the evening, Scott and Dominie Thomson (a 
 reputed original of Dominie Sampson) looking on 
 with gladsome faces, and now and then beating 
 time, the one with his staff, the other with his 
 wooden leg. Lord Melville proposed * good luck ' 
 to the ' roof-tree,' and the whole party, standing in 
 a circle hand-in-hand, sang joyously : 
 
 ' Weel may we a' be, 
 111 may we never see, 
 God bless the King and the gude companie !'
 
 THE EILDON HILLS AND RIVER TWEED 
 
 ' Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, 
 
 Fair and too fair you be ; 
 You tell me that the voice is still 
 That should have welcomed me. '
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 135 
 
 Such was the ' handselling ' of the 1818 Abbots- 
 ford. 
 
 Lockhart's next visit (with John Ballantyne), on 
 April 10, 1819, found Scott still in the grip of his 
 cramp enemy, and changed in appearance far 
 beyond what Lockhart was led to expect. In the 
 night he had a recurrence of his pains, and Lock- 
 hart, naturally, intended to leave next morning. 
 But Scott, recovered, and wishful to 'drive away 
 the accursed vapours of the laudanum I was obliged 
 to swallow last night,' was bent on taking him ' for 
 a good trot in the open air ' * up Yarrow ' the 
 home phrase, none dearer. 
 
 Past Carterhaugh they rode, where the Forest 
 waters meet, and where Janet rescued Tamlane 
 from the fairies ; Philiphaugh, Scott describing the 
 battle as vividly as if he had witnessed it ; Newark 
 where the ' Lay ' was chanted ; and Slain Men s 
 Lea, where the Covenanters butchered prisoners 
 taken under promise of quarter (darkest memory 
 of Philiphaugh). They saw Minchmoor, too, and 
 recalled Montrose and his cavaliers scurrying 
 Tweedwards. Next day they rode across Bowden 
 Moor, and up the Ale Water to Lilliesleaf and 
 ' ancient Riddell's fair domain,' Scott doing election 
 business on the way. Next day, again, from the
 
 136 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 crest of the Eildons Lockhart was shown the 
 ' Kingdom of Border Romance ' Eildon itself a 
 not unfitting centre. Between the Lammermoors 
 and the Cheviots on one side, and from the Merse to 
 Moffatdale on the other, there is perhaps no range 
 of landscape more intensely interesting from a 
 literary point of view, and none in which Lockhart 
 felt a more personal sympathy. Though not a 
 Borderer (a measure of Border blood in his veins, 
 however), the dearest ties of his life were destined 
 to be with the Border ; nor, so long as the English 
 language lasts, will there be lacking generous 
 hearts to love and remember the man who had 
 Sir Walter for friend and hero. As to Irving, 
 Scott pointed out to Lockhart the more notable 
 landmarks of the locality and the places connected 
 with his own career. Sandyknowe he saw, the 
 home of Scott's boyhood ; Earlston, where the 
 Tower of the Rhymer recalled ' Sir Tristrem,' one 
 of his early essays in literature ; song - haunted 
 Cowdenknowes ; Bemersyde of the perennial Haigs, 
 * a wizard-spell hanging over it '; Mertoun, where 
 he penned the ' Eve of St. John '; and Dryburgh, 
 
 * Where with chiming Tweed 
 The lintwhites sing in chorus ' ; 
 
 and many another spot long famous in popular 
 song and story. He repeated the lines (often on
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 137 
 
 his lips)* ascribed to Burne the Violer, the last of 
 the race of Border minstrels, and the prototype, 
 doubtless, of his own ' Last Minstrel ': 
 
 ' Sing Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes, 
 
 Where Homes had ance commanding ; 
 And Drygrange, wf the milk-white yowes, 
 
 Twixt Tweed and Leader standing. 
 The bird that flees through Redpath trees 
 
 And Gladswood banks each morrow 
 May chant and sing sweet Leader Haughs, 
 
 And bonnie howms of Yarrow. 
 
 ' But Minstrel Burne cannot assuage 
 
 His grief while life endureth, 
 To see the changes of this age 
 
 Which fleeting time procureth ; 
 For mony a place stands in hard case, 
 
 Where blithe folks kent nae sorrow, 
 With Homes that dwelt on Leader side, 
 
 And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow." 1 
 
 Lockhart's ' Peter's Letters,'! published in 1819, 
 
 * Carlyle, curiously, had a fondness for the same verses, 
 and was frequently quoting them. 
 
 t * Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk ' the name was, of 
 course, borrowed from Scott's ' Paul's Letters ' (see vol. ii. for 
 Abbotsford) is seldom read nowadays, and there has been 
 no new edition for years. Still, it is a faithful, if pungent, 
 picture of the period, and, notwithstanding a certain ill odour, 
 really contains far more good than evil. There was no first 
 edition, the first actual publication being called the second 
 edition. Why, would be difficult to say. 
 
 18
 
 138 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 contains, in some respects, an even better report 
 of the Abbotsford pilgrimage than the Biography 
 chapter. ' If I am very partial to the Doctor,' 
 wrote Scott, acknowledging a gift of the book, 
 * remember I have been bribed by his kind and 
 delicate account of his visit to Abbotsford.' In- 
 deed, as Mr. Lang hints and properly had 
 Lockhart never lived to write the Biography, Dr. 
 Morris's description of Abbotsford would have 
 remained the locus dassicus. 
 
 Lockhart was not at Abbotsford again till the 
 middle of February, 1820. He had not been idle, 
 however. Of the charms of (Charlotte) Sophia, 
 Scott's eldest daughter, and dearest, ' the flower and 
 blossom of his house, and the likest of all his family 
 to their father,' not much is said, of course, in the 
 Biography. There is a pretty portrait of her at 
 Abbotsford as a Norwegian peasant, with a great 
 hound looking up into her face, in which it is not 
 difficult to discern Sir Walter's lineaments. But she 
 exhibited several of the Carpenter characteristics 
 as well. Sophia was the singing member of the 
 family. Scott insisted on his children being taught 
 music, and Scottish music particularly ; and the most 
 delightful evenings of the Abbotsford life were spent 
 in the Library listening to his daughter's rendering
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 139 
 
 of the old ballads and songs, and snatches which he 
 loved with all his heart and soul. Thus, no doubt, 
 was the ' cold and unimpressionable and unconquer- 
 able ' Lockhart pierced to the quick, notwithstand- 
 ing a bravado determination ' to continue single.' It 
 was an ideal love-match, one of the very fortunate 
 (among many unfortunate) marriages of men of 
 letters. ' Lockhart is Lockhart,' wrote Scott at a 
 later period, ' to whom I can most willingly confide 
 the happiness of the daughter who chose him and 
 whom he has chosen.' They were married at 
 Edinburgh (not at Abbotsford) April 29, 1820, by 
 the incumbent of St. George's Episcopal Church 
 (where, by the way, the Scotts worshipped), and 
 took up house at Great King Street, afterwards 
 removing to 25, Northumberland Street. Chiefs- 
 wood, a snug little cottage on the Abbotsford 
 property * bigged in gude greenwood ' close to 
 the Rhymer's Glen, within a mile and a half of the 
 mansion-house, and bordering on Huntlyburn, be- 
 came their summer residence. Though somewhat 
 low-lying, a sweeter scene of seclusion could not 
 be fancied, even yet. Except for an extra gable, 
 and one or two minor alterations, the place remains 
 unchanged since the Lockharts' tenancy their 
 truly golden days. For never were they half so 
 
 182
 
 140 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 happy than here. Abbotsford was then at its 
 acme the Wizard at the height of his enchant- 
 ment. 
 
 Of Scott's fascination for Chiefswood, Lockhart 
 has more than one familiar passage. He tells how 
 with his own hands Scott planted creepers brought 
 from the old cottage at Abbotsford around its little 
 rustic porch, and how he was a constant visitor, 
 glad to escape to its quiet retreat when the stir and 
 strain of his own guest-crowded castle were too 
 much for him. Here Scott penned large portions 
 of the * Pirate ' (his writing-bureau may still be 
 seen).* Under the great ash, flourishing yet, on 
 the slope to the Rhymer's Glen, William Erskine 
 (afterwards Lord Kinnedder), Scott's most intimate 
 friend, read aloud chapter after chapter from the 
 manuscript before the packet was sealed up for the 
 printer ; and here, too, some years later, when 
 much of the gaiety and splendour of Abbotsford 
 had vanished, little Johnnie Lockhart * Hugh 
 Littlejohn ' who, in a sense, had inspired them, 
 listened to the first narration of those * Tales of a 
 
 * Some of Lockhart's own best work was done at Chiefs- 
 wood e.g., ' Valerius, 1 a romance of the times of Trajan ; 
 ' Adam Blair "* a Scottish * Scarlet Letter ' ; and several of his 
 Spanish Ballads.
 
 CHIEFSWOOD 
 
 ' Still, as I view each well-known scene, 
 Think what is now, and what hath been, 
 Seems as, to me, of all bereft, 
 Sole friends thy woods and streams were left 
 And thus I love them better still .'
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD HI 
 
 Grandfather,' which, it is to be hoped, the children 
 of Scotland have not left off studying. John Hugh 
 Lockhart, ' the inheritor of so much genius and 
 sorrow,' the boy who had Sir Walter to tell him 
 stories, was a prime favourite with the Chiefswood 
 circle ; the centre of many of its happiest groups ; 
 his grandfather's companion in many rare planta- 
 tion raids and riverside rambles. Born in Edin- 
 burgh in 1821, his days were few and evil, however. 
 Smitten with spine disease, he was barely eleven 
 when * God's finger touched him, and he slept.' 
 Seldom hardly ever, indeed does Lockhart un- 
 burden his own heart to the reader of the Biography. 
 But there is one pathetic reverie of the Chiefswood 
 days which cannot be passed over when the crown- 
 ing sorrow of his life had come, and he was left to 
 bemoan her, ' next to Sir Walter himself, the chief 
 ornament and delight at all those simple meetings, 
 she to whose love I owed my own place in them 
 Scott's eldest daughter, the one of all his children 
 who in countenance, mind, and manners most 
 resembled himself, and who indeed was as like him 
 in all things as a gentle, innocent woman can ever 
 be to a great man deeply tried and skilled in the 
 struggle and perplexities of active life she, too, is 
 no more. But enough and more than I intended.'
 
 142 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 In 1825 Lockhart left Chiefswood for London. 
 A curious embassy from the house of Murray had 
 surprised him in the autumn, in the person of 
 young Benjamin Disraeli, then a mere tyro in 
 literature. He came to enlist Lockhart 's services 
 for the Representative* a new daily which Murray 
 had set his heart on establishing, and, in default of 
 that, to offer him the editorship of the Quarterly 
 Review. But to edit, or even to supervise, an 
 ordinary newspaper, both Scott and Lockhart con- 
 sidered to be infra dig. There was no difficulty, 
 however, in accepting the Quarterly appoint- 
 ment, at a salary which ran to four figures. For 
 the next dozen years London was Lockhart's 
 home. Chiefswood was occasionally let as, for 
 instance, to Thomas Hamilton, who wrote there 
 his dashing military novel of * Cyril Thornton.' 
 But for all practical purposes it remained in 
 Lockhart's hands, he and his family still spend- 
 ing some pleasant summers and autumns on 
 Tweedside. 
 
 Of his last summer with Scott the Biography 
 presents a full account. On April 22, 1831, learn- 
 ing of Sir Walter's third and more serious seizure, 
 he sent down Mrs. Lockhart and the children, 
 arriving himself on May 10. 'I found Sir Walter,'
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 143 
 
 he says, 'to have rallied considerably, yet his 
 appearance, as I saw him, was the most painful 
 sight I had ever then seen. All his garments hung 
 loose about him, his countenance was thin and 
 haggard, and there was an obvious distortion in 
 the muscles of one cheek. His look, however, was 
 placid, his eye bright as ever. He smiled with 
 the same affectionate gentleness, and though at 
 first it was not easy to understand anything he 
 said, he spoke cheerfully and manfully.' Despite 
 illness, he was fighting away at ' Count Robert.' 
 He had planned ' Castle Dangerous,' too, and a 
 ' raid ' into Douglasdale. Autumn brought some 
 slight rallies, when Abbotsford resumed something 
 of its former brightness. Again, day about, they 
 dined at Abbotsford and under the trees at Chiefs- 
 wood. Once more they had the old excursions 
 to Oakwood and the Linns of Ettrick, and the 
 twin peels of Sandyknowe and Bemersyde. Very 
 near the end there came some unexpected things 
 to cast a * sunset brilliancy ' over Abbotsford the 
 arrival of Major Scott (* a handsomer fellow never 
 put foot into stirrup '), Captain Burns, son of the 
 poet, and Wordsworth. Then Scott left for the 
 Mediterranean, Lockhart's lines ringing in his 
 ears :
 
 144 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 * Heaven send the guardian Genius of the vale 
 
 Health yet, and strength, and length of honoured 
 
 days, 
 
 To cheer the world with many a gallant tale, 
 And hear his children^ children chant his lays. 
 
 4 Through seas unruffled may the vessel glide, 
 
 That bears her Poet far from Melrose' glen ! 
 And may his pulse be steadfast as our pride, 
 When happy breezes waft him back again !' 
 
 The rest of the story is well known. Lockhart 
 did not see him for other eight months 
 October 23 to June 13 but after that, he was 
 with Scott to the end. There is nothing more 
 beautiful in the annals of literary friendship than 
 Lockhart's unwearied solicitude for the dying 
 Sir Walter. However cold, distant, unemotional, 
 unknowable, the world may have judged him, here 
 at any rate we see the real man. At bottom, and 
 according to those who knew him most intimately, 
 Lockhart was one of the best of men a prince of 
 good fellows in the truest sense above all, though 
 saying little about it, genuinely and reverently 
 religious. 
 
 In the latter portion of his own life Lockhart 
 was more or less a martyr to ill-health. For few 
 men, too, were the fires of affliction more con- 
 stantly burning. Friend after friend, on both sides
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 145 
 
 of his house, passed from him. Worst loss of all, 
 Mrs. Lockhart his Charlotte was taken, and 
 then, on the wedding of his daughter, Lockhart 
 was left a comparatively lonely man, with age 
 creeping on him and many maladies, in a great 
 empty house in London. He had many things to 
 vex him, too, in the ' wild ways of a son whom 
 he never ceased to love.' In 1847, for the funeral 
 of the second Sir Walter, he was back at Abbots- 
 ford the first time since Scott's death. ' Every- 
 thing in perfect order,' he writes, * every chair and 
 table where it was then left, and I alone walk a 
 ghost in a sepulchre amidst the scenes of all that 
 ever made life worth the name for me.' During the 
 occupancy of his son-in-law, however, he was often 
 among the familiar scenes. In 1853 he resigned 
 his editorship, and, like Scott, spent the following 
 winter in Italy, returning in April. In August he 
 was at Milton-Lockhart (where, by the way, much 
 of the Biography had been written). By the end of 
 September Abbotsford saw him once more, and for 
 the last time. His books were brought down from 
 London, and placed in the new drawing-room, 
 where they still are. The cheerful breakfast- 
 parlour, facing the Tweed and Yarrow Scott's 
 sanctum at one period was fitted up as his bed- 
 
 19
 
 146 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 chamber, as the dining-room had been for Sir 
 Walter. And there he remained until the end. 
 ' He arrived at Abbotsford,' says Mr. Ornsby's 
 ' Memoirs of James R. Hope Scott,' ' hardly able 
 to get out of his carriage, and it was at once per- 
 ceived that he was a dying man. He desired to 
 drive about and take leave of various places' 
 Chiefswood, no doubt, Huntlyburn, Torwoodlee, 
 Ashestiel perhaps, Gladswood, and Dryburgh 
 ' displaying, however, a stoical fortitude, and never 
 making a direct allusion to what was impend- 
 ing. ... * He would not suffer anyone to nurse 
 him till, one night, he fell down on the floor, and 
 after that, offered no further opposition. Father 
 Lockhart, a distant cousin, was now telegraphed 
 for, from whom, during his stay in Rome, he had 
 received much kind attention, for which he was 
 always grateful. He did not object to his kins- 
 man's attendance, though a priest,* and yielded also 
 when asked to allow his daughter to say a few 
 prayers by his bedside. Mr. Hope Scott was absent 
 
 * It may be noted here that while Lockhart 'regarded 
 his son-in-law's conversion to Romanism as a grief and a 
 humiliation, nevertheless, the nobleness of his nature, and 
 the deep regard he always felt for his virtues, prevailed 
 without an effort. ' Life of Hope Scott.
 
 LOCKHART AND ABBOTSFORD 147 
 
 on business, but returned home one or two days 
 before the end, which came suddenly' no pain, 
 no struggle, but the falling into a soft sleep like 
 that of a little child. The date was November 25, 
 1854. He died at the same age as Scott. As he 
 desired, he was laid ' at the feet of Walter Scott,' 
 within hearing of the Tweed. The funeral was 
 * strictly private.' 
 
 We have said that Lockhart was, at bottom, a 
 religious man. In company with an Oxford friend 
 (G. R. Gleig probably) Lockhart used to walk on 
 Sunday afternoons in Regent's Park. 'With 
 whatever topic their colloquy began, it invariably 
 fell off, so to speak, of its own accord into dis- 
 cussions upon the character and teaching of the 
 Saviour ; upon the influence exercised by both 
 over the opinions and habits of mankind ; upon 
 the light thrown by them on man's future state 
 and present destiny. Lockhart was never so 
 charming as in these discussions. It was evident 
 that the subject filled his whole mind.' His verses 
 on Immortality, first published in full in the Scots- 
 man for 1863, have often been quoted. No 
 poem probably, not even by Wordsworth or 
 Tennyson, has done more to inspire and console 
 the bereaved. Lockhart sent the poem (in part) to 
 
 192
 
 148 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Carlyle, and ' the lines,' says Froude, * were often 
 on his lips to the end of his life, and will not be 
 easily forgotten by anyone who reads them.' 
 
 ' When youthful faith has fled, 
 
 Of loving take thy leave ; 
 Be constant to the dead, 
 The dead cannot deceive. 
 
 ' Sweet, modest flowers of spring. 
 
 How fleet your balmy day ! 
 And man's brief year can bring 
 No secondary May. 
 
 ' No earthly burst again 
 
 Of gladness out of gloom ; 
 Fond hope and vision vain, 
 Ungrateful to the tomb ! 
 
 ' But 'tis an old belief, 
 
 That on some solemn shore, 
 Beyond the sphere of grief 
 
 Dear friends will meet once more. 
 
 * Beyond the sphere of time, 
 
 And sin, and fate's control, 
 Serene in changeless prime 
 Of body and of soul. 
 
 ' That creed I fain would keep, 
 That hope 111 not forego : 
 Eternal be the sleep, 
 Unless to waken so P
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD 
 
 SIR WALTER'S Abbotsford, as we saw, was com- 
 pleted 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. In 1839, as 
 Lieutenant- Colonel, he proceeded to Madras, and 
 subsequently commanded the Hussars in India. 
 At Bangalore, in August, 1846, having exposed 
 himself rashly to the sun during a tiger-hunt, he 
 was smitten with fever, from which he never 
 recovered. Obliged to return to England, his death 
 took place on board the Wettesley, near the Cape 
 of Good Hope, February 8, 1847, in his forty - 
 sixth year. His widow conveyed his remains to 
 
 151
 
 152 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 this country for interment at Dryburgh Abbey on 
 May 4 following. Lady Scott the pretty ' Jeanie ' 
 Jobson of Lochore,* as she was affectionately 
 called by the old people of Ballingry, in which 
 parish Lochore estate lies continued to reside for 
 the most part in London, and only once visited 
 Abbotsford. They had no family, which put a 
 pathetic finis to Scott's most cherished dream. 
 Lady Scott died at London, March 19, 1877, in her 
 seventy-sixth year, and was buried at Dryburgh.f 
 
 * Miss Jobson appears to have been a young lady of great 
 beauty. When George IV. came to Edinburgh, she was one 
 of the maids of honour at Holyrood. She was Sir Adam 
 Ferguson's niece, and it was he who practically arranged the 
 match. Following her marriage, she and her husband lived 
 for a time at Lochore (purchased in 1813 by her father, a 
 prosperous Dundee merchant). Sir Walter Scott himself was 
 often there. Reference is made in * The Abbot ' to Ballingry 
 Kirk. After 1832 Lochore was let to tenants, and in 1867 
 was sold for X J 60,000 to the Lochore Coal Company, in whose 
 hands it still remains. 
 
 f A friend who knew her writes : ' Lady Scott was exceed- 
 ingly sensitive and reserved. She hardly ever mentioned her 
 husband's name after his death. She was very kind-hearted, 
 but rarely expressed her feelings. She was very fond of 
 children. She lived a quiet and retired life, interesting her- 
 self much in politics, and could talk and argue well on the 
 subject. She was clever and well read. She would never 
 speak of Abbotsford.'
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD 153 
 
 Charles Scott,* younger son of Sir Walter, ' whose 
 spotless worth tenderly endeared him to the few 
 who knew him intimately,' and with whom much 
 of the Naples pilgrimage was spent, died at 
 Teheran, October 29, 1841, in his thirty-sixth year. 
 He was buried there, whither he had gone as 
 attach^ and private secretary to Sir John McNeill, 
 Commissioner to the Court of Persia. Anne 
 Scott, the * Lady Anne ' of many delightful 
 pleasantries (the original of Alice Lee in 'Wood- 
 stock'), Scott's younger daughter, died June 25, 
 18.33, less than a year after her father. A hand- 
 some sarcophagus, still in excellent repair, covers 
 her remains in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. 
 Charlotte Sophia Scott so named in honour of 
 a French lady, Sophia Dumergue, who had be- 
 friended the first Lady Scott's mother on her 
 arrival in England wife of John Gibson Lockhart, 
 died May 17, 1837. Of her two sons, the elder, 
 John Hugh ('Hugh Littlejohn') died December 15, 
 1831, and, like his mother and aunt, was interred 
 at Kensal Green. Walter Scott Lockhart, the 
 younger, born April 16, 1826, became a Lieutenant 
 
 * ' I have the liveliest impression of that good, honest 
 Scotch face and character, though never in contact with the 
 young man but once." THOMAS CAKLYLE. 
 
 20
 
 154 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 in the 16th Lancers, and succeeded to Abbotsford 
 on the death of his uncle in 1847, assuming the 
 additional surname of Scott. He died, unmarried, 
 at Versailles, January 10, 1853, and was buried in 
 the Notre Dame Cemetery there. Charlotte 
 Harriet Jane, born January 1, 1828, only daughter 
 of the Lockharts, and granddaughter of Sir Walter 
 Scott, then came into possession. She was the 
 wife of James Robert Hope, Q.C., who, on her 
 succeeding to Abbotsford, also assumed the family 
 name of Scott. To Mr. Hope Scott and his wife 
 were born : A boy, who died at birth, 1848 ; 
 Walter Michael, born June 2, 1857, died Decem- 
 ber 11, 1858 ; Mary Monica, by-and-by heiress of 
 Abbotsford, born at Tunbridge Wells, October 2, 
 1852 ; Margaret Anne, born September 17, 1858, 
 died December 3 of the same year. Mrs. Hope 
 Scott died of consumption at Edinburgh, 
 October 26, 1858, aged thirty. Mr. Hope Scott 
 married January 7, 1861, as his second wife, Lady 
 Victoria Alexandrina Fitzalan Howard, eldest 
 daughter of the fourteenth Duke of Norfolk, by 
 whom he had two sons : Philip, born April 8, 1868, 
 who died next day, and James, born December 18, 
 1870, now M.P. for the Brightside Division of 
 Sheffield ; also four daughters Minna Margaret,
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD 155 
 
 born June 6, 1862, wife of Sir Nicholas O'Conor, 
 G.C.M.G., British Ambassador at Constantinople ; 
 and Catherine, a twin, who died the day of her 
 birth ; Josephine Mary, born May 18, 1864, 
 married Wilfred Philip Ward, B.A., son of ' Ideal ' 
 Ward of the Oxford Movement, and himself a 
 well-known writer on ecclesiastical controversies ; 
 Theresa Anne, born September 14, 1865, a 
 Carmelite nun, who died November 1, 1891. 
 Lady Victoria died December 20, 1870, aged 
 thirty, the same age, curiously, as Mr. Hope Scott's 
 first wife. Mr. Hope Scott himself died April 29, 
 1873. His remains were laid beside those of 
 Mrs. Hope Scott and her children in the vaults 
 of St. Margaret's Convent at Edinburgh, Lady 
 Victoria and her children being buried at Arundel. 
 
 Mary Monica Hope Scott, the sole surviving 
 descendant of Sir Walter Scott, now succeeded 
 to the estate, and on July 21, 1874, married the 
 Hon. Joseph Constable -Max well, third son of 
 William, eleventh Baron Herries of Terregles, and 
 Marcia, eldest daughter of the Hon. Sir Edward 
 Marmaduke Vavasour, first Bart., of Hazlewood, 
 Yorkshire, then Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade. 
 Their children are : 
 
 1. Walter Joseph, born April 10, 1875, Captain 
 
 202
 
 156 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 in the Cameronians. He volunteered for South 
 Africa, and was in Ladysmith throughout the 
 siege. 
 
 2. Joseph Michael, born May 25, 1880, a Lieu- 
 tenant R.N., H.M.S. Dominion. 
 
 3. Malcolm Joseph Raphael, born October 22, 
 1883, Sub-Lieutenant R.N., H.M.S. Pegasus. 
 
 4. Herbert Francis Joseph, born March 14, 1891, 
 a student at Stonyhurst. 
 
 5. Mary Josephine, born June 5, 1876 ; married 
 (1897) Alexander Dalglish. 
 
 6. Alice Mary Josephine, born October 9, 1881 ; 
 married (1905) Edward Cassidy of Monasterevan, 
 County Kildare. 
 
 7. Margaret Mary Lucy, born December 13, 
 1886. 
 
 JAMES ROBERT HOPE SCOTT, who may be styled 
 the second maker of Abbotsford, was born at 
 Great Mario w, in Berkshire, July 15, 1812. He 
 was the third son (not second, as the ' Abridged 
 I ,ockhart ' has it) of General the Hon. Sir 
 Alexander Hope of Rankeillour and Luffness, 
 G.C.B., M.P., sometime Governor of Chelsea 
 Hospital. His mother was Georgina Alicia, 
 youngest daughter of George Brown of Elleston, 
 Roxburghshire. The family of Hope, honourable
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD 157 
 
 in Scottish history to the present day, is of con- 
 siderable antiquity. The name is derived from the 
 Saxon hop or hope, signifying a sheltered place 
 among hills. The names of Adam le Hope and 
 John de Hope appear on the Ragman Roll as 
 swearing fealty to Edward I. in 1296. Edward 
 Hope was a leading Edinburgh citizen in Queen 
 Mary's time. His grandson was the celebrated 
 King's Advocate, Sir Thomas Hope, of Craighall, 
 whose great-grandson, again, Charles Hope, of 
 Hopetoun, became the first Earl of that name. 
 His son, the second Earl, had for his third wife 
 Lady Elizabeth Leslie, daughter of the Earl of 
 Leven and Melville, and of two sons born to 
 them, the second was General Sir Alexander, 
 father of James Robert Hope. 
 
 Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, 
 young Hope was called to the Bar in 1838, and 
 specializing as a Parliamentary Counsel, soon 
 found himself in a large and lucrative practice. On 
 August 19, 1847, he married Lockhart's daughter. 
 Her description is that of ' a very attractive person, 
 with a graceful figure, a sweet and expressive face, 
 brown eyes of great brilliance, and a beautifully 
 shaped head. The chin, indeed, was heavy, but 
 even this added to the interest of the face by its
 
 158 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 striking resemblance to the same feature in her 
 great ancestor, Sir Walter Scott.' There is a 
 portrait of her at Abbotsford. The following year 
 Mr. Hope Scott rented Abbotsford from his 
 brother-in-law, removing thither in August. Five 
 years after, on the death of the latter, Abbotsford 
 fell to him as possessor in right of his wife, and for 
 the remainder of his life it became his principal 
 residence. The place had been sadly neglected 
 since Scott's death in 1832, and everything needed 
 restoration. But the new laird's purse was splen- 
 didly equal to the occasion. He did wonders for 
 Abbotsford. 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
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD 159 
 
 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 grass-plots, and beds all ablaze with 
 summer flowers. The terraces on the north, so rich 
 and velvety, date from this period. 
 
 These, with much elaborate and costly furnishing 
 for the new interior, make up the Abbotsford of 
 to-day. Mr. Hope Scott had not the 'yerd- 
 hunger ' of his illustrious predecessor. His was 
 rather a 'stone -and -lime mania,' all to most 
 excellent purpose, however. 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. From the south, the Hope Scott 
 addition is easily recognisable, being of light free-
 
 160 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 stone, in contrast to the darker hue of the 1824 
 pile, which is built of native red whin. The Hope 
 Scott succession practically rescued Abbotsford 
 when its fortunes were at their lowest, and its 
 history almost at a standstill. After sixteen years, 
 Abbotsford had once more a family life and a 
 domestic happiness of a singularly exalted type. 
 Everybody must admit the ideally happy life spent 
 by Scott himself at Abbotsford prior to 1826, at 
 any rate. Few men enjoyed life more. His 
 happiness, in the main, sprang from the physical 
 side of things the out-of-doors sports and exer- 
 cises in which he revelled, and which were among 
 the chief attractions of his Abbotsford. Scott was 
 never happier than when he was making others 
 happy. No man sacrificed himself more on that 
 side. And surely that was religion at its reallest. 
 Scott did not say much about religion. He had, like 
 Lockhart, all a Scotsman's reticence on the subject. 
 But that he gave it profound and reverent thought 
 that there was in him a vein of earnest religious 
 feeling,* goes without saying, strong man of the 
 world though he was, and exhibiting, as he did, many 
 things outre to the ordinary religious sense seldom 
 
 * The entries in the ' Journal ' show this strongly, his 
 resignation to God's will, and thankfulness for blessings.
 
 THE GARDEN, ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ' Trim Abbotsford so gay, 
 The rose-trees flaunting there so bold, 
 The ripening fruits in rind of gold, 
 
 And thou their lord away.'
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD 161 
 
 going to church, for instance, (he read the Church 
 of England Service-Book, however, to his house- 
 hold) ; and * writing his task ' on Sundays more 
 often than he should. 
 
 Mr. Hope Scott's happiness, on the other hand, 
 was the outcome of striking spiritual experiences. 
 He had always been eminent for piety, and his 
 views in connection with the Oxford Movement 
 were well known. In 1851, after anxious delibera- 
 tion, he became a Roman Catholic, and was received 
 on the same day as Cardinal Manning. Shortly 
 afterwards his wife followed him into the same 
 communion. Mr. Hope Scott's religion was con- 
 sequently a dominating influence at Abbot sford, 
 permeating, as was said, the whole atmosphere of 
 the place. * The impression left by that most 
 interesting and charming family,' writes a lady 
 visitor in 1854, ' could never be effaced from my 
 mind. It always seemed to me the most perfect 
 type of a really Christian household, such as I 
 never saw in the world before or since, A religious 
 atmosphere pervaded the whole house, and not only 
 the guests, but the servants, must, it seems to me, 
 have felt its influence. Mr. Hope Scott was the 
 beau-ide'al of an English gentleman, and a Christ- 
 ian.' There were many guests at the later Abbots- 
 
 21
 
 162 ABBOTSFOKD 
 
 ford a different order from those of an earlier day. 
 Hither came John Henry Newman for five weeks 
 during the winter of 1852-53, and again, for a fort- 
 night, in 1872. ' We have a Chapel in the house, 
 but no Chaplain,' wrote Hope Scott to Newman. 
 'You can say Mass at your own hour, observe 
 your own ways in everything, and feel all the time 
 perfectly at home.' Newman replied : ' It would 
 be a pleasure to spend some time with you ; and 
 then I have ever had the extremest sympathy for 
 Walter Scott, that it would delight me to see his 
 place. When he was dying, I was saying prayers 
 for him continually (whatever they were worth), 
 thinking of Keble's words, " Think on the Minstrel 
 as ye kneel. " ' And, again , we have Newman writing : 
 ' I have ever had such a devotion, I may call it, 
 to Walter Scott. As a boy, in the early 
 summer mornings, 1 read " Waverley " and " Guy 
 Mannering" in bed, when they first came out, 
 before it was time to get up ; and long before that 
 I think when I was eight years old I listened 
 eagerly to the " Lay of the Last Minstrel." which 
 my mother and aunt were reading aloud. When 
 he was dying I was continually thinking of him. 
 Hope Scott was one of the Cardinal's ' intimates.' 
 He was also on affectionate terms with Manning
 
 THE LATER ABBOTSFORD 163 
 
 and Gladstone, to the latter of whom he dedicated 
 his edition of Lockhart's * Abridgment of the Life.'* 
 Several passages in Morley's * Gladstone ' show how 
 strong and genuine was the bond between them. 
 * Hope especially had influence over me more 
 than, I think, any other person at any period 
 of my life. My affection for him during those 
 latter years before his change was, I may almost 
 say, intense ; there was hardly anything, I think, 
 which he could have asked me to do, and which I 
 would not have done.' When Hope Scott joined 
 the Roman Church, Gladstone, the day after, made 
 a codicil to his will, striking him out as executor. 
 Friendship did not die, however, but only lived 
 'as it lives between those who inhabit separate 
 worlds.' 
 
 A man of great wealth,f Mr. Hope Scott never 
 spared his means when the interests of religion 
 
 * In 1868 Gladstone urged Mr. Hope Scott to produce an 
 abridged version of Lockhart, ignorant, apparently, of Lock- 
 hart's own Abridgment. And in 1871 Hope Scott asks 
 leave to dedicate a reprint of it to Gladstone as ' one among 
 those who think that Scott still deserves to be remembered, 
 not as an author only, but as a noble and vigorous man/ 
 
 t In addition to Abbotsford, Mr. Hope Scott owned the 
 estate of Dorlin, on Loch Shiel ; the Villa Madona, Hyeres, 
 South France ; and property in County Mayo. 
 
 212
 
 164. ABBOTSFORD 
 
 were in question. As an example of his Christian 
 zeal and affection for Romanism, it may be 
 stated that he built the Church of Our Lady and 
 St. Andrew at Galashiels at a cost of 10,000, also 
 the Chapel at Selkirk, the Church on Loch Shiel, 
 and the Church of the Immaculate Conception at 
 Kelso. He helped churches and schools and con- 
 vents all over the country. Following his death 
 in 1873 (Newman preaching his funeral sermon), 
 Abbotsford went to Mary Monica* (named from a 
 favourite saint). So we are thankful that there is 
 still a Scott one of Sir Walter's blood his great- 
 granddaughter, ' Lady of Abbotsford.' 
 
 * Mrs. Maxwell Scott has taken a deep interest in all the 
 affairs of Abbotsford. Literary in her leanings, quite a 
 number of volumes have come from her pen : ' The Making 
 of Abbotsford, and Incidents in Scottish History'; ' Abbots- 
 ford and its Treasures'; 'The Tragedy of Fotheringay ' ; 
 'Life of Henry Schomberg Kerr, Sailor and Jesuit '; 'Joan of 
 Arc,' and many articles besides, with the Prefaces to the 
 ' Melrose ' edition of the Novels.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 
 
 TOWARDS the close of his life, at the suggestion of 
 Cadell (to keep him from more serious tasks), Scott 
 commenced the writing of a descriptive catalogue 
 of the most curious articles in his library and 
 museum his ' gabions ' he called them. This, 
 which he entitled ' Reliquiae Trottcosianaa or the 
 Gabions of the late Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq.,' 
 thus assuming to himself some claim to be the 
 original of the inimitable Laird of Monkbarns 
 was, unfortunately, never finished. The MS. is at 
 Abbotsford, and has been partly printed in Harper 8 
 Magazine for April, 1889. As the writing shows, 
 it is first in Scott's own hand, sadly cramped and 
 shaky ; then Laidlaw takes up the pen, but the 
 work was soon abandoned for ' Count Robert,' the 
 romance that was simmering in his brain. It is a 
 thousand pities that Scott preferred ' Count Robert ' 
 to the gabions history. His mind, impaired by 
 repeated shocks of paralysis, was quite unfitted for 
 
 167
 
 168 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 serious imaginative composition. Even the ' Reli- 
 quiae ' fragment is not without proof of waning 
 power. Still, 'Count Robert' could well have been 
 spared for the completion of the latter project, and 
 none but the Wizard himself, with his rare wealth 
 of anecdote and story, could have done it justice. 
 
 Of the many haunts of genius in this and other 
 countries, Abbotsford is unique in that it was the 
 first (and likely to be the last) great estate won by 
 the pen of an author. Created practically within a 
 dozen years a marvellously brief period it remains 
 (the Hope Scott extension excepted) very much as 
 in Sir Walter's lifetime. His own house has under- 
 gone no change beyond slight and necessary re- 
 arrangement of the furnishings. The visitor of 
 to-day may rest assured that he sees the place 
 almost identically as Scott saw it. The apartments 
 open to the public were planned by him to the 
 minutest particular. His eyes fell on these same 
 pictures, with very few exceptions. And of its 
 antiquarian treasures the most remarkable private 
 collection in existence almost all have personal 
 association with Scott. 
 
 There are two methods of reaching Abbotsford 
 by rail to Galashiels, thence to Abbotsford Ferry 
 Station on the Selkirk line, alighting at which and
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 169 
 
 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. Seldom in summer is it 
 without being dust-blown. For in a more than local 
 sense, this is one of the world's highways, with a con- 
 stant stream of pilgrims from every land passing to 
 and fro. No better proof, surely, of Scott's abiding 
 popularity. The road teems with reminiscences of 
 the Romancist. Out from the grey town, with its 
 orchards and picturesque gardens, the Waverley 
 Hydropathic is passed on the right. In the grounds 
 a handsome seated statue of Scott may be noticed. 
 Further on, to the left, tree-ensconced, lie Chiefs- 
 wood 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 left- 
 wards, 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 ' 
 
 22
 
 170 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 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 basement, 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- 
 er the hillside, whereon the Galashiels manufacturers 
 have reared their own princely residences unknown 
 to Scott's day. But we are then looking, let us 
 remember, at the back of the edifice. Nearly all 
 the photographs present this view, however, for the 
 sake of the river. The situation is low poor, 
 indeed, except for the Tweed. At first not un- 
 frequently is there a sense of disappointment, 
 especially if one's ideas have been founded on 
 Turner's somewhat fanciful sketches. These, it 
 need scarcely be said, though beautiful, and art 
 at its highest, are yet far removed (like his Sandy- 
 knowe and Chiefswood) from the real Abbotsford. 
 
 In his lifetime Scott's friends had no end of praise 
 and flattery for the place : * A perfect picture of the 
 wonderful owner's mind '; ' a romance in stone 
 and lime '; ' a poem in stone '; 'a mosaic of Scottish 
 history '; * like places that we dream about '; * ex-
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 171 
 
 actly what one ought to have had wit enough to 
 dream,' etc. It is surprising, therefore, to have the 
 more modern descriptions of such men as Dr. John 
 Brown, who actually calls it the ' ugly Abbotsford '; 
 Ruskin, albeit a true Scott-lover, who describes it 
 as * perhaps the most incongruous pile that gentle- 
 manly modernism ever designed'; Hugh Miller, 
 who characterizes it as a ' supremely melancholy 
 place '; Dean Stanley, who (curiously) speaks of it 
 as 'a place to see once but never again'; George 
 Gilfillan, who compares it to a * Castle Folly '; 
 Robert Chambers, to whom it was chiefly a ' sad 
 piece of patchwork '; and Carlyle (never friendly to 
 Scott), who simply refers to it as ' a stone house in 
 Selkirkshire.' [It is not in Selkirkshire, however.] 
 Granting it to be in many respects bewildering, 
 heterogeneous, irregular, fantastic, odd, a reveky of 
 false Gothic, reared on no set plan, and so forth, 
 the general effect does not seem to be at all dis- 
 pleasing. Ruskin and the others saw Abbotsford 
 perhaps only once at the most. But it is not a 
 place to be exhausted in an hour, or a day, and 
 hundreds (among modern trippers) in their hurry 
 can hardly carry away a correct impression. 
 Abbotsford is a place to be seen often, and the 
 oftener it is seen and studied, the more fascinating 
 
 222
 
 172 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 will it become, and the less prominent will its 
 defects appear. 
 
 Abbotsford proper is enclosed by an embattled 
 wall and a fine castellated gateway, surmounted 
 by a sculptured portcullis with Scott's motto, 
 * CLAUSUS TUTUS ERG,' an anagram of his name 
 in Latin. The 'jougs' (stocks for the neck) of 
 Threave Castle dangle to the left of the handsome 
 iron-clenched door. Entering, we are in the court- 
 yard, half an acre or so in extent, nicely turfed 
 and parterred. It is walled on two sides, and on 
 the third, facing the entrance, an elegant stone 
 screen of sixteen elliptic arches, set with iron 
 lattice-work, separates from the gardens. The 
 fourth side is the house-front, 150 feet in length. 
 All the grounds are kept in the pink of perfection. 
 The antiquarian character of the place is at once 
 apparent. Medallions, tablets, altars, etc., from the 
 Roman station at Petreia (Penrith) and elsewhere, 
 fill numerous niches in the courtyard wall, against 
 which runs a trellised arbour covered with creepers. 
 The centre of the courtyard is occupied by a 
 fountain, which is said to have stood in former 
 days at the foot of the Cross of Edinburgh (see 
 Lockhart, vol. v., p. 261). The dial-stone in the 
 flower-garden, inscribed (like Johnson's watch) with
 
 SIR WALTER'S DIAL, ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ' Thou gav'st him solemn thoughts at twilight dim, 
 And now to us dost bear remembrance sweet of him.

 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 173 
 
 the motto TAP NY3 EPXETAI ' ('For the night 
 cometh '), is an object of suggestive interest. 
 * Turn- A gain ' is in the corner, recalling Scott's 
 first introduction to Abbotsford. Across the arch- 
 way leading into the fruit-garden there is the 
 appropriate text : 
 
 *Et audiverunt Vocem Domini deatnbulantis 
 in horto. 9 
 
 Within, and guarded with jealous care, is the last 
 survivor of the fruit-trees planted by Sir Walter 
 himself. 
 
 The exterior of Abbotsford abounds in relics and 
 inscriptions, woven here and there throughout the 
 masonry. At the western side of the main entrance, 
 and high up in the wall, is the door of the old 
 ' Heart of Midlothian ' (see p, 37), with the words : 
 
 * THE LORD OF ARMIS is MY PROTECTOR : 
 
 BUSSIT AR THAY THAT TRUST IN THE LORD, 
 
 1575.' 
 
 The arched entrance-porch was copied from 
 Linlithgow Palace. The arms of the family with 
 the legends 
 
 'REPARABIT CORNUA PHCEBE; WATCH WEEL,' 
 are conspicuous above it. Near by are the grave
 
 174 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 and stone effigy (cut by Smith of Darnick) of 
 Maida, Scott's favourite deerhound, with Lock- 
 hart's famous ' false-quantity ' lines : 
 
 4 Maidae Marmorea dormis sub imagine Maida 
 ad januam domini sit tibi terra levis,' 
 
 thus Englished by Sir Walter : 
 
 ' Beneath the sculptured form which late you wore, 
 Sleep soundly, Maida, at your master's door." 1 
 
 (See Lockhart, vol. vii., pp. 275-281.) 
 
 There is apparently only one date, 1822, on the 
 south front, on a stone below the staircase window. 
 Eastward is the Study, with Scott's bedroom above, 
 and the tower from which he looked out on the 
 Eildons. A long stone near the visitors' entrance 
 carries the inscription : 
 
 ' By Night by Day Remember ay the goodness of ye Lord : 
 And thank His name whos glorious fam is spred Throughout 
 ye world'; 
 
 whilst another, showing a rudely-carved sword, 
 has the words : 
 
 ' Up with ye Sutors of Selkyrke.' 
 
 Over the great bay-window of the Library, the 
 first of the principal rooms facing the Tweed, is a
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 175 
 
 lintel from the Common Hall of the old Edinburgh 
 College, with a quotation from Seneca: 
 
 ' Virtus Rectorem Ducemque 
 Desiderat ; Vitia sine Mag- 
 istro Discuntur.' Anno 1616. 
 
 Next the Library is the Drawing-Room, then the 
 Armoury, and Dining-Room, with the motto : 
 
 'SO 
 
 LI DEO 
 GLORIA.' 
 
 And, lastly, the Breakfast Parlour, once Scott's 
 sanctum, in which Lockhart died. 
 
 Now turn we to the interior. Be it at once said 
 that Mrs. Maxwell Scott's excellent little ' Cata- 
 logue of the Armour and Antiquities at Abbots- 
 ford ' is absolutely indispensable. A previous study 
 of its pages will enable the visitor to know exactly 
 how he is to be piloted, and the whereabouts of 
 the ' gabions ' he is most bent on seeing. The 
 attendants are always ready to point out objects 
 of special interest to individuals, and there need be 
 no hesitancy to ask questions. For the sake of 
 convenience, we follow the order which has been 
 in force for years. All we plead for in the public 
 
 interest is a little more leisure, if that be possible, 
 
 for seeing what is to be seen.
 
 176 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Visitors are admitted first into what is surely the 
 sanctum sanctorum of the place 
 
 THE STUDY. 
 
 This is a fair-sized apartment, 20 feet long, 14 feet 
 broad, and 16 feet high, lighted by a large window 
 which looks out to the courtyard. Everything is 
 practically as Scott left it. Oaken bookcases line 
 the walls, and hardly a volume (it is chiefly a 
 reference library) has been altered. A light gallery, 
 graced with ample book-shelves, runs round three 
 sides of the room, opening out on a private stair- 
 case, by which the * inhabitant of the study,' as the 
 ' Reliquiae ' puts it, * if unwilling to be surprised by 
 visitors, may make his retreat, a facility which he 
 has sometimes found extremely convenient.' The 
 Desk is, of course, the chief object of interest. 
 Modelled from one at Rokeby (see ' Letters,' vol. i., 
 p. 180), it is thus described by Lockhart as he first 
 saw it in the ' den ' at Castle Street in 1818 : 
 
 * The only table was a massive piece of furniture 
 with a desk and all its appurtenances on either 
 side, that an amanuensis might work opposite to 
 him when he chose, and with small tiers of drawers 
 reaching all round to the floor. The top displayed 
 a goodly array of session papers, and on the desk
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 177 
 
 below were, besides the MS. at which he was 
 working, sundry parcels of letters, proof-sheets, and 
 so forth, all neatly done up in red tape. His own 
 writing apparatus was a very handsome old box, 
 richly covered, lined with crimson velvet, and con- 
 taining ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver, the 
 whole in such order that it might have come from 
 the silversmith's window half an hour before.' At 
 the desk most of the novels were written, we may 
 suppose, though not all at Abbotsford, as is not 
 unfrequently imagined. It is, however, impossible 
 to collate with exactness the dates and occasions 
 of their composition. The fact remains, that in all 
 probability each of the Waverleys was penned at 
 this desk. Hence its unreckonable value to the 
 literary pilgrim, and the unqualified reverence with 
 which tens of thousands have gazed upon it. Cer- 
 tainly no article of furniture has been so intimately 
 associated with Scott. Fourteen years from the 
 time that he first saw it, it fell to Lockhart himself 
 to open Scott's desk under the mournfullest circum- 
 stances. ' Perhaps the most touching evidence 
 of the lasting tenderness of Sir Walter's early 
 domestic feelings was exhibited to his executors 
 when they opened his repositories in search of his 
 testament the evening after his burial. On lifting 
 
 23
 
 178 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 up his desk we found, arranged in careful order, 
 a series of little objects which had obviously been 
 so placed there that his eye might rest on them 
 every morning before he began his tasks. These 
 were the old-fashioned boxes that had garnished 
 his mother's toilette when he, a sickly child, slept 
 in her dressing-room the silver taper-stand, which 
 the young advocate had bought for her with his 
 first five-guinea fee ; a row of small packets, in- 
 scribed with her hand, and containing the hair of 
 those of her offspring who had died before her ; 
 his father's snuff-box and etui case, and more 
 things of the like sort, recalling " the old familiar 
 faces." ' 
 
 Scott's desk is seldom seen open. The present 
 writer counts it one of the memories of his life to 
 have had that pleasure, and to have sat in Sir 
 Walter's ' own huge elbow-chair,' and to have 
 handled an act almost too sacred after all those 
 years relics so touching and pathetic in their 
 associations. The little locks of hair are still there, 
 with the quills used by Scott, and his spectacles, 
 pocket-knife, paper-knife, and a large number of 
 account-books and other private documents. Here, 
 too, is Mrs. Lockhart's Bible ' From J. G. L., 
 1825,' her Prayer-Book, and a host of articles with
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT'S DESK AND ' ELBOW 
 CHAIR 1 IN THE STUDY, ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ' Thou, who with tireless hand didst sweep 
 Away the damps of ages deep 
 And fire with wild, baronial strain 
 The harp of chivalry again, 
 And bid its long-forgotten swell 
 Thrill through the soul, farewell ! farewell ! '
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 179 
 
 which both Scott and Lockhart must have been 
 long familiar. 
 
 Other objects of interest may be briefly noted : 
 
 Sir Walter's chair. 
 
 Of green morocco ; in the Empire style, which 
 prevailed early in the last century. 
 
 The Wallace chair. 
 
 Presented by Joseph Train in 1822. Made of 
 wood from Robroyston, near Kirkintilloch, the 
 scene of Wallace's betrayal. A MS. volume in 
 Train's handwriting, contained in a drawer under 
 the seat, tells the story of the chair (see Lock- 
 hart, vol. vii., p. 223 ; note inscription). 
 
 Lockhart 's chair. 
 
 Of plain horse-hair. 
 
 Scott's card-plate. 
 
 Carries the simple address : ' Sir Walter Scott, 
 Castle Street.' 
 
 A small folding box-writing-desk. 
 
 Made from wood of the Spanish Armada, and 
 inscribed : ' Afflavit Deus et dissipantur.' 
 
 Print of Stothard's * Canterbury Pilgrims ' (over the 
 mantelpiece). 
 
 The best-known of Stothard's paintings. Engraved 
 in 1817. 'Sir Walter made the characteristic 
 criticism upon it that, if the procession were to 
 move, the young squire who is prancing in the 
 foreground would in another minute be off his 
 horse's head' (Adolphus's ' Memoranda'). 
 
 232
 
 180 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Portrait of Claverhouse. 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 Portrait of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 Portrait of Rob Roy. 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 ' The eagle, he was lord above, 
 And Rob was lord below.' 
 
 Bust of Lord Chief Commissioner Adam. 
 
 Sculptor probably Samuel Joseph, R.S. A. Founder 
 of the Blair-Adam Club (see Lockhart, vol. viii., 
 p. 200). ' I have lived much with him, and taken 
 kindly to him as one of the most pleasant, kind- 
 hearted, benevolent men I have ever known.' 
 
 Scott's walking-sticks, pipes, etc. 
 
 In cabinet to the right. 
 
 A small turret-room off the study is of peculiar 
 interest. Sir Walter styled it his ' Speak-a-bit.' 
 Here he enjoyed many a happy tete-a-tete. It is said 
 to be panelled with the oak of the bedstead on which 
 Queen Mary slept at Jedburgh in 1566. Scott's 
 death-mask is the only article the room contains. 
 The dead face is so tired that nobody can look 
 upon it without a gush of pity, and a feeling of 
 thankfulness that at last the man is in his grave. 
 We are not moved by the grandeur of its model- 
 ling ; the appeal it makes is to a larger humanity
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 181 
 
 than that. It is the face of a brother man, 
 stretched out too long upon the rack of this tough 
 world. The majesty of the forehead, and the dour 
 earnestness of the features, tell of Walter Scott, 
 the genius ; but it is in the corners of the mouth 
 that all the pathos lies. In them there is the 
 droop of an infinite weariness, and it makes the 
 heart ache (see Temple Bar, 1904). 
 
 LIBRARY. 
 
 Adjoining is the Library, the largest and finest 
 apartment in the house 40 feet long by 18 feet 
 broad and 16 feet high with an immense bay- 
 window, commanding a lovely view of the Tweed. 
 The book-presses, wired and locked, rise to a height 
 of 11 feet, leaving a space of 5 feet accordingly 
 between the top of the shelves and the magnificent 
 cedar ceiling, whose rich Gothic ornamentation 
 (of plaster, however) is modelled from Melrose 
 and Rosslyn. Notice the familiar ' curly green ' 
 of the Melrose Abbots. Close on 20,000 volumes 
 line the walls.* Many are presentation copies, and 
 not a few contain MS. criticisms and jottings 
 by Scott. The furniture of this room is very 
 
 * See the Abbotsford Library Catalogue, a handsome 
 quarto, edited by John G. Cochrane for the Maitland and 
 Bannatyne Clubs, 1838.
 
 182 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 valuable. Two very richly-carved chairs, said to 
 have come from the Borghese Palace, in Rome, 
 were presented by Constable (see letter to Terry 
 in Lockhart, vol. vii., p. 104). An ebony 
 writing-cabinet, gorgeously figured, and once the 
 property of George III., was presented by his 
 successor. Note should be taken of Sir Walter's 
 four-sloped reading-desk, movable at the will of the 
 writer, thus enabling him to consult a number of 
 works at one time. This was in constant use 
 when ' Napoleon ' was on the stocks. The great 
 centre-table was the work of Joseph Shillinglaw, 
 Darnick, ' the Sheriff planning and studying every 
 turn as zealously as ever an old lady pondered 
 the development of an embroidered cushion.' The 
 hangings and curtains (not in use) were chiefly 
 the work of a little hunch-backed tailor, William 
 Goodfellow, who occupied a cottage on Scott's 
 farm of the Broomielees. ' Not long after he 
 had completed his work at Abbotsford,' says 
 Lockhart, 'little Goodfellow fell sick, and as his 
 cabin was near Chiefswood, 1 had many oppor- 
 tunities of observing the Sheriff's kind attention to 
 him in his affliction. I can never forget the even- 
 ing on which the poor tailor died. When Scott 
 entered he found everyone silent, and inferred from
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 183 
 
 the looks of the good women in attendance that 
 their patient had fallen asleep, and that they feared 
 his sleep was the final one. He murmured some 
 syllables of kind regret. At the sound of his voice 
 the dying tailor unclosed his eyes, and eagerly and 
 wistfully sat up, clasping his hands with an ex- 
 pression of rapturous gratefulness and devotion 
 that, in the midst of deformity, disease, pain and 
 wretchedness, was at once beautiful and sublime. 
 He cried with a loud voice, " The Lord bless and 
 reward you !" and expired with the effort.' One 
 painting only has place in the Library a full- 
 length of the second Sir Walter, by Sir William 
 Allan (1822), in the uniform of the 15th Hussars, 
 his horse by his side. ' A handsomer fellow never 
 put foot into stirrup,' said Scott. The celebrated 
 Chantrey Bust, of which Lockhart said that it 
 * alone preserved for posterity the cast of expression 
 most fondly remembered by all who mingled in his 
 domestic circle,' was placed in its present niche (at 
 the end of the room) by young Sir Walter the day 
 after his father's funeral. Scott sat to Sir Francis 
 Chantrey in 1820, and it is this original bust which 
 is at Abbotsford. Only one duplicate was made 
 (for Apsley House). Chantrey sculptured a second 
 bust in 1828 (acquired by Sir Robert Peel), having
 
 184 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 in the meantime presented Scott with the bust of 
 1820, which bears an inscription to that effect on 
 the back. 
 
 A large octagonal glass table in the fine bay 
 contains the following gabions : 
 
 Napoleon's blotter and gold bee-clasps. 
 
 Found in his carriage after Waterloo. The blotter 
 contains a small packet of Napoleon's hair. 
 
 Napoleon's pen-case and sealing-wax. 
 
 Left on the writing-table at the Palace of the 
 Elysee Bourbon, in his flight from Paris, 1815 
 Presented by Lady Hampden, 1829- 
 
 A tricoloured cockade. 
 
 Brought from France in 1815. 
 
 Soldier's Memorandum-book. 
 
 Found at Waterloo. See ' Paul's Letters/ p. 199- 
 
 Piece of oat-cake. 
 
 Found in a dead Highlander's pocket on the field 
 of Culloden the day of the battle. Given to Scott 
 by Robert Chambers. 
 
 Queen Mary's seal. 
 
 Base engraved with a crowned shield, bearing the 
 Scottish lion and initials ' M.R.' 
 
 A piece of Queen Mary's dress.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 185 
 Prince Charlie's quaigh. 
 
 With mirror bottom, ' that he who quaffed might 
 keep his eye on the dirk hand of his companion.' 
 Often used by Scott. Presented, in 182.5, by 
 Mrs. Stewart of Stenton. 
 
 Lock of Prince Charlie's hair. 
 Rob Roy's purse. 
 
 Of brown leather ; much worn. Presented by 
 Joseph Train, 1818, a few days after the publica- 
 tion of ' Rob Roy.' 
 
 Helen MacGregor's brooch. 
 
 A six-pointed star, with a thistle and two leaves 
 between. ' I confess, for my own part,' says Scott, 
 ' that I looked long and curiously upon the brooch 
 that belonged to Rob Roy's wife. I was thinking 
 more of the wife than of the dauntless outlaw ; of 
 the woman who reproached her husband upon his 
 deathbed for exhibiting some signs of contrition 
 for his past misdeeds, exhorting him to die as he 
 had lived, " like a man." ' 
 
 Flora MacDonald's pocket-book. 
 
 Presented by Alexander Campbell, Leith, 1825. 
 Flora, it would appear, had intended this as a 
 present to the Rev. Martin Martin, a minister in 
 the Isle of Skye, but he having died, it never 
 reached its destination. The initials ' M. M. ' have 
 been wrought on the outside. 
 
 Lock of Nelson's hair. 
 
 24
 
 186 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Lock of Wellington's hair. 
 
 'As to the Duke of Wellington, ray faith is 
 constant that there is no other man living who 
 can work out the salvation of this country. He is 
 such a man as Europe has not seen since Julius 
 Caesar.' Scott to Lockhart. 
 
 Robert Burns 's tumbler. 
 
 With some verses scratched thereon. Scott and 
 Burns met only once, in 1786. 
 
 Toadstone amulet. 
 
 ' It was sovereign for protecting new-born children 
 and their mothers from the power of the fairies,' 
 says Scott. 
 
 Joanna Baillie's purse. 
 
 Netted in thick red silk by the poetess, and pre- 
 sented to Scott in 1812 (see Lockhart, vol iii., 
 p. 387). 
 
 Box made of the pulley of the * Maiden.' 
 
 An instrument of execution, of the guillotine 
 order, introduced into Scotland by the Regent 
 Morton, who himself suffered death by its means. 
 
 Balfour of Burley's snuff-box. 
 
 Immortalized in ' Old Mortality.' 
 
 Gold snuff-box set in brilliants. 
 
 Presented, in 1815, by George IV., then Prince 
 Regent, Scott's friend and patron. 
 
 Bog-oak snuff-box. 
 
 Presented by Maria Edge worth.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 187 
 Silver snuff-box. 
 
 Presented by City of Cork, 1825. 
 
 Robert Scott's (of Sandyknowe) snuff-box. 
 
 Tom Purdie's snuff-box. 
 
 Peter Mathieson's snuff-box. 
 
 Tom Purdie's wood-knife. 
 
 Sir Walter's knife. 
 
 Small knife and fork used by Scott as a child. 
 
 ' Beardie's ' quaigh. 
 
 Wallace-oak quaigh. 
 
 Presented by Joseph Train. 
 
 Quaigh made from Queen Mary's yew at Craig- 
 millar. 
 
 Quaigh made from Duke of Wellington's tree at 
 Waterloo. 
 
 ' Such a multifarious collection of ancient quaigh* 
 (little cups of curiously dove-tailed wood inlaid 
 with silver) as no Lowland sideboard but his was 
 ever equipped with ' (see Lockhart, vol. v., p. 339). 
 
 Cardinal Mezzofanti's skull-cap. 
 
 Brought from Rome by Scott. The Cardinal was 
 one of the greatest linguists of his day. 
 
 A Russian icon. 
 
 242
 
 188 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Silver medal of Charles I. 
 Miniature of Charles II. 
 
 Miniature of James VIII., the Chevalier de 
 St. George. 
 
 Medallion of George IV. 
 Bronze medallion of Scott. 
 Miniature of Scott at the age of six. 
 
 Painted at Bath in 1777 ; painter unknown. A 
 copy from the original in the Scottish National 
 Portrait Gallery. A second copy is in the posses- 
 sion of Mr. John Murray, London. 
 
 Miniature of Scott, 1797. 
 
 As an officer in the Edinburgh Light Dragoons. 
 According to the fashion of the day, his hair is 
 powdered. A lock of light brown hair is fastened, 
 under glass, at the back of the frame. This is the 
 second authentic likeness of Scott. 
 
 Miniature of Lady Scott, 1797. 
 
 When Miss Carpenter 'a brunette as dark as a 
 blackberry, but her person and face very engaging.' 
 
 Miniature of M. Jean Carpenter. 
 Father of Lady Scott. 
 
 DRAWING-ROOM. 
 
 Next we pass to the drawing-room, a deeply 
 interesting apartment, 24 feet by 18 feet, and in
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 189 
 
 height the same as the others. The walls are 
 hung with Chinese paper (wonderfully fresh still), 
 evidence of that Chinese fashion which the skill of 
 Sir William Chambers succeeded in foisting upon 
 fashionable people during the reign of George IV, 
 The windows, doors, and other woodwork, are of 
 Jamaica cedar, and have a rich and beautiful 
 appearance, and the furnishings are of great value. 
 Notice some very pretty china specimens. The 
 paintings, both numerous and valuable, include : 
 
 Full-length portrait of Scott, by Sir Henry Rae- 
 burn, R.A. 
 
 Painted in 1 809- A replica, with variations, of 
 the picture done for Constable the year before 
 (now at Bowhill). In the Abbotsford copy the 
 background gives the valley of the Yarrow instead 
 of Liddesdale. Camp is the dog at Scott's feet, 
 and Douglas the greyhound. 
 
 Lady Scott, by James Saxon, 1805. 
 
 A companion portrait to that of Sir Walter, painted 
 in 1805. 
 
 Scott's mother, by Sir John Watson Gordon, 
 P.R.S.A., R.A. 
 
 Anne Scott, by William Nicholson, R.S.A. 
 
 In fancy dress ; a water-colour sketch. ' An 
 honest, downright good Scots lass, in whom I 
 would only wish to correct a spirit of satire.'
 
 190 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Anne Scott, by John Graham. 
 
 In Spanish dress. 
 
 Sophia Scott (Mrs. Lockhart), by William Nichol- 
 son, R.S.A. 
 
 In Norwegian peasant dress. 
 
 The Hon. Mrs. Maxwell Scott, by Miller. 
 
 Presented by Mr. Maxwell Scott's cricketing 
 friends, 1887. 
 
 James VI. of Scotland. 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. 
 
 Painter unknown. To her the ' Lay ' was chanted : 
 
 ' In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, 
 She wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb.' 
 
 Henrietta, Queen of Charles I. 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 Sir Thomas Hervey, Knight Marshal to Queen 
 Mary. 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 Nell Gwynne, by Sir Peter Lely. 
 John Dryden, by Sir Peter Lely. 
 
 William Hogarth, by himself. 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 Painter unknown.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 191 
 
 Head of Mary Queen of Scots, by Amyas Cawood 
 (not Camwood, or Canwood, as the guide- 
 books say). 
 
 Presented by a Prussian nobleman. This picture 
 represents the head of the Queen after decapita- 
 tion, and bears the signature of the painter, with 
 the inscription and date, ' Maria Scotiae Regina, 
 Feb. 9, 1587,' the day after the execution. 'It 
 is known that leave was granted for such a picture, 
 and in the painter's name we may probably recognize 
 a brother of Mary's faithful attendant, Margaret 
 Cawood.' Cawood, or, as now, Carwood, near 
 Biggar, was the seat of this family. 
 
 Fast Castle. 
 
 By Thomson of Duddingston. Presented by the 
 artist. Fast Castle, Berwickshire, is the sup- 
 posed ' Wolf's Crag ' of the ' Bride of Lammer- 
 moor.' 
 
 Jedburgh Abbey. 
 
 A water-colour drawing by Bennet. Presented 
 by the artist. 
 
 Bust of Shakespeare. 
 
 Somewhat youthful-looking. Presented by George 
 Bullock, along with the finely-carved oak cabinet 
 on which it stands (see Lockhart, vol. v., p. 167). 
 
 ARMOURY. 
 
 * Stepping westwards,' we enter the Armoury, 
 a long, narrow apartment, running right across 
 the house, with emblazoned windows at either end 
 (heads of the Scottish Kings), and forming a sort
 
 192 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 of ante-room to the drawing-room on one side 
 and the dining-room on the other. It consists of 
 two parts, that to the south being 10 feet in 
 length, the other 25 feet. Both portions com- 
 municate by a Gothic archway, with carved oaken 
 wicket. Scarcely a nation on earth, savage or 
 civilized, but has contributed something in the 
 shape of a warlike weapon to the stores of the 
 Abbotsford armoury. Of its many remarkable 
 and valuable objects the mere enumeration of 
 which would, of themselves, form a goodly cata- 
 logue the following may be specially noted : 
 
 Sword of Montrose. 
 
 ' I have a relic of a more heroic character ; it 
 is a sword which was given to the great Marquis 
 of Montrose by Charles I., and appears to have 
 belonged to his father, our gentle King Jamie. 
 It had been preserved for a long time at Gart- 
 more, but the present proprietor was selling his 
 library, and John Ballantyne, the purchaser, wish- 
 ing to oblige me, would not conclude a bargain 
 till he flung the sword into the scale ' (letter 
 to Joanna Baillie, Lockhart, vol. iii., p. .390). 
 The sword bears on both sides the royal arms of 
 Great Britain, with the following inscription on 
 the blade : 
 
 ' Jacobe alumne pacis atk pallae 
 Serene cultor et decus Britannici 
 Clarrissimum regni tuis regalib 
 Sceptris subest de stirpe quond martia.' 
 
 Scott had the sheath remounted in 1822.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 193 
 Rob Roy's gun. 
 
 An immensely long-barrelled weapon of Spanish 
 manufacture, bearing the initials of the freebooter, 
 ' R. M. C.' Robert Macgregor Campbell (see Intro- 
 duction to ' Rob Roy,' p. 87). ' A dialogue between 
 Montrose's sword and Rob Roy's gun might be 
 composed with good effect ' (Scott to Joanna 
 Baillie). 
 
 Rob Roy's sword. 
 
 ' A fine old Highland broadsword with Andrea 
 Ferrara blade and basket hilt.' 
 
 Rob Roy's dirk. 
 
 Of Andrea Ferrara make. 
 
 Rob Roy's sporran. 
 
 Presented by Joseph Train, 1817. A plain leather 
 spleuchan likely to have been used by ' Rob ' in 
 his honest drover days. 
 
 Claverhouse's pistol. 
 
 A fine old Highland flint-lock. Not known how 
 it came into Scott's possession. 
 
 Napoleon's pistols. 
 
 Taken from his carriage after Waterloo, and pre- 
 sented by the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 Andreas Hofer's rifle. 
 
 The patriot leader of the Tyrolese in 1809. Pre- 
 sented by Sir Humphry Davy, who obtained it 
 from Hofer's lieutenant in reward for having cured 
 him of a fever. 
 
 '25
 
 194 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 James VI. 's hunting-bottle. 
 
 In an old tooled and gilt leathern case. Presented 
 by George Huntly Gordon. 
 
 Prince Charlie's hunting-knives. 
 
 Of French make, time of Louis XIV. 
 
 Canadian cow-horn. 
 
 With a map of Canada and its lakes most in- 
 geniously and not incorrectly carved upon it by a 
 native Indian. 
 
 Keys of Loch Leven Castle. 
 
 Three in number, on an old iron padlock. 
 
 The ' thumbikins ' or thumbscrews. 
 
 An instrument of torture used in Covenant times. 
 Presented by Gabriel Alexander. 
 
 Small iron box. 
 
 Found in the Chapel of Mary of Guise at Edin- 
 burgh Castle. 
 
 Model of Bruce's candlestick. 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots' crucifix. 
 Of mother-of-pearl. 
 
 Russian Prayer-Book. 
 
 Russian cross (brass). 
 
 Tamul Book. 
 
 Necklaces of human hair and bones. 
 
 From the Sandwich Islands.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 195 
 Celtic mask. 
 
 Found at Torrs, Kelton parish, Galloway. Pre- 
 sented by Joseph Train, 1820. 
 
 White tail-duster. 
 
 Used by Scott for dusting his books. 
 
 Highland broadsword. 
 
 Presented to Scott by the Celtic Society ; a 
 gorgeous article, with a sheath of elaborately- 
 chased silver (see Diary, January, 182(>). 
 
 Scott's blunderbuss. 
 
 Round the muzzle are the words : ' When rogues 
 appear, my voice you'll hear.' 
 
 Scott's pistols and sabre. 
 
 Used when Quarter - Master of the Edinburgh 
 Light Dragoons. 
 
 Scott's sword. 
 
 ' A Highland broadsword, with engraved basket 
 hilt and Andrea Ferrara blade.' 
 
 Scott's own gun. 
 
 An old Spanish double-barrelled flint-lock. 
 
 Officer's sword. 
 
 Worn by the second Sir Walter when in the 
 loth Hussars. 
 
 Pair of gilt dress spurs. 
 
 Worn by the second Sir Walter when in the 
 loth Hussars.
 
 196 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 The Armoury paintings consist chiefly of Scott's 
 servants and friends : 
 
 John Swanston. 
 
 Gamekeeper. ' A fine fellow, who did all he 
 could to replace Tom Purdie.' Painter uncertain ; 
 initialled 'G. D. '; date 1851. 
 
 Peter Mathieson, with ' Donald,' the pony. 
 
 Coachman. ' I cannot forget how his eyes sparkled 
 when he first pointed out to me Peter Mathieson 
 guiding the plough on the haugh. " Egad," said 
 he, " auld Pepe " (this was the children's name 
 for their good friend) "auld Pepe's whistling at 
 his darg. The honest fellow said a yoking in a 
 deep field would do baith him and the blackies 
 good. If things get round with me, easy shall be 
 Pepe's cushion"' (Lockhart, vol. ix.). Painter 
 uncertain; initialled ' G. D. '; date 1851. 
 
 Tom Purdie. 
 
 Described in ' Redgauntlet ' (see Lockhart, vol. vi., 
 p. 121). Painted by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. 
 
 James Ballantyne. 
 
 Painter unknown. ' James was a short, stout, well- 
 made man, and would have been considered a 
 handsome one but for those grotesque frowns, 
 starts, and twistings of his features, set off by a 
 certain mock majesty of walk and gesture, which 
 he had perhaps contracted from his usual com- 
 panions, the emperors and tyrants of the stage.' 
 
 Miniature of Claverhouse. 
 
 Painter unknown.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 197 
 Charles Mackay, as ' Bailie Nicol Jarvie.' 
 
 ' The man who played the Bailie made a piece of 
 acting equal to whatever has been seen in the 
 profession. For my own part, I was actually 
 electrified by the truth, spirit, and humour which 
 he threw into the part. It was the living Nicol 
 Jarvie' (Scott to Terry, April, 1829). 
 
 Miniature of Prince Charlie. 
 
 James IV. (contemporary portrait, 1507). 
 
 Portrait of Allan Ramsay. 
 
 By Allan Ramsay, junior. 
 
 The Scotts of Raeburn. 
 
 By Sir John Watson Gordon. 
 
 Scott in his study. 
 
 By Sir William Allan. 
 
 Medallion of Scott. 
 
 Medallion of Christopher North. 
 
 By Andrew Currie. 
 
 Hinse of Hinsfeldt. 
 
 Scott's cat. See description of the Castle Street 
 ' den.' 
 
 ' Ginger.' 
 
 Scott's dog. Painted by Landseer.
 
 198 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Drawing of Queen Elizabeth dancing. 
 
 By Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. ' This production 
 of Mr. Sharpe's pencil, and the delight with which 
 Scott used to expatiate on its merits, must be well 
 remembered by everyone that ever visited the poet 
 at Abbotsford.' 
 
 ' The Dish of Spurs.' 
 
 By Sharpe. ' When the larders of our ancestors 
 were bare, and fresh meat was desired, the house- 
 wife placed a pair of spurs on a dish to remind the 
 men-folk that the moment was come for a raid on 
 their neighbour's cattle.' 
 
 ' The Reiver's Wedding.' 
 
 By Sharpe. See Lockhart, vol. ii., for unfinished 
 ballad of ' The Reiver's Wedding ' ; also letter to 
 Miss Seward, June 29, 1802, same vol. 
 
 ' Gibbie wi' the Gowden Gairters.' 
 
 By Sharpe. Sir Gilbert Elliot paying his addresses 
 to Auld Wat of Harden's daughter. 
 
 An (not The) Ettrick shepherd. 
 The Paschal Lamb. 
 
 From the High Altar at Dryburgh. 
 
 Dead partridge. 
 
 The above three wood-carvings are by Andrew 
 Currie. 
 
 Statuette of Sir Walter. 
 
 From John Greenshields' seated figure, carved in 
 freestone, now in the Advocates' Library 'Sic 
 Sedebat.'
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 199 
 
 ENTRANCE HALL. 
 
 In this order of going round the Entrance Hall 
 comes last a spacious apartment, 40 feet by 
 20 feet, panelled to the height of 7 feet with dark 
 oak from Dunfermline Abbey. The roof is of 
 stucco-work in imitation of the wainscotting, and 
 comprehends a series of arches with dependent 
 points, modelled from Melrose Abbey. The effect 
 of this room is grand and impressive. A sort of 
 rich and red twilight, even at noonday, from the 
 emblazoned ' Bellenden'^ windows, pervades the 
 place, which is literally laden with relics and 
 trophies. The cornice displays a double line of 
 escutcheons, with the heraldic bearings of the 
 Scotts, Kers, Elliots, Douglases, Homes, Pringles, 
 Maxwells, Johnstones, Chisholms, and other Border 
 families, and the inscription in black letter : 
 
 "(These be the Coat Jlrmouris of pe (Elannis 
 ano men of name qnha keqrit the Scottish 
 Jftarches in PC oars of aulo. ^hcij tocrc toorthic 
 in thair tmne aitb in thair ocfens doi thaim 
 befenbuV 
 
 * The slogan of the Scotts of Buccleuch A Bellenden P 
 from Bellendean, near the head of the Borthwick Water, in 
 Roxburghshire. The windows show the shields of eight families 
 of the clan.
 
 200 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 The arms of Scott's own ancestors occupy 
 sixteen shields running along the centre of the 
 roof, being the complete quarterings of a man of 
 'gentle blood.' On his father's side running west 
 are the names of Scott, Haliburton, Campbell, 
 M'Dougal, Murray, Scott (Dryhope), Ker, Riddel ; 
 and on his mother's side running east Ruther- 
 ford, Swinton, Shaw, Ker, Ainslie. Three shields 
 on this side are blanks, Scott not being able to 
 trace out his pedigree to the full length of his 
 spaces, and are painted over with blue clouds, 
 and the motto, A Ita Nooo Premit (' Oblivion has 
 covered them'). The floor is a mosaic of black 
 and white Hebridean marble. Of a singularly rich 
 assortment of curiosities in the shape of cuirasses 
 and suits of armour, helmets, shields, swords, lances, 
 and other arms of all sorts and ages, flags, cannon- 
 balls, and numberless other articles from apparently 
 every country under the sun, all of them interesting 
 in their antiquity or associations, the following are 
 some of the more notable : 
 
 Suit of fluted armour. 
 
 Early sixteenth century. 
 
 Suit of polished steel tilting armour. 
 
 Middle of the sixteenth century. Believed to 
 have come from Bosworth Field, and, as Scott
 
 THE ENTRANCE HALL, ABBOTSFORD 
 
 1 And stranger lips, unmoved and cold, 
 The legends of thy mansion told 
 Thy lauded, glittering brand and spear, 
 And costly gift from prince and peer, 
 And broad claymore, with silver dight 
 And hunting-horn of Border knight, 
 What were such gauds to me ? 
 More dear had been one single word 
 From those whose veins thy blood had stirred.
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 201 
 
 suggests, to have belonged to Sir John Cheney, 
 the biggest man of both armies on that memorable 
 day. An enormous two-handed sword, nearly the 
 length of a man, is held by this figure (see also 
 the celebrated Calendar-sword, close by, and tilt- 
 ing-lance, about 12 feet long). 
 
 Relics from Waterloo. 
 
 Pistols, cuirasses, swords, sabres, etc. (see Lock- 
 hart, vol. v.). 
 
 Relics from Culloden. 
 
 Highland back-swords. 
 
 Relics from Roxburgh Castle. 
 
 Two cannon-balls. 
 
 Archbishop Sharp's grate. 
 
 See letter to Terry, January 9, 1823. The fire- 
 place is modelled from the Abbot's Stall at Mel- 
 rose. 
 
 Head of elk. 
 
 Found in Abbotsrule Moss, twelve miles from 
 Abbotsford. 
 
 Ralph Erskine's pulpit. 
 
 The two semicircular presses between the windows, 
 forming a sort of wine-cellar, were made from the 
 wood of this pulpit, with the precentor's desk and 
 King's seat of Dunfermline Abbey Church. 
 
 Keys of the old Tolbooth of Edinburgh. 
 
 Presented by the magistrates of Edinburgh, 1816. 
 
 Lock and key of Selkirk Gaol. 
 
 26
 
 202 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 A Jeddart axe. 
 
 Time of James V. 
 
 Hermitage touting-horn. 
 
 ' How great he was when he was made master o' 
 that ! Sir Walter carried it home all the way from 
 Liddesdale to Jedburgh, slung about his neck like 
 Johnny Gilpin's bottle, and muckle and sair we 
 routed on't, and hotched and blew wi' micht and 
 main' (Shortreed's 'Memoranda'). 
 
 Burgess hat of Stow. 
 
 Model of the Scottish branks. 
 For scolding wives. 
 
 Model of skull of Robert the Bruce. 
 
 On the mantelpiece. 
 
 Model of skull of Shaw, the Waterloo Lifeguards- 
 man. 
 
 On the mantelpiece (see Lockhart, vol. v., p. 71). 
 
 Marie Antoinette's clock. 
 
 On the mantelpiece. 
 
 Bronze pot from Riddell, Roxburghshire. 
 ' The mistletoe chest where Ginevra lay.' 
 
 Sent from Italy to Scott as the identical chest in 
 which the beautiful young bride hid herself on her 
 marriage-day, in a frolicsome wish to baffle the 
 search of her newly-wedded lord, and out of which 
 chest she never came, until the lapse of many 
 years had converted her beautiful frame into a
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 203 
 
 mouldering skeleton. A spring-lock had shut her 
 in, and all search for her proved vain. Sir Walter 
 was led to doubt the authenticity of the relic from 
 the fact that Italy has a box with similar claims in 
 several of her principal cities. Besides, the chest 
 at Abbotsford has not the spring lock. 
 
 Sir Walter's clothes. 
 
 The last suit worn by him drab trousers, striped 
 waistcoat, dark - green coat with white metal 
 buttons, and light fawn beaver hat. ' When I was at 
 Abbotsford I saw in a glass case the last clothes 
 Scott wore. Among them an old white hat, 
 which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken 
 by the uneasy, purposeless wandering hither and 
 thither of his heavy head. It so embodied Lock- 
 hart's pathetic description of him when he tried to 
 write and laid down his pen and cried, that it 
 associated itself in my mind with broken power 
 and mental weakness from that hour' (Charles 
 Dickens, 1851). 
 
 Bust of Wordsworth. 
 
 ' So didst thou travel on life's common way, 
 In cheerful godliness.' 
 
 DINING-ROOM. 
 
 The Dining-room ' his own great parlour '- 
 is not open to the public. It was the first room of 
 any pretensions that Scott built at Abbotsford (it is 
 30 feet in length, including a considerable bow, 
 17 feet in breadth and 12 feet high), and much 
 care was expended on its design and decoration. 
 He adorned the walls with portraits of his 
 
 262
 
 204 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ancestors, and, says Lockhart, 'he seemed never 
 to weary of perusing them.' It was here, too, as 
 has been already said, that the final tragedy was 
 played out. 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 Sir Walter's great-grandfather, known as ' Beardie/ 
 from a vow which he made never to shave his 
 beard till the Stuarts were restored. 
 
 ' With amber beard and flaxen hair, 
 And reverend apostolic air, 
 Small thought was his, in after time, 
 E'er to be hitch'd into a rhyme. 
 The simple sire could only boast 
 That he was loyal to his cost ; 
 The banish'd race of kings revered, 
 And lost his land but kept his beard.' 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 Robert Scott, of Sandyknowe. 
 
 Sir Walter's grandfather. 
 
 ' The thatch'd mansion's grey-hair'd sire, 
 Wise without learning, plain and good, 
 And sprung of Scotland's gentle blood.' 
 
 Painter unknown. 
 
 Professor Rutherford. 
 
 Sir Walter's maternal grandfather, Professor of 
 Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, ' one to 
 whom the school of medicine in our northern 
 metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished 
 for professional talent, for lively wit, and for literary 
 acquirements.' Painter unknown.
 
 THE DINING-ROOM, ABBOTSFORD 
 
 ' Forth went a shadowy hand 
 
 And touched him on the brow ; 
 Calmly he laid his wand 
 Aside, and shook the sand 
 
 Death, is it thou? 
 Slow o'er his reverend head 
 
 The darkness crept, 
 While nations round his bed 
 
 Stood still, and wept ! '
 
 THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD 205 
 Walter Scott, W.S. 
 
 Sir Walter's father, 'a most just, honourable, and 
 conscientious man. He passed from the cradle to 
 the grave without making an enemy or losing a 
 friend.' Painter unknown. 
 
 Mrs. Scott. 
 
 Anne Rutherford, Sir Walter's mother, ' short of 
 stature and by no means comely.' Painter un- 
 known. 
 
 Thomas Scott. 
 
 Sir Walter's uncle. ' The most venerable figure I 
 had ever set my eyes on tall and erect, with long 
 flowing tresses of the most silvery whiteness. He 
 sat reading his Bible without spectacles, and did 
 not, for a moment, perceive that anyone had entered 
 his room ; but, on recognizing his nephew, he rose 
 with cordial alacrity, kissing him on both cheeks, 
 and exclaiming : " God bless thee, Walter, my 
 man ! thou hast risen to be great, but thou wast 
 always good." Painter unknown. 
 
 Thomas Scott, W.S. 
 
 Sir Walter's third brother, 'a man of infinite 
 humour and excellent parts.' Painter unknowa
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD 
 
 WHILST this work deals mainly with Abbotsford, 
 it will be fitting to refer briefly to one or two places 
 within what may be called the Abbotsford radius. 
 At least half a dozen scenes of interest can be 
 visited with profit by the literary pilgrim. Abbots- 
 ford is his Mecca par excellence, and it is here that 
 homage must rise to its full height. Abbotsford 
 is but the centre, however, of a widely historic 
 locality, in which it may be possible to discover 
 shrine after shrine, each demanding some show of 
 devotion. Of course, Scott is the chief attractive 
 force to the Scottish Border. But long before his 
 day Tweedside and the country around Abbots- 
 ford lay in the very lap of 'glamourie.' And it 
 was. as we have seen, largely because of the 
 romance which haunted the whole district that 
 Abbotsford took shape, to become by - and - by 
 perhaps the most romantic spot in Europe. 
 
 209 27
 
 210 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Melrose the Kennaquhair of the ' Monastery ' 
 is the most convenient headquarters for studying 
 the homes and following the footprints of Sir 
 Walter Scott. Scott may be said to have made 
 Melrose. It was a mere village when Abbots- 
 ford was building. It really grew with the 
 growth of Abbotsford, and in the wake of Scott's 
 success. The name maol-ros, ' the open or naked 
 headland ' is a transfer from Old Melrose, 
 two and a half miles further down the Tweed, 
 where flourished the first monastic settlement, 
 fragrant with the memories of Aidan, Boisil 
 (whence St. Lessuden and St. Boswells), and most 
 celebrated of them all, Cuthbert, that Leaderside 
 shepherd lad, who rose to be head of the great 
 See of Durham. It was David, ' the Sair Sanct,' 
 who founded the second religious house of Melrose 
 between the years 1136 and 1146. Dedicated to 
 the Virgin, and tenanted by a colony of Cistercians 
 from Rievalle, in Yorkshire, the pioneers of their 
 Order in Scotland, Melrose quickly came to the 
 front as the most famous establishment of its kind 
 in the kingdom. For four centuries, like the rest 
 of the Border Abbeys, Melrose held its place, and 
 was a power in the land. During the Edwardian 
 Wars it suffered frequently from fire and assault,
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD 211 
 
 and, indeed, about 1322, it was more or less a ruin. 
 Mainly through the munificence of Robert the 
 Bruce, it was rebuilt in 1326, * in the most magni- 
 ficent style of the period,' at a cost of 50,000 in 
 modern money. By 1384 it was again sacked, this 
 time by Richard II., and again restored. In 1544 
 Evers and Latoun, the English generals at Ancrum 
 Moor, desecrated and demolished the Douglas 
 tombs at Melrose, and in the following year, on 
 the Hertford invasion, the work of destruction 
 was complete. At the Reformation the Abbey 
 was finally dismantled, and for long afterwards 
 the ruin was used as a quarry by the towns- 
 people. Not a little of the original Abbotsford 
 found its way from Melrose Abbey. The statues, 
 specially numerous and costly, were 'ground to 
 powder ' in 1649, and up to 1820 the nave was 
 used as the parish church. Scott's genius and 
 patriotism have done more for Melrose than any- 
 thing else. To him, in large measure, as the 
 Biography shows, the place owes its preservation 
 as the finest ecclesiastical ruin in the country. None 
 knew Melrose Abbey better, or bore a dearer 
 regard to it, than Scott, and its architecture is 
 nowhere more faithfully described than in the 
 ' Lay.' To read the * Lay ' at Melrose is one of 
 
 272
 
 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 the delights of a lifetime. The best view is from 
 the south-east corner of the churchyard. By the 
 high altar Bruce's heart was interred. Here also 
 lie the bodies of the brave Earl Douglas, hero 
 of Otterburn, and of that other Douglas, the 
 ' dark knight of Liddesdale,' a prominent figure 
 in Border story. There, too, is the traditional 
 grave of 'the wondrous Wizard,' Michael Scot, 
 from whose cold dead hand Deloraine snatched 
 the Book of Might. And many another - 
 monarch and monk, priest and warrior, Border 
 laird and lady are at rest under these time-worn 
 canopies. How interesting and touching to follow 
 the inscriptions around the walls, and the numerous 
 chaste carvings on 'pillar and arch and lintel high.' 
 Two epitaphs outside call for attention, both con- 
 nected with Scott. One, which he was fond of 
 repeating it is surely one of the most pregnant 
 in epitaphian literature runs : 
 
 ' The earth goeth on the earth, 
 
 Glisfring like gold ; 
 The earth goes to the earth 
 
 Sooner than it wold ; 
 The earth builds on the earth 
 
 Castles and towers ; 
 The earth says to the earth, 
 
 " All shall be ours." '
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD 213 
 
 The other, his own simple and sincere words, 
 covering the grave of honest Tom Purdie : 
 
 IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FAITHFUL 
 
 AND ATTACHED SERVICES 
 
 OF 
 
 TWENTY - TWO YEARS, 
 
 AND IN SORROW 
 FOR THE LOSS OF A HUMBLE 
 
 BUT SINCERE FRIEND, 
 
 THIS STONE WAS ERECTED 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., 
 
 OF ABBOTSFORD. 
 
 HERE LIES THE BODY 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS PURDIE, 
 
 WOOD - FORESTER 
 AT ABBOTSFORD, 
 
 WHO DIED 29 OCTOBER, 
 
 1829, 
 
 AGED SIXTY-TWO YEARS. 
 
 ' Thou hast been faithful 
 Over a few things, 
 I will make thee ruler 
 Over many things.' 
 
 MATTHEW, chap. xxv. v. 21st. 
 
 Close under the Abbey windows reposes all
 
 214 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 that is mortal of the great Christian philosopher, 
 Sir David Brewster. ' The Lord is my Light ' is a 
 not unfitting text for one who was the acknow- 
 ledged master of optics in his day. Melrose Cross, 
 in the centre of the town, with the date of its 
 restoration (1642), is believed to be the oldest 
 ' mercat-cross ' in the Borders. From Melrose we 
 may climb the clefted Eildons, always in vision, 
 the supreme landmarks and sentinels of the Border- 
 land. Here Scott loved to linger. ' I can stand 
 on the Eildon Hill,' he said, * and point out forty- 
 three places famous in war and verse.' Or the 
 romantic green- woods of the Fairy Dean may 
 attract us, despite the * White Lady ' and her 
 vagaries. And we may be led to explore Elwyn- 
 dale and the fine open country to the head of the 
 glen, with the three towers of the 'Monastery,' 
 Hillslap or Glendearg Dame Glendinning's home 
 Langshaw, and Colmslie. 
 
 As a rule, the visitor to Abbotsford has also 
 Dryburgh as an objective, and ample provision has 
 been made for his ease and comfort in getting 
 thither. By far the most picturesque route is to 
 follow that of Scott's funeral-day. Past Newstead 
 first, quaintest of old-world hamlets, the supposed 
 Roman Trimontium (from the Eildons, at whose
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD 215 
 
 base it nestles). Note its wealth of sun-dials. 
 Thence, still keeping by the serpentine Tweed, to 
 Leaderfoot, across its old Bridge where was 
 Scott's last passing of the Tweed up by Glads- 
 wood and Bemersyde Hill, pausing for a moment 
 or two at ' Sir Walter's gate,' on the crest of the 
 whinny road 
 
 * Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose, 
 And Eildon slopes to the plain. 1 
 
 This was Scott's favourite view, and it has few 
 equals. Did not Elihu Burritt affirm that * it is 
 the most magnificent view I ever saw in Scotland, 
 excepting, perhaps, the one from Stirling Castle ' ? 
 Still pursuing our way Dryburghwards, we catch 
 a glimpse of Sandyknowe* to the east, the scene of 
 Scott's child-years, and enshrined in some of the 
 noblest verse of ' Marmion.' Then, dipping down 
 through the thickest and tallest of wild-woods, and 
 the most luxuriant of bracken and broom, we 
 reach Dryburgh, which, if it cannot boast the 
 
 * Sandyknowe appears to be the correct designation of the 
 tower. In most books on Scott it is generally referred to as 
 Smailholm Tower. Smailholm, however, had another Keep 
 of that name (now demolished) close to the village. Many 
 old records and maps read Sandeknow, etc., and local usage 
 confirms this. Scott himself liked to speak of Sandyknowe.
 
 216 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 architectural glories of Melrose, far surpasses it 
 for queenly situation. Surrounded on three sides 
 by the Tweed, itself unseen from the Abbey 
 precincts, and amidst a ' brotherhood of venerable 
 trees,' in picturesqueness and seclusion it is per- 
 haps the most charming monastic ruin in Great 
 Britain. And here, in the lap of legends old, in 
 the heart of the land he has made enchanted, and 
 among his ancestral dust (for Dryburgh belonged 
 to his forebears, and might have come to himself but 
 for the stupidity of a spendthrift relative), Walter 
 Scott waits the breaking light of morn. There are 
 the inscriptions which we must read, and as reverent 
 and worshipful pilgrims, heads are bared for this 
 sacred duty. In 1847 a massive granite sarco- 
 phagus was placed over Scott's grave, where 
 thousands upon thousands from all the winds that 
 blow have treasured its simple words : 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, BARONET, 
 
 DIED SEPTEMBER 21, A.D. 1832. 
 
 The other inscriptions are : 
 DAME CHARLOTTE MARGARET CARPENTER, 
 
 WIFE OF 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT OF ABBOTSFORD, BARONET, 
 
 DIED AT ABBOTSFORD, MAY 15, 1826.
 
 DRYBURGH ABBEY 
 
 1 Slender as a reed 
 
 Is the slim pillar on the transept tall, 
 Where the lush wall-flower blooms, and over all 
 A rowan grows, where some wind-wafted seed 
 Had lodged, and all is silent as a dream, 
 But for a throstle on the ancient yew, 
 But for the low faint murmur of the stream ; 
 And sweet old-fashioned scents are floating through 
 The arch from thyme and briar, as for ever 
 Shall his sweet nature haunt this fabled river.'
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD 217 
 
 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 OF ABBOTSKORD, SECOND BAROXET, 
 DIED AT SEA, 8 FEBRUARY, 1847, AGED 45 YEARS. 
 HIS WIDOW PLACED THIS STONE OVER HIS GRAVE. 
 
 DAME JANE JOBSON, 
 
 HIS WIDOW, 
 DIED AT LONDON, 19 MARCH, 1877, AGED 76 YEARS. 
 
 These tombs and inscriptions follow each other 
 from the back to the front of the aisle. And on 
 the right of the others is Lockhart's, at right angles, 
 with a bronze medallion at the top : 
 
 HERE, 
 AT THE FEET OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, 
 
 LIE 
 THE MORTAL REMAINS OF 
 
 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, 
 
 HIS SON-IN-LAW, 
 
 BIOGRAPHER AND FRIEND. 
 
 BORN 14 JDNE, 1794. 
 
 DIED 25 NOV., 1864. 
 
 If we be wise, we shall make the return journey 
 by Dryburgh village and Newtown. What a 
 magnificent river the Tweed is here, looking either 
 up or down from the Baillie Suspension Bridge, 
 or the high red bank beyond ! Surely the Eildons 
 never backgrounded a pleasanter picture than this. 
 
 28
 
 218 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 All the landscape is, in sooth, among the fairest 
 of fair scenes, on which we shall want to feast 
 the eye again and again, to be dreaming of Dry- 
 burgh when, it may be, over the seas and far away. 
 On a summer's day, or at the early autumn, or 
 even 'mid winter's mantling white, it seems to 
 carry a perpetual charm. 
 
 Kelso, as a shrine of Scott, may not be left 
 un visited. Here he was schooled (partly), but 
 better, it was at Kelso that the whole world of 
 Romance opened out to his delighted fancy. 
 Robert Burns is said to have gazed in wondrous 
 and even prayerful rapture on the vision of Kelso 
 Bridge and the Tweed, forming an almost perfect 
 picture. And this, with the Abbey, * like some 
 antique Titan predominating over the dwarfs 
 of a later world ' ; ruined Roxburgh, between 
 Tweed's and Teviot's flow ; and the near neighbour- 
 hood of other memory-moving spots, were just the 
 scenes which made the best appeal to Scott, which 
 influenced him most, and the fruits of whose in- 
 spiration we still daily reap. Jedburgh has some 
 claim on the Scott student and for the lover of old 
 romance. His best hours will be spent by its 
 venerable Abbey, in the most excellent of situa- 
 tions (how well those old monks could gauge the
 
 KELSO ABBEY AND BRIDGE 
 
 ' Bosom'd in woods where mighty rivers run, 
 Kelso's fair vale expands before the sun ; 
 Its rising downs in vernal beauty swell, 
 And fringed with hazel winds each flowery dell ; 
 Green-spangled plains to dimpling lawns succeed, 
 And Tempe' rises on the banks of Tweed. 
 Blue o'er the river Kelso's shadow lies, 
 And copse clad isles amid the waters rise.'
 
 AROUND ABBOTSFORD 219 
 
 lie of the land !), girt about with well-kept gardens, 
 overlooking the bosky banks of the Jed a veritable 
 poem in Nature and Art. 
 
 There is one place which should not be over- 
 looked. To him who writes it is the sweetest and 
 the best, entwined with memories lasting as life 
 itself. With the story of Thomas of Ercildoune 
 he first heard that of Sir Walter Scott. Under 
 the weird shadow of the Rhymer's Tower, other 
 names fell upon his ear Ashestiel, Abbotsford, 
 ' Marmion,' ' Waverley.' Much has been since 
 then ! But home and the days of youth are 
 never forgotten. One hears still in memory the 
 music of the Leader. Across the years comes 
 there again and again a sweet old-time fragrance of 
 yellow broom from Cowdenknowes. 
 
 282
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABBOTSFORD, 3, 114 
 
 Armoury, 191 
 Dining-room, 203 
 Drawing-room, 188 
 Entrance Hall, 199 
 Family, 90 
 Ferry, 168 
 Hunt, 57 
 Library, 181 
 ' Noctes/ 79 
 ' Notanda,' 82 
 Pronunciation of, 3 
 Study, 176 
 the Treasures of, 167 
 
 Abbotstown, 60 
 
 Adolphus, John Leycester, 93 
 
 Ale Water, 135 
 
 Allan, Sir William, 53 
 
 Allerly, 102 
 
 Ambrose, 79 
 
 American, ubiquitous, 67 
 
 Apsley House, 183 
 
 Ariosto, 91 
 
 Ashestiel, 13, 112, 219 
 
 Atkinson, 36 
 
 Baillie, Joanna, 29, 81 
 
 Baird, Rev. Principal, 121 
 
 Ballantyne, 52, 80 
 
 James, 24, 196 
 John, 108, 135 
 
 Ballingry, 149 
 
 Balliol, 128 
 
 Bemersyde, 18, 121, 136 
 Hill, 215 
 
 Berwick, 16 
 Biggar, 112 
 Blore, Edward, 36 
 ' Blucher,' the, 52 
 Boswell, 81, 125 
 Bowdeii Moor, 135 
 Braes of Yarrow, 87, 88 
 Brewster, Sir David, 102, 214 
 ' Bride of Lammermoor,' 108 
 British Peerage, 68 
 Broadmeadows, 19 
 Broomielees, 60, 182 
 Brown, Dr. John, 171 
 Bruce, Heart of, 126 
 Bullock, George, 36 
 Burne the Violer, 137 
 Burnfoot, 42 
 Burns, Captain, 143 
 
 Robert, 12, 218 
 Burritt, Elihu, 215 
 Byron, Lady, 89 
 
 Lord, 13, 30, 81, 89 
 
 Cadell, the publisher, 52, 113, 
 
 115, 119, 120, 167 
 Calais, 12 
 
 Cambusnethan, 125 
 < Camp/ 72 
 Campbell, 80 
 
 Tom, 83 
 Cardross, 128 
 Carlyle, 77, 137, 148, 171 
 Carpenter, Charles, 26 
 
 Charlotte, 50 
 I Carruthers, Robert, 82 
 220
 
 INDEX 
 
 221 
 
 Carterhaugh, 135 
 
 Cartleyhole, 21 
 
 'Castle Dangerous/ 112, 113 
 
 Castle Street, 33, 105, 130 
 
 Catrail, 24 
 
 Cauldshiels, 93, 106, 114 
 
 Loch, 41 
 
 Chambers, Robert, 171 
 Chantrey Bust, 183 
 Charge Law, 5 
 Chiefswood, 42, 139, 140 
 
 days, 141 
 Clarty Hole, 22 
 Cleghorn, 112, 127 
 Cock-a- Pistol, 5 
 Cockburn, Alison, 6 
 Lord, 102 
 Colmslie, 214 
 Constable, 80 
 Contiu, 66 
 'Count Robert of Paris,' 111, 
 
 113 
 
 Court Clerkship, 49 
 Cowdenknowes, 18, 87, 136, 219 
 Crabbe, 80 
 Crash, the, 67 
 Croker, 114, 120 
 Cross of Edinburgh, 172 
 Cunningham, Allan, 115 
 Cuthbert (St.), 210 
 
 Dalgleish, 65 
 Darnick, 43, 121 
 
 Tower, 42, 121 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry, 54, 81, 91 
 Deloraine, 212 
 
 ' Den/ the, at Castle Street, 133 
 Dial-stone, 113 
 Dickens, Charles, 102, 203 
 Dickson, Dr., 121 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, 142 
 Douglas, 112 
 
 Dr. Robert, 21 
 Douglasdale, 143 
 Drumlanrig, 40 
 Dryburgh, 23, 122, 136, 214 
 Drygrauge, 18 
 Dunfermline Abbey, 199 
 
 Earlston, 136, 219 
 Fair, 129 
 Edgeworth, Mr. Lovell, 93 
 
 Maria, 81, 91 
 Edgeworthstown, 93 
 Edinburgh, 114 
 
 Cross of, 172 
 Eildon, 23 
 
 Hall, 18 
 Tree Stone, 42 
 Eildons, the, 42, 114, 134, 
 
 214 
 
 Elibank, 112 
 Eliot, George, 102 
 Elwyndale, 214 
 Ercildoune, Thomas of, 219 
 Erskines of Cardross, 128 
 Ettrick, 88, 98 
 
 Faed's (Thomas) ' Scott and his 
 
 Literary Friends/ 80 
 Fairualee, 26 
 Fairy Dean, 214 
 Faldouside, 42 
 Ferguson, Captain, 71 
 
 Sir Adam, 80, 90 
 Ferrier, Susan, 98 
 Fielding, 101 
 FitzGerald, Edward, 102 
 Floors, 18 
 Froude, 148 
 
 Galashiels, 21, 88, 169 
 
 Gala Water, 87, 88 
 
 Gattonside, 169 
 i Gibson, Elizabeth, 127 
 
 (riltillan. George, 171 
 
 Gladstone, 163 
 ' Gladswood, 18, 121, 215 
 
 Gleig, G. R., 147 
 
 Glendearg, 214 
 
 Goethe, 128 
 
 Goodfellow, William, 182 
 
 Gordon Arms in Yarrow, 102 
 
 Great King Street, 139 
 
 Guizards, 61 
 I Gustavus, Prince, 68
 
 222 
 
 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Hall, Basil, 40, 83 
 
 ' Journal 'of, 61 
 Hallam, Arthur Henry, 96 
 Hamilton, Thomas, 102, 142 
 < Hardyknute,' 114 
 Harleyburn, 42 
 Heart of Bruce, 126 
 ' Heart of Midlothian,' 173 
 Heiton, John, 42 
 Hemans, Mrs., 98 
 Hillslap, 214 
 Hogg, James, 59, 65, 101 
 
 James's alleged insult, 101 
 Hogmanay, 61 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 102 
 Hope, James Fitzalan, M.P., 
 
 154 
 
 Howitt, William, 102 
 ' Huntlee Bankis/ 42 
 Huntlyburn, 41, 71, 95, 139 
 
 Innerleithen, 112 
 
 Irving, Washington, 57, 82, 114 
 
 Italian tour, 114 
 
 ' Ivanhoe,' 108 
 
 James V. (King), 5 
 James, G. P. R., 102 
 Jedburgh, 112, 117, 218 
 
 Abbey, 218 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 80 
 ' Jock o' Hazeldean,' 114 
 John of Skye, 134 
 'Journal,' Basil Hall's, 61 
 
 Kaeside, 41 
 Kelso, 16, 79, 218 
 Bridge, 218 
 ' Kennaquhair,' 210 
 Kensal Green Cemetery, 153 
 Ker, Andrew, 42 
 Killarney, 93 
 ' Kingdom of Border Romance,' 
 
 136 
 
 Kinnedder, Lord, 140 
 Kirn, the, 60 
 Knox, John, 42 
 
 ' Lady Anne,' 56 
 
 Laidlaw, 54, 65, 66, 82, 108, 113, 
 
 116, 122 
 
 Lammermoor, 88 
 Landseer, Sir Edwin, 54 
 Lang, Mr., 138 
 
 ' Life of Lockhart,' 125 
 Langshaw, 214 
 Lasswade, 79 
 
 Cottage, 99 
 Leaderfoot, 121, 215 
 Lee, in Lanarkshire, 125 
 
 Penny, 126 
 Leopold, Prince, 68 
 Lessuden, 210 
 ' Letters to Heber,' 93 
 'Life of Lockhart' (Mr. Lang's), 
 Lilliesleaf, 135 [125 
 
 Lochore, 152 
 Lockhart, Charlotte Harriet Jane, 
 
 154 
 John Gibson, 4, 11 5-1 22, 
 
 125-148, 160 
 ' Abridgment of the 
 
 Life' by, 163 
 novels of, 140 
 verses on Immortality, 
 
 147 
 
 John Hugh, 141 
 Mrs., 145 
 
 Rev. John, D.D., 127 
 Walter Scott, 153 
 London, 44 
 ' Lucy's Flittin',' 82 
 
 Mackenzie, Henry, 54, 80, 91 
 ' Mags/ 129 
 Maida, 55, 72, 86, 174 
 Maiming, Cardinal, 161, 162 
 ' Marmion/ 91, 215, 219 
 Mary, Queen, 180 
 Mathiesou, Peter, 65, 122, 196 
 Mediterranean, 143 
 Melrose, 5, 121, 169, 210 
 
 Abbey, 23, 39, 86 
 
 Bridge, 116, 169 
 
 Cross, 214 
 
 Session Records, 21
 
 INDEX 
 
 223 
 
 Melville, Lord, 134 
 Mercer, 03 
 Merse, the, 136 
 Mertoun, 18, 136 
 Miller, Hugh, 171 
 Milmau, 114 
 Milne, Nicol, 42 
 Milton-Lockhart, 112, 145 
 Miuchmoor, 135 
 ' Minstrelsy,' 82 
 Moffat, 14 
 Moffatdale, 136 
 ' Monastery/ 210 
 Montagu, Lord, 39 
 Moore, Tom, 94, 114 
 Morritt of Rokeby, 29 
 ' Muffled drum/ the, 43 
 Murray, John, 89 
 
 Patrick, 12 
 
 Naples pilgrimage, 153 
 
 Newark, 19, 99 
 
 Newman, John Henry, 162, 164 
 
 Newstead, 214 
 
 Newtowu, 217 
 
 Nicholson, 118 
 
 Nimmo the Covenanter, 128 
 
 ' Nixon, Cristal,' 65 
 
 Norham Castle, 17 
 
 ' North, Kit/ 80 
 
 25, Northumberland Street, 139 
 
 (VConor, Sir Nicholas, 155 
 Old Melrose, 210 
 Oxford, 128 
 
 Paterson, Adam, 44 
 Peebles, 112 
 Penrith, 172 
 ' Peter's Letters/ 137 
 ' Peveril of the Peak/ 109 
 Philiphaugh, 135 
 Pineus, 90 
 ' Pirate, The/ 140 
 Purdie, Tom, 34, 65, 117, 196, 213 
 grave of, 66 
 
 Queensberry, Duke of, 40 
 
 llaebum, 72 
 
 Ragman Roll, 157 
 
 Ravenswood, 18 
 
 ' Redgauntlet/ 65 
 
 ' Reliquise Trottcosianw/ 167 
 
 Rhymer's Glen, 139 
 
 Tower, 219 
 
 Richardson of Kirklands, 83 
 Rizzio, 42 
 ' Rob Roy/ 90 
 ' Rokeby/ 25 
 
 Rome, Scott's residence in, 114 
 Rose, William Stewart, 91 
 Rosebank, 13 
 Roxburgh, 218 
 Ruskin, 12, 102, 171 
 Russell, General, 18 
 
 St. Boswells, 210 
 
 St. Mary's Chapel of the Lowes, 
 
 93 
 
 Saintsbury, Mr., 125 
 Sampson, Dominie, 134 
 Sandyknowe, 79, 13(5, 215 
 Scot, Michael, 212 
 Scott, Charles, 153 
 
 Charlotte Sophia, 153 
 
 Dr., of Darnlee, 63 
 
 James Robert Hope, 146, 
 155-163 
 
 Lady (second), 152 
 
 Lady Victoria Hope, 155 
 
 Major, 143 
 
 Mary Monica Hope (Hon. 
 Mrs. Maxwell Scott), 155, 
 164 
 
 Sophia, 138 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 3, 5, 12-219 
 
 death-mask, 180 
 
 desk, 178 
 
 grave, 216 
 
 laugh, 94 
 
 visitors, 67 
 
 ' Scott and his Literary Friends ' 
 (Thomas Faed), 80 
 
 Sir Walter (the second), 
 183 
 
 Walter Joseph, 155
 
 224 
 
 ABBOTSFORD 
 
 Scrope, William , 102 
 
 Selkirk, 5, 23 
 
 Shakespeare, 12, 122 
 
 Sheriffdom, 49 
 
 Shillinglaw, Joseph (Darnick), 183 
 
 Shortreed, 59 
 
 Siddons, Mrs., 105 
 
 ' Sir Walter's Gate/ 215 
 
 Skeue of Rubislaw, 102 
 
 Skirmish Hill, 5 
 
 Skye, John o', 60 
 
 Smailholm, 88 
 
 Smith, John, of Darnick, 43 
 
 Smollett, 101 
 
 Snell Exhibition, 128 
 
 Stanley, Dean, 171 
 
 Stark, 35 
 
 Stevenson, R. L., 102 
 
 Stuart, Lady Louisa, 35 
 
 Swanston, John, Go, 196 
 
 Symington, 125 
 
 ' Tales of a Grandfather/ 140 
 
 ' Talisman/ 126 
 
 Teheran, 153 
 
 Tennyson, 147 
 
 Terry, Daniel, 29 
 
 Teviotdale, 88 
 
 Thomson, Thomas, 81 
 
 Threave Castle, 172 
 
 Toftfields, 41 
 
 Tolbooth of Edinburgh, 37 
 
 Torres Vedras, 80 
 
 Torwoodlee, 88, 128 
 Trimontium, 214 
 Turn- Again, 5, 41, 173 
 Turner, J. M. W., 102 
 Tweed, 12, 121 
 
 < Up Yarrow/ 135 
 Upper Yarrow, 93 
 Usher, John, 65 
 
 Versailles, 154 
 Victoria, Queen, 102 
 
 Wallace statue, 44 
 Ward, Wilfred Philip, 155 
 Warner, Richard, 16 
 Wat of Harden, 11 
 Watson, Dr. Thomas, 115 
 ' Waverley,' 219 
 Waverley Hydropathic, 5, 169 
 Weirdlaw Hill, 106 
 Wellington, Duke of, 78 
 Wilkie, Sir David, 37, 90, 114 
 Williams, Archdeacon, 122 
 Wilson, John, 129 
 Wollaston, Dr., 54, 91 
 Wordsworth, 80, 99, 143, 147 
 Dorothy, 15 
 
 Yair, 112 
 
 Yarrow, 98 
 
 ' Yarrow Revisited/ 99 
 
 ' Yerd-hunger/ 43 
 
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