Read Ebook: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume 5 (of 10) by Lockhart J G John Gibson

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"Did you ever hear the history of John, Duke of Argyle's marriage, and constant attachment, before and after, to a woman not handsomer or much more elegant than Jeanie Deans, though very unlike her in understanding? I can give it you, if you wish it, for it is at my fingers' ends. Now I am ancient myself, I should be a great treasure of anecdote to anybody who had the same humor,--but I meet with few who have. They read vulgar tales in books, Wraxall, and so forth, what the footmen and maids only gave credit to at the moment, but they desire no farther information. I dare swear many of your readers never heard of the Duke of Argyle before. 'Pray, who was Sir Robert Walpole,' they ask me, 'and when did he live?'--or perhaps--'Was not the great Lord Chatham in Queen Anne's days?'

"P. S.--If I had known nothing, and the whole world had told me the contrary, I should have found you out in that one parenthesis,--'for the man was mortal, and had been a schoolmaster.'"

This letter was addressed from a great country house in the south; and may, I presume, be accepted as a fair index of the instantaneous English popularity of Jeanie Deans. From the choice of localities, and the splendid blazoning of tragical circumstances that had left the strongest impression on the memory and imagination of every inhabitant, the reception of this tale in Edinburgh was a scene of all-engrossing enthusiasm, such as I never witnessed there on the appearance of any other literary novelty. But the admiration and delight were the same all over Scotland. Never before had he seized such really noble features of the national character as were canonized in the person of his homely heroine: no art had ever devised a happier running contrast than that of her and her sister, or interwoven a portraiture of lowly manners and simple virtues, with more graceful delineations of polished life, or with bolder shadows of terror, guilt, crime, remorse, madness, and all the agony of the passions.

In the introduction and notes to The Heart of Mid-Lothian, drawn up in 1830, we are presented with details concerning the suggestion of the main plot, and the chief historical incidents made use of, to which I can add nothing of any moment.

The 12th of July restored the author as usual to the supervision of his trees and carpenters; but he had already told the Ballantynes that the story which he had found it impossible to include in the recent series of Jedediah should be forthwith taken up as the opening one of a third; and instructed John to embrace the first favorable opportunity of offering Constable the publication of this, on the footing of 10,000 copies again forming the first edition; but now at length without any more stipulations connected with the unfortunate "old stock" of the Hanover Street Company.

Before he settled himself to his work, however, he made a little tour of the favorite description with his wife and children--halting for a few days at Drumlanrig, thence crossing the Border to Carlisle and Rokeby, and returning by way of Alnwick. On the 17th August he writes thus to John Ballantyne from Drumlanrig: "This is heavenly weather, and I am making the most of it, as I shall have a laborious autumn before me. I may say of my head and fingers as the farmer of his mare, when he indulged her with an extra feed,--

'Ye ken that Maggie winna sleep For that or Simmer.'

We have taken our own horses with us, and I have my pony, and ride when I find it convenient."

The following seems to have been among the first letters he wrote after his return:--

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., ROKEBY.

ABBOTSFORD, 10th September, 1818.

I wish you would allow your coachman to look out for me among your neighbors a couple of young colts that would match for a carriage some two years hence. I have plenty of grass for them in the mean while, and should never know the expense of their keep at Abbotsford. He seemed to think he could pick them up at from ?25 to ?30, which would make an immense saving hereafter. Peter Matheson and he had arranged some sort of plan of this kind. For a pair of very ordinary carriage-horses in Edinburgh they ask ?140 or more; so it is worth while to be a little provident. Even then you only get one good horse, the other being usually a brute. Pray you excuse all this palaver,--

"These little things are great to little men."

Our harvest is almost all in, but as farmers always grumble about something, they are now growling about the lightness of the crop. All the young part of our household are wrapt up in uncertainty concerning the Queen's illness--for--if her Majesty parts cable, there will be no Forest Ball, and that is a terrible prospect. On Wednesday Lord Melville chanced to receive a letter with a black seal by express, and as it was of course argued to contain the expected intelligence of poor Charlotte, it sold a good many ells of black cloth and stuffs before it was ascertained to contain no such information. Surely this came within the line of high treason, being an imagining of the Queen's death.

Ever yours truly,

Walter SCOTT.

Of the same date I find written in pencil, on what must have been the envelope of some sheriff's-process, this note, addressed to Mr. Charles Erskine, the Sheriff-Substitute of Selkirkshire:--

September 10, 1818.

DEAR CHARLES,--I have read these papers with all attention this morning--but think you will agree with me that there must be an Eke to the Condescendence. Order the Eke against next day.--Tom leaves with this packet a blackcock, and a gray hen. Yours,

W. S.

And again he thus writes by post to James Ballantyne:

ABBOTSFORD, September 10, 1818.

W. S.

"They chaunt their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim," etc.

"Weel may we a' be, Ill may we never see, God bless the king and the gude companie!"

Before breakfast was over, the post-bag arrived, and its contents were so numerous, that Lord Melville asked Scott what election was on hand--not doubting that there must be some very particular reason for such a shoal of letters. He answered that it was much the same most days, and added, "though no one has kinder friends in the franking line, and though Freeling and Croker especially are always ready to stretch the point of privilege in my favor, I am nevertheless a fair contributor to the revenue, for I think my bill for letters seldom comes under ?150 a year; and as to coach-parcels, they are a perfect ruination." He then told with high merriment a disaster that had lately befallen him. "One morning last spring," he said, "I opened a huge lump of a despatch, without looking how it was addressed, never doubting that it had travelled under some omnipotent frank like the First Lord of the Admiralty's, when, lo and behold, the contents proved to be a MS. play, by a young lady of New York, who kindly requested me to read and correct it, equip it with prologue and epilogue, procure for it a favorable reception from the manager of Drury Lane, and make Murray or Constable bleed handsomely for the copyright; and on inspecting the cover, I found that I had been charged five pounds odd for the postage. This was bad enough--but there was no help, so I groaned and submitted. A fortnight or so after, another packet, of not less formidable bulk, arrived, and I was absent enough to break its seal, too, without examination. Conceive my horror when out jumped the same identical tragedy of The Cherokee Lovers, with a second epistle from the authoress, stating that, as the winds had been boisterous, she feared the vessel entrusted with her former communication might have foundered, and therefore judged it prudent to forward a duplicate."

Scott said he must retire to answer his letters, but that the sociable and the ponies would be at the door by one o'clock, when he proposed to show Melrose and Dryburgh to Lady Melville and any of the rest of the party that chose to accompany them; adding that his son Walter would lead anybody who preferred a gun to the likeliest place for a blackcock, and that Charlie Purdie would attend upon Mr. Wilson, and whoever else chose to try a cast of the salmon-rod. He withdrew when all this was arranged, and appeared at the time appointed, with perhaps a dozen letters sealed for the post, and a coach-parcel addressed to James Ballantyne, which he dropt at the turnpike-gate as we drove to Melrose. Seeing it picked up by a dirty urchin, and carried into a hedge pot-house, where half-a-dozen nondescript wayfarers were smoking and tippling, I could not but wonder that it had not been the fate of some one of those innumerable packets to fall into unscrupulous hands, and betray the grand secret. That very morning we had seen two post-chaises drawn up at his gate, and the enthusiastic travellers, seemingly decent tradesmen and their families, who must have been packed in a manner worthy of Mrs. Gilpin, lounging about to catch a glimpse of him at his going forth. But it was impossible in those days 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; and it must be allowed that many of these pedestrians looked as if they might have thought it very excusable to make prize, by hook or by crook, of a MS. chapter of the Tales of my Landlord.

At Dryburgh, Scott pointed out to us the sepulchral aisle of his Haliburton ancestors, and said he hoped, in God's appointed time, to lay his bones among their dust. The spot was, even then, a sufficiently interesting and impressive one; but I shall not say more of it at present.

On returning to Abbotsford, we found Mrs. Scott and her daughters doing penance under the merciless curiosity of a couple of tourists who had arrived from Selkirk soon after we set out for Melrose. They were rich specimens--tall, lanky young men, both of them rigged out in new jackets and trousers of the Macgregor tartan; the one, as they had revealed, being a lawyer, the other a Unitarian preacher, from New England. These gentlemen, when told on their arrival that Mr. Scott was not at home, had shown such signs of impatience, 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 the ecstatic compliments of the strangers, by reminding 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 unprepared for this abrupt escape. But there was about Scott, in perfection, when he chose to exert it, the power of civil repulsion; he bowed the overwhelmed originals to his door, and on re?ntering the parlor, 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. He observed, however, that, "if he were to take in all the world, he had better put up a sign-post at once,--

'Porter, ale, and British spirits, Painted bright between twa trees;'

From this banter it may be inferred that the younger Ferguson had not as yet been told the Waverley secret--which to any of that house could never have been any mystery. Probably this, or some similar occasion soon afterwards, led to his formal initiation; for during the many subsequent years that the veil was kept on, I used to admire the tact with which, when in their topmost high-jinks humor, both "Captain John" and "The Auld Captain" eschewed any the most distant allusion to the affair.

I remember nothing particular about our second day's dinner, except that it was then I first met my dear and honored friend William Laidlaw. The evening passed rather more quietly than the preceding one. Instead of the dance in the new dining-room, we had a succession of old ballads sung to the harp and guitar by the young ladies of the house; and Scott, when they seemed to have done enough, found some reason for taking down a volume of Crabbe, and read us one of his favorite tales,--

"Grave Jonas Kindred, Sibyl Kindred's sire, Was six feet high, and looked six inches higher," etc.

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., ROKEBY.

ABBOTSFORD, 5th November, 1818.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--Many thanks for your kind letter of 29th October. The matter of the colts being as you state, I shall let it lie over until next year, and then avail myself of your being in the neighborhood to get a good pair of four-year-olds, since it would be unnecessary to buy them a year younger, and incur all the risks of disease and accident, unless they could have been had at a proportional under-value.

W. SCOTT.

THE DURHAM GARLAND

IN THREE PARTS

PART I

This Lord he did a-hunting go; If you the truth of all would know, He had indeed a noble train, Of Lords and Knights and Gentlemen.

This noble Lord he left the train Of Lords and Knights and Gentlemen; And hearing not the horn to blow, He could not tell which way to go.

But he did wander to and fro, Being weary, likewise full of woe: At last Dame Fortune was so kind That he the Keeper's house did find.

He went and knocked at the door, He thought it was so late an hour. The Forester did let him in, And kindly entertained him.

About the middle of the night, When as the stars did shine most bright, This Lord was in a sad surprise, Being wakened by a fearful noise.

Then he did rise and call with speed, To know the reason then indeed, Of all that shrieking and those cries Which did disturb his weary eyes.

"I'm sorry, Sir," the Keeper said, "That you should be so much afraid; But I do hope all will be well, For my wife she is in travail."

The noble Lord was learned and wise, To know the Planets in the skies. He saw one evil Planet reign, He called the Forester again.

He gave him then to understand, He'd have the Midwife hold her hand; But he was answered by the maid, "My Mistress is delivered."

At one o'clock that very morn, A lovely infant there was born; It was indeed a charming boy, Which brought the man and wife much joy.

The Lord was generous, kind, and free, And proffered Godfather to be; The Goodman thanked him heartily For his goodwill and courtesy.

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