Abbotsford

'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'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 Lockhart, 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 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 his lips)[23] 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, wi' 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.'

Lockhart's 'Peter's Letters,'[24] published in 1819, 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.' Indeed, 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 classicus.

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 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 unconquerable' Lockhart pierced to the quick, notwithstanding 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. Chiefswood, 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, became 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 happy than here. Abbotsford was then at its acme—the Wizard at the height of his enchantment.

203

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).[25] 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 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 plantation raids and riverside rambles. Born in Edinburgh 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 unburden 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 crowning 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.'

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 considered to be infra dig. There was no difficulty, however, in accepting the Quarterly appointment, 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 spending some pleasant summers and autumns on Tweedside.

Of his last summer with Scott the Biography presents a full account. On April 22, 1831, learning 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,' 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 Chiefswood. 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:

'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's children chant his lays.

'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 constantly burning. Friend after friend, on both sides 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 Abbotsford—the first time since Scott's death. 'Everything 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 bechamber, 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 perceived 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 impending.... '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 kinsman's attendance, though a priest,[26] and yielded also when asked to allow his daughter to say a few prayers by his bedside. Mr. Hope Scott was absent 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 discussions 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 Scotsman 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 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 I'll not forego:

Eternal be the sleep,
Unless to waken so!'

THE LATER ABBOTSFORD

CHAPTER VIII

THE LATER ABBOTSFORD

Sir Walter's Abbotsford, as we saw, was completed in 1824. For the next thirty years there was practically no alteration on the place. At Scott's death the second Sir Walter came into possession. He does not appear to have lived at Abbotsford after 1832, and indeed for many years previous his time had been spent almost entirely with his regiment, the 15th Hussars, of which, at his father's death, he was Major. 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 Wellesley, near the Cape of Good Hope, February 8, 1847, in his forty-sixth year. His widow conveyed his remains to this country for interment at Dryburgh Abbey on May 4 following. Lady Scott—the pretty 'Jeanie' Jobson of Lochore,[27] 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.[28] Charles Scott,[29] 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 attaché 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 'Woodstock'), Scott's younger daughter, died June 25, 1833, less than a year after her father. A handsome 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 befriended 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 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 December 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, 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-Maxwell, 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 in the Cameronians. He volunteered for South Africa, and was in Ladysmith throughout the siege.

2. Joseph Michael, born May 25, 1880, a Lieutenant 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 Marlow, in Berkshire, July 15, 1812. He was the third son (not second, as the 'Abridged Lockhart' 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 in Scottish history to the present day, is of considerable 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 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 splendidly 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 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 freestone, 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 exercises 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,[30] goes without saying, strong man of the world though he was, and exhibiting, as he did, many things outré to the ordinary religious sense—seldom going to church, for instance, (he read the Church of England Service-Book, however, to his household); and 'writing his task' on Sundays more often than he should.

227

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 deliberation, 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 consequently a dominating influence at Abbotsford, 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-idéal of an English gentleman, and a Christian.' There were many guests at the later Abbotsford—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 fortnight, 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, I 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 and Gladstone, to the latter of whom he dedicated his edition of Lockhart's 'Abridgment of the Life.'[31] 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,[32] Mr. Hope Scott never spared his means when the interests of religion 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 convents all over the country. Following his death in 1873 (Newman preaching his funeral sermon), Abbotsford went to Mary Monica[33] (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.'

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 'Reliquiæ Trottcosianæ—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's 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 serious imaginative composition. Even the 'Reliquiæ' 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 undergone no change beyond slight and necessary rearrangement 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 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 constant 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 Chiefswood and Huntlyburn on the Abbotsford estate. Then comes Darnick, with its fine peel, now open to the public, and well worth a visit. At the fork of the roads (that to the right leading by Melrose Bridge to Gattonside and Galashiels) we turn leftwards, and are soon at the visitors' entrance (a modest wicket-gate) to the great Scottish Mecca. But nothing is to be seen yet. Mr. Hope Scott's plantations and 'ingenious tourist arrangement' screen the pile with wonderful completeness. And it is only when within a few paces of the building, at a turn in the lane leading from the highway, that all at once one emerges upon it. The public waiting-room is in the 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—or 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 unfrequently 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 Sandyknowe 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'; 'exactly 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 gentlemanly 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 revelry of false Gothic, reared on no set plan, and so forth, the general effect does not seem to be at all displeasing. 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 will it become, and the less prominent will its defects appear.

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Abbotsford proper is enclosed by an embattled wall and a fine castellated gateway, surmounted by a sculptured portcullis with Scott's motto, 'Clausus tutus ero,' 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 courtyard, 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 the motto 'ΓΑΡ ΝΥΞ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ' ('For the night cometh'), is an object of suggestive interest. 'Turn-Again' is in the corner, recalling Scott's first introduction to Abbotsford. Across the archway leading into the fruit-garden there is the appropriate text:

'Et audiverunt Vocem Domini deambulantis in horto.'

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: Blissit 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 PHŒBE; WATCH WEEL'

are conspicuous above it. Near by are the grave and stone effigy (cut by Smith of Darnick) of Maida, Scott's favourite deerhound, with Lockhart's famous 'false-quantity' lines:

'Maidæ Marmoreâ 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."

(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 lintel from the Common Hall of the old Edinburgh College, with a quotation from Seneca:

'Virtus Rectorem Ducemque Desiderat; Vitia—sine—Magistro 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 'Catalogue of the Armour and Antiquities at Abbotsford' 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.

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 staircase, by which the 'inhabitant of the study,' as the 'Reliquiæ' 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 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 containing 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. Certainly 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 circumstances. '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 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, inscribed 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 which both Scott and Lockhart must have been long familiar.

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