Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume I Part 4

CHAPTER II {p.051}

Ill.u.s.trations of the Autobiographical Fragment. -- Edinburgh. -- Sandy-Knowe. -- Bath. -- Prestonpans.

1771-1778.

Sir Walter Scott opens his brief account of his ancestry with a playful allusion to a trait of national character, which has, time out of mind, furnished merriment to the neighbors of the Scotch; but the zeal of pedigree was deeply rooted in himself, and he would have been the last to treat it with serious disparagement. It has often been exhibited under circ.u.mstances sufficiently grotesque; but it has lent strength to many a good impulse, sustained hope and self-respect under many a difficulty and distress, armed heart and nerve to many a bold and resolute struggle for independence; and prompted also many a generous act of a.s.sistance, which under its influence alone could have been accepted without any feeling of degradation.

He speaks modestly of his own descent; for, while none of his predecessors had ever sunk below the situation and character of a gentleman, he had but to go three or four generations back, and thence, as far as they could be followed, either on the paternal or maternal side, they were to be found moving in the highest ranks of our baronage. When he fitted up, in his later years, the beautiful hall of Abbotsford, he was careful to have the armorial bearings of his forefathers blazoned in due order on the compartments of its roof; and there are few in Scotland, under the t.i.tled n.o.bility, who could trace their blood to so many stocks of historical distinction.

In {p.052} the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and Notes to The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the reader will find sundry notices of the "Bauld Rutherfords that were sae stout," and the Swintons of Swinton in Berwicks.h.i.+re, the two nearest houses on the maternal side. An ill.u.s.trious old warrior of the latter family, Sir John Swinton, extolled by Froissart, is the hero of the dramatic sketch, Halidon Hill; and it is not to be omitted, that through the Swintons Sir Walter Scott could trace himself to William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, the poet and dramatist.[35] His respect for the worthy barons of Newmains and Dryburgh, of whom, in right of his father's mother, he was the representative, and in whose venerable sepulchre his remains now rest, was testified by his Memorials of the Haliburtons, a small volume printed (for private circulation only) in the year 1820. His own male ancestors of the family of Harden, whose lineage is traced by Douglas in his Baronage of Scotland back to the middle of the fourteenth century, when they branched off from the great blood of Buccleuch, have been so largely celebrated in his various writings, that I might perhaps content myself with a general reference to those pages, their only imperishable monument. The antique splendor of the ducal house itself has been dignified to all Europe by the pen of its remote descendant; but it may be doubted whether his genius could have been adequately developed, had he not attracted, at an early and critical period, the kindly recognition and support of the Buccleuchs.

[Footnote 35: On Sir Walter's copy of _Recreations with the Muses, by William, Earl of Stirling_, 1637, there is the following MS. note:--"Sir William Alexander, sixth Baron of Menstrie, and first Earl of Stirling, the friend of Drummond of Hawthornden and Ben Jonson, died in 1640. His eldest son, William, Viscount Canada, died before his father, leaving one son and three daughters by his wife, Lady Margaret Douglas, eldest daughter of William, first Marquis of Douglas.

Margaret, the second of these daughters, married Sir Robert Sinclair of Longformacus in the Merse, to whom she bore two daughters, Anne and Jean. Jean Sinclair, the younger daughter, married Sir John Swinton of Swinton; and Jean Swinton, her eldest daughter, was the grandmother of the proprietor of this volume."]

The race had been celebrated, however, long before his {p.053} day, by a minstrel of its own; nor did he conceal his belief that he owed much to the influence exerted over his juvenile mind by the rude but enthusiastic clan-poetry of old _Satch.e.l.ls_ who describes himself _on his t.i.tle-page_ as

"Captain Walter Scot, an old Souldier and no Scholler, And one that can write nane, But just the Letters of his Name."

His True History of several honourable Families of the Right Honourable Name of Scot, in the s.h.i.+res of Roxburgh and Selkirk, and others adjacent, gathered out of Ancient Chronicles, Histories, and Traditions of our Fathers, includes, among other things, a string of complimentary rhymes addressed to the first Laird of Raeburn; and the copy which had belonged to that gentleman was in all likelihood about the first book of verses that fell into the poet's hand.[36] How continually its wild {p.054} and uncouth doggerel was on his lips to his latest day all his familiars can testify; and the pa.s.sages which he quoted with the greatest zest were those commemorative of two ancient worthies, both of whom had had to contend against physical misfortune similar to his own. The former of these, according to Satch.e.l.ls, was the immediate founder of the branch originally designed of Sinton, afterwards of Harden:--

"It is four hundred winters past in order Since that Buccleuch was Warden in the Border; A son he had at that same tide, Which was so lame could neither run nor ride.

John, this lame son, if my author speaks true, He sent him to St. Mungo's in Glasgu, Where he remained a scholar's time, Then married a wife according to his mind....

And betwixt them twa was procreat Headshaw, Askirk, SINTON, and Glack."

[Footnote 36: His family well remember the delight which he expressed on receiving, in 1818, a copy of this first edition, a small dark quarto of 1688, from his friend Constable. He was breakfasting when the present was delivered, and said, "This is indeed the resurrection of an old ally--I mind _spelling_ these lines." He read aloud the jingling epistle to his own great-great-grandfather, which, like the rest, concludes with a broad hint, that as the author had neither lands nor flocks--"no estate left except his designation"--the more fortunate kinsman who enjoyed, like Jason of old, a fair share of _fleeces_, might do worse than bestow on him some of King James's _broad pieces_. On rising from table, Sir Walter immediately wrote as follows on the blank leaf opposite to poor Satch.e.l.ls' honest t.i.tle-page--

"I, Walter Scott of Abbotsford, a poor scholar, no soldier, but a soldier's lover, In the style of my namesake and kinsman do hereby discover, That I have written the twenty-four letters twenty-four million times over; And to every true-born Scott I do wish as many golden pieces As ever were hairs in Jason's and Medea's golden fleeces."

The rarity of the original edition of Satch.e.l.ls is such, that the copy now at Abbotsford was the only one Mr. Constable had ever seen--and no wonder, for the author's envoy is in these words:--

"Begone, my book, stretch forth thy wings and fly Amongst the n.o.bles and gentility; Thou'rt not to sell to scavengers and clowns, But given to worthy persons of renown.

The number's few I've printed, in regard My charges have been great, and I hope reward; I caus'd not print many above twelve score, And the printers are engaged that they shall print no more."]

But, if the scholars.h.i.+p of _John the Lamiter_ furnished his descendant with many a mirthful allusion, a far greater favorite was the memory of _William the Boltfoot_, who followed him in the sixth generation:--

"The Laird and Lady of Harden Betwixt them procreat was a son Called William Boltfoot of Harden."

The emphasis with which this next line was quoted I can never forget:--

"_He did survive to be_ A MAN."

He was, in fact, one of the "prowest knights" of the whole genealogy--a fearless horseman and expert spearman, renowned and dreaded; and I suppose I have heard Sir Walter repeat a dozen times, as he was das.h.i.+ng into the Tweed or Ettrick, "rolling red from brae to brae," a stanza from what he called an old ballad, though it was most likely one of his own early imitations:--

"To tak the foord he aye was first, Unless the English loons were near; Plunge va.s.sal than, plunge horse and man, Auld Boltfoot rides into the rear."

"From {p.055} childhood's earliest hour," says the poet in one of his last Journals, "I have rebelled against external circ.u.mstances." How largely the traditional famousness of the stalwart _Boltfoot_ may have helped to develop this element of his character, I do not pretend to say; but I cannot avoid regretting that Lord Byron had not discovered such another "Deformed Transformed" among his own chivalrous progenitors.

So long as Sir Walter retained his vigorous habits, he used to make an autumnal excursion, with whatever friend happened to be his guest at the time, to the tower of Harden, the _incunabula_ of his race. A more picturesque scene for the fastness of a lineage of Border marauders could not be conceived; and so much did he delight in it, remote and inaccessible as its situation is, that, in the earlier part of his life, he had nearly availed himself of his kinsman's permission to fit up the dilapidated _peel_ for his summer residence. Harden (the ravine of hares) is a deep, dark, and narrow glen, along which a little mountain brook flows to join the river Borthwick, itself a tributary of the Teviot. The castle is perched on the brink of the precipitous bank, and from the ruinous windows you look down into the crows' nests on the summits of the old mouldering elms, that have their roots on the margin of the stream far below:--

"Where Bortha hoa.r.s.e, that loads the meads with sand, Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western strand, Through slaty hills, whose sides are s.h.a.gged with thorn, Where springs in scattered tufts the dark-green corn, Towers wood-girt Harden far above the vale, And clouds of ravens o'er the turrets sail.

A hardy race who never shrunk from war, The Scott, to rival realms a mighty bar, Here fixed his mountain home;--a wide domain, And rich the soil, had purple heath been grain; But what the n.i.g.g.ard ground of wealth denied, From fields more bless'd his fearless arm supplied."[37]

[Footnote 37: Leyden, the author of these beautiful lines, has borrowed, as _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ did also, from one of Satch.e.l.ls's primitive couplets--

"If heather-tops had been corn of the best, Then Buccleugh mill had gotten a n.o.ble grist."]

It {p.056} was to this wild retreat that the Harden of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the Auld Wat of a hundred Border ditties, brought home, in 1567, his beautiful bride, Mary Scott, "the Flower of Yarrow,"

whose grace and gentleness have lived in song along with the stern virtues of her lord. She is said to have chiefly owed her celebrity to the grat.i.tude of an English captive, a beautiful child, whom she rescued from the tender mercies of Wat's moss-troopers, on their return from a foray into c.u.mberland. The youth grew up under her protection, and is believed to have been the composer both of the words and the music of many of the best old songs of the Border. As Leyden says,

"His are the strains whose wandering echoes thrill The shepherd lingering on the twilight hill, When evening brings the merry folding hours, And sun-eyed daisies close their winking flowers.

He lived o'er Yarrow's Flower to shed the tear, To strew the holly leaves o'er Harden's bier; But none was found above the minstrel's tomb, Emblem of peace, to bid the daisy bloom.

He, nameless as the race from which he sprung, Saved other names, and left his own unsung."

We are told that when the last bullock which Auld Wat had provided from the English pastures was consumed, the Flower of Yarrow placed on her table a dish containing a pair of clean spurs; a hint to the company that they must bestir themselves for their next dinner. Sir Walter adds, in a note to the Minstrelsy, "Upon one occasion when the village herd was driving out the cattle to pasture, the old laird heard him call loudly to drive out Harden's cow. 'Harden's _cow_!'

echoed the affronted chief; 'is it come to that pa.s.s? By my faith they shall soon say Harden's _kye_' (cows). Accordingly, he sounded his bugle, set out with his followers, and next day returned with _a bow of kye, and a ba.s.sen'd_ (brindled) _bull_. On his return with this gallant prey, he pa.s.sed a very large haystack. It occurred to the provident laird {p.057} that this would be extremely convenient to fodder his new stock of cattle; but as no means of transporting it were obvious, he was fain to take leave of it with the apostrophe, now become proverbial--'_By my saul, had ye but four feet, ye should not stand lang there._' In short, as Froissart says of a similar cla.s.s of feudal robbers, nothing came amiss to them that was not _too heavy or too hot_."

Another striking chapter in the genealogical history belongs to the marriage of Auld Wat's son and heir, afterwards Sir William Scott of Harden, distinguished by the early favor of James VI., and severely fined for his loyalty under the usurpation of Cromwell. The period of this gentleman's youth was a very wild one in that district. The Border clans still made war on each other occasionally, much in the fas.h.i.+on of their forefathers; and the young and handsome heir of Harden, engaging in a foray upon the lands of Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank, treasurer-depute of Scotland, was overpowered by that baron's retainers, and carried in shackles to his castle, now a heap of ruins, on the banks of the Tweed. Elibank's "doomtree" extended its broad arms close to the gates of his fortress, and the indignant laird was on the point of desiring his prisoner to say a last prayer, when his more considerate dame interposed milder counsels, suggesting that the culprit was born to a good estate, and that they had three unmarried daughters. Young Harden, not, it is said, without hesitation, agreed to save his life by taking the plainest of the three off their hands, and the contract of marriage, executed instantly on the parchment of a drum, is still in the charter-chest of his n.o.ble representative.

Walter Scott, the third son of this couple, was the first Laird of Raeburn, already alluded to as one of the patrons of Satch.e.l.ls. He married Isabel Macdougal, daughter of Macdougal of Makerstoun--a family of great antiquity and distinction in Roxburghs.h.i.+re, of whose {p.058} blood, through various alliances, the poet had a large share in his veins. Raeburn, though the son and brother of two steady Cavaliers, and married into a family of the same political creed, became a Whig, and at last a Quaker; and the reader will find, in one of the notes to The Heart of Mid-Lothian, a singular account of the persecution to which this backsliding exposed him at the hands of both his own and his wife's relations. He was incarcerated (A. D. 1665), first at Edinburgh and then at Jedburgh, by order of the Privy Council--his children were forcibly taken from him, and a heavy sum was levied on his estate yearly, for the purposes of their education beyond the reach of his perilous influence. "It appears," says Sir Walter, in a MS. memorandum now before me, "that the Laird of Makerstoun, his brother-in-law, joined with Raeburn's own elder brother, Harden, in this singular persecution, as it will now be termed by Christians of all persuasions. It was observed by the people that the male line of the second Sir William of Harden became extinct in 1710, and that the representation of Makerstoun soon pa.s.sed into the female line. They a.s.signed as a cause, that when the wife of Raeburn found herself deprived of her husband, and refused permission even to see her children, she p.r.o.nounced a malediction on her husband's brother as well as on her own, and prayed that a male of their body might not inherit their property."

The MS. adds, "of the first Raeburn's two sons it may be observed that, thanks to the discipline of the Privy Council, they were both good scholars." Of these sons, Walter, the second, was the poet's great-grandfather, the enthusiastic Jacobite of the autobiographical fragment,--who is introduced,

"With amber beard and flaxen hair, And reverend apostolic air,"

in the epistle prefixed to the sixth canto of Marmion. A good {p.059} portrait of Bearded Wat, painted for his friend Pitcairn, was presented by the Doctor's grandson, the Earl of Kellie, to the father of Sir Walter. It is now at Abbotsford; and shows a considerable resemblance to the poet. Some verses addressed to the original by his kinsman Walter Scott of Harden are given in one of the Notes to Marmion. The old gentleman himself is said to have written verses occasionally, both English and Latin; but I never heard more than the burden of a drinking-song--

"Barba crescat, barba crescat, Donec carduus revirescat."[38]

[Footnote 38: Since this book was first published, I have seen in print _A Poem on the Death of Master Walter Scott, who died at Kelso, November 3, 1729_, written, it is said, by Sir William Scott of Thirlestane, Bart., the male ancestor of Lord Napier. It has these lines:--

"His converse breathed the Christian. On his tongue The praises of religion ever hung; Whence it appeared he did on solid ground Commend the pleasures which himself had found....

His venerable mien and goodly air Fix on our hearts impressions strong and fair.

Full seventy years had shed their silvery glow Around his locks, and made his beard to grow; That decent beard, which in becoming grace Did spread a reverend honor on his face," etc.--(1838.)]

Scantily as the worthy Jacobite seems to have been provided with this world's goods, he married the daughter of a gentleman of good condition, "through whom," says the MS. memorandum already quoted, "his descendants have inherited a connection with some honorable branches of the _Slioch nan Diarmid_, or Clan of Campbell." To this connection Sir Walter owed, as we shall see hereafter, many of those early opportunities for studying the manners of the Highlanders, to which the world are indebted for Waverley, Rob Roy, and The Lady of the Lake.

Robert Scott, the son of Beardie, formed also an honorable alliance.

{p.060} His father-in-law, Thomas Haliburton,[39] the last but one of the "good lairds of Newmains," entered his marriage as follows in the domestic record, which Sir Walter's pious respect induced him to have printed nearly a century afterwards:--"My second daughter Barbara is married to Robert Scott, son to Walter Scott, uncle to Raeburn, upon this sixteen day of July, 1728, at my house of Dryburgh, by Mr. James Innes, minister of Mertoun, their mothers being cousings; may the blessing of the Lord rest upon them, and make them comforts to each other and to all their relations;" to which the editor of the Memorials adds this note--"May G.o.d grant that the prayers of the excellent persons who have pa.s.sed away may avail for the benefit of those who succeed them!--_Abbotsford_, Nov., 1824."

[Footnote 39: "From the genealogical deduction in the Memorials, it appears that the Haliburtons of Newmains were descended from and represented the ancient and once powerful family of Haliburton of Mertoun, which became extinct in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The first of this latter family possessed the lands and barony of Mertoun by a charter granted by Archibald, Earl of Douglas and Lord of Galloway (one of those tremendous lords whose coronets counterpoised the Scottish crown), to Henry de Haliburton, whom he designates as his standard-bearer, on account of his service to the earl in England. On this account the Haliburtons of Mertoun and those of Newmains, in addition to the arms borne by the Haliburtons of Dirleton (the ancient chiefs of that once great and powerful, but now almost extinguished name)--viz. _or_, on a bend _azure_, three mascles of the first--gave the distinctive bearing of a buckle of the second in the sinister canton. These arms still appear on various old tombs in the abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh, as well as on their house at Dryburgh, which was built in 1572."--_MS.

Memorandum_, 1820. Sir Walter was served heir to these Haliburtons soon after the date of this Memorandum, and thenceforth quartered the arms above described with those of his paternal family.]

I need scarcely remind the reader of the exquisite description of the poet's grandfather, in the Introduction to the third canto of Marmion--

----"the thatched mansion's gray-hair'd sire, Wise without learning, plain and good, And sprang of Scotland's gentler blood; Whose {p.061} eye, in age quick, clear, and keen, Showed what in youth its glance had been; Whose doom discording neighbors sought, Content with equity unbought."

In the Preface to Guy Mannering, we have an anecdote of Robert Scott in his earlier days: "My grandfather, while riding over Charterhouse Moor, then a very extensive common, fell suddenly among a large band of gypsies, who were carousing in a hollow surrounded by bushes. They instantly seized on his bridle with shouts of welcome, exclaiming that they had often dined at his expense, and he must now stay and share their cheer. My ancestor was a little alarmed, for he had more money about his person than he cared to risk in such society. However, being naturally a bold, lively spirited man, he entered into the humor of the thing, and sat down to the feast, which consisted of all the varieties of game, poultry, pigs, and so forth, that could be collected by a wide and indiscriminate system of plunder. The dinner was a very merry one, but my relative got a hint from some of the older gypsies, just when 'the mirth and fun grew fast and furious,'