THE BOY WALTER SCOTT.
A weakly child sent to his grandfather’s, for change of air! Nothing extraordinary in that. It has happened to many children, of whom the world never even heard that they were born. Grandfather’s house! It is the child’s paradise. He has only to cry for what he wants, to obtain it. Grandpa quite forgets the wholesome authority he exercised with the parents of his little grandchild, and how well they were made “to mind;” and he will always find some excuse, when they say to him while he is spoiling their boy, “Grandpa, you never allowed us to do thus, and so.” He only shakes his silver head, and kisses the noisy rogue. He is old, and it may seem to him the least troublesome way to manage; or, being so near the grave, love may seem to the poor old man the most precious thing while he stays here; and he will long have slept his last sleep, before that pretty but willful boy will know enough to love him better for restraining him. And so old grandpa, wanting all the love he can get, from everybody, before his heart grows cold forever, won’t see the child’s little tricks, or, if he does, but says, “Ah, well, he’s only a child!” or, “He don’t feel well to-day!” or, “We must not be too hard upon him, till he gets older and wiser.” Then it is really very difficult for grandpa, or anybody else, to manage a sick child. One cannot tell what is obstinacy and what disease. One fears to be harsh and cruel to a little crippled thing; the pale face appeals so irresistibly to a kind heart; and “What if he should die?” is apt to decide all doubts in the child’s favor. And then, a child almost unbearably irritable, the first years of its life, grows sweet-tempered, docile, and affectionate, with returning health. But I have rambled a long way from my story—of lame little Walter Scott, who was sent to his grandfather, to “Sandy Knowe,” for change of air, in charge of his nurse. Now, this nursemaid had a lover, whom she had been obliged to leave behind when she went with the sick child. This made her cross; from that she began to hate the poor sick boy; and from that, to entertain thoughts of killing him with a pair of scissors, that she might get back again to her lover. Luckily, this was discovered, and she was sent off; Grandpa Scott, of course, pitying the boy all the more on account of the danger he had been in. Of course, he asked everybody what was good for his grandson’s complaint. One person recommended that a sheep should be killed, and the child immediately wrapped in its warm skin. This was done; and behold little Walter lying on the floor, in his woolly covering, and Grandpa Scott sitting there coaxing him to crawl round, and exercise his little lame leg. There was his Grandma Scott, too, in her elbow chair, looking on. Now and then a visitor would drop in—some old military man, to see grandpa; and the two would sit and talk about “the American Revolution,” then going on. These stories made little Walter’s eyes shine, for under the lamb’s woolly skin there beat a little lion heart; and then this little three-year-old boy crawled nearer and nearer the chairs where the old men were sitting, and devoured every word they said. All children like stories that are wonderful and marvelous, but perhaps little Walter would never have been such a beautiful story writer when he grew up, had he not lain there in his lamb skin, in the little parlor at Sandy Knowe, listening to those old men’s stories. People don’t think of these things when they talk before children, who look so unconscious of what is going on.
Besides his good grandparents, Walter had a very kind aunt, by the name of Janet, who liked children, and was fond of telling Walter stories, and teaching him to repeat little ballads. Of one of these in particular, he was very fond; and when he lay sprawling on the floor, he used to say it over to himself. It seems that among his grandpa’s friends was one of those persons who have no love for, and, of course, no patience with, children. This person had a very long face, very thin legs, and a very narrow chest; so I suppose we must forgive him. Did you ever know a fat, broad-chested man or woman to hate children? I never did. Well, when little Walter lay there under foot, amusing himself with his favorite ballad, this long-legged man would frown, and turning to his grandpa, say, “One may as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child is!” It is so unnatural a thing to dislike children, that I prefer to believe, when persons do so, that it is because they are sick and nervous. However, little Walter did not bear this gentleman any ill-will for it; because, long afterward, when he heard that he was sick and dying, he went to see him, and they took a kind farewell of each other.
It seems that Walter’s sickness did not sour his disposition; an old woman by the name of Tibby, at Sandy Knowe, says that “he was a sweet-tempered little bairn, and a darling with all the house.” The shepherds delighted to carry him on their backs among the crags, and he soon learned to know every sheep and lamb in the flock, by the mark put on their heads. Best of all, he liked an old man, who had the superintendence of all the flocks, who was called “the cow-bailie;” when Walter saw him in the morning, he never would be satisfied until he had been put astride his shoulder and carried to the crags, to keep him company while he watched his flocks. After a while, he became weary of this, as children will; then the nice old man blew a particular note on his whistle, to let the maid servant know that she was to come up and carry him down the crags to his grandpa, in the little cozy parlor. Many—many—many years after this, when Walter was an old man, he went back to see those crags, and this is what he said: “Oh, how I used to love the sheep and lambs when I rolled round here upon the grass; I have never forgotten the feeling—no, not till this day!”
Once, when little Walter was up on the crags, the people in the house where he lived forgot him. A thunder storm came up. Suddenly his Aunt Janet remembered that he was there, and ran up, much frightened, to bring him home. There she found him, lying comfortably on his back, the sharp, forked lightning playing overhead, and little Walter clapping his hands and crying, “Bonny! bonny!” at every flash. Walter’s grandpa, finding that he was fond of riding on the old cow-bailie’s shoulder, bought him a cunning little Shetland pony, hardly as large as a Newfoundland dog; in fact, he was so small that he used to walk into the parlor like a dog, and feed from the child’s hand. He did not think then that one day he should have a little grandchild lame like himself, and that he should buy him just such a little pony, and name it like that—“Marion;”—but so it was.
Walter was a great reader. He read to his aunt, read to himself, and read to his mother. One day he was reading to his mother an account of a shipwreck, and became very much excited; lifting his hands and eyes, and saying, “There’s the mast gone! crash! now they’ll all perish!” While he was reading, a lady had come in to see his mother. After he had recovered a little from his agitation, he turned to the lady-visitor with a politeness quite remarkable in a child of only six years, and said, “This is too melancholy! had I not better read you something more amusing?” The lady thought, as well she might, that if she wanted to be “amused” she had better make him talk; so she said, knowing he had been reading Milton, “How did you like Milton, Walter?” “I think,” said he, “that it is very strange that Adam, who had just come newly into the world, should know everything. I suppose, though, it must be only the poet’s fancy.” “You forget,” said the lady, “that God created Adam quite perfect.” Walter reflected a moment, seemed satisfied, and yielded the point. When his Aunt Janet took him up to bed that night, he said, “Auntie, I like that lady; I think she is a virtuoso like myself.” “Dear Walter!” exclaimed Aunt Jenny, opening wide her eyes, “what is a virtuoso?” “Why, aunt, it is one who wishes, and will know, everything.” Of course, you may believe that his Aunt Jenny tucked him up that night in the full belief that he would never live to grow up. Luckily for us all, she was mistaken.
Are you tired hearing stories about him? Because I have another one I want to tell you, though I dare say, if you are reading this book of mine aloud to your mother, she has said to herself fifty times (and I like her fifty times better for saying it), “Pooh! our Ben, or our Sam, or our Harry, said a great many wonderful things, quite as wonderful as these, as I could show, if ‘a mother’ ever had a minute’s time to write and tell the world of it.” I’ve no doubt of it, my dear madam; I shall certainly die in the belief that children say about all there is worth listening to in this world; but to proceed with my story. One day, when Walter was sitting at the gate with an attendant, a woe-begone old beggar came up, and asked for charity. After he had received it, the attendant said, “Walter, how thankful should you be, that you are not obliged to beg your bread in that way.” Walter looked up wistfully, as if he did not comprehend; then replied, “Homer was a beggar.” “How do you know?” asked the attendant. “Why, don’t you remember?
“‘Seven Roman cities strove for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.’”
How lucky that Walter was not kept in the city! I think nothing could have made him well but taking him just where he was taken; out on the crags, where the fresh wind blew, and the grass was so sweet, and everything about him tempted him to crawl on a little farther, and then a little farther; a tuft of moss, or a curious stone, or some little thing which he wished to take in his own hand, and examine more closely. Oh, I am quite sure he must have died in the city; his poor lame leg would have shrunk more and more, for want of exercise; for a carpet ever so soft, can never be like that which God has spread for the bare feet of the poorest country child. But you must not suppose, all this while, that he learned nothing save that which the sky, and the crags, and the sheep taught him. Aunt Janet used to give him lessons when he was well enough, and as he could bear them. Ah! it is well that there are some good women who never marry. Else, what would so many sick children do, for patient, careful, good, loving nurses? How many of them have been coaxed by such round the most dangerous point of childhood, where medicine was nothing, and good nursing everything, to the astonishment of all who prophesied an early death. Such women have their reward, for these little ones become almost as dear to them as if in name—as well as in self-forgetting love—they were mothers. God bless them all! as the silver threads gleam amid their tresses. They will not be lonely in Heaven.
Children are full of funny whims; though I think, if we follow them but carefully, we shall, oftener than not, find good reason for them. Walter had a dislike almost amounting to terror of a statue. Very likely, he might first have seen one by a dim light, which, to his startled vision, gave it a ghostly look. It might have been so, though I don’t know that it was. When his Uncle Robert, who was very fond of him, found this out, he did not laugh at him, or scold him, but he took him, whenever it was possible, to see fine statues; and he soon learned, not only to conquer his dislike, but to admire their beauty exceedingly.
By and by his friends thought it was time he went to school, he was growing so much stronger, though not well of his lameness; in fact, I believe that all his after life he walked with a stick. So to school he went, I dare say, with many misgivings; I dare say he wondered whether the boys would make fun of his lameness. I dare say he wondered what he should do with himself while they were running, and leaping, and playing all sorts of rough-and-tumble plays out of doors, and out of school hours. I dare say he dreaded, as do all children, the first day at a new school. I dare say he wondered whether the education he had picked up by bits, as his lame leg would let him, would pass muster at a big boys’ school; or whether he would be called “a dunce,” as well as “lame.” I don’t know that he thought any of these thoughts, but I shouldn’t wonder if he had. I suppose his grandpa, and his Uncle Robert, and his Aunt Janet all felt anxious, too; but, as it turned out, there was no great occasion for it, for he seemed quite well able, after he got there, to manage his own little affairs. In the first place, knowing that he couldn’t “rough it” much in the playground, and not liking, of course, to be left in a corner alone, he commenced telling such wonderful tales and stories, that the boys were glad to crowd round him and listen; and they were worth listening to; else the boys wouldn’t have staid, I can tell you. How they would have stared, had they then been told that this lame fellow was destined to set the whole world by the ears by the stories he should write. Ah! you don’t know, you boys, what famous men you may be sharing your apples and cake with in the playground. You don’t know what a big man you may become yourself, only by being his boyhood’s friend. How his future biographer will hunt you out, and catechise you about the color of his eyes, and hair, and the shape of his finger nails, and what he said, and did, and ate, and drank, and what he did like, and what he didn’t like; and it is very well you don’t know all this, because it would spoil your present fun and freedom; and it is very well “the master” don’t know “a genius” when he is boxing his ears, because they might grow very long for the need of such discipline!
Well, like other boys, Master Walter was sometimes at the top, and sometimes at the bottom of his class. On one occasion he made a sudden leap to the top. The master asked the boys “Is with ever a substantive?” All were silent, until the question reached Walter, nearly at the bottom of the class, who instantly replied by quoting from the book of Judges, “And Sampson said unto Delilah, ‘If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and as another man.’” Pretty keen! wasn’t it? The other boys twiddled their thumbs, and looked foolish, and he went to the top. I don’t believe his mother thought, when she read him the Bible, of his laying that text on the shelf of his memory, to be brought forth in that queer way. But a smart answer does not stand a boy in the place of hard study, as you may have found out if you ever tried it; so Master Walter found himself at the bottom of the class again one fine day. This didn’t suit the young man, and what suited him less was the fact that the boy who was at the head seemed to mean to stay there, too. Day after day passed, and nobody could get his place. Walter pondered deeply how he should manage. He looked sharply at him, to see if he could not accomplish by stratagem what he could not gain fairly. At length he observed that when a question was asked this—at-the-top boy—he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button on the lower part of his waistcoat. If Walter could only succeed in cutting off that button! He watched his chance—knife in hand. When that top boy was again questioned, he felt, as usual, for the friendly button. It was gone! He looked down for it; it was no more to be seen than to be felt. He stuttered—he stammered—he missed his lesson; and that wretched, roguish Walter took his place. But I can tell you he didn’t feel happy about it; for he says he never passed him but his heart smote him for it, though the top boy never knew who stole his lesson button. Scott says he often promised himself to make some amends for the boyish injury he did him; but he never did. Scott also says that when this boy grew a young man, he became a drunkard, and died early. That was a pity, though I don’t think it was on account of that button; do you? Still, Scott always wished all the more that he had not been unkind to the poor, unfortunate fellow.
You will be glad to know that Walter continued to grow stronger and stronger, so that his limb, though it disfigured, did not disable him. He had not been taunted with it in his childhood, like poor Byron, till he imagined everybody who looked at him thought of nothing else. He had been very, very kindly cared for, and tenderly nursed. Pity Byron was not, though I think he never would have been half the man Scott was; but then, I’m “only a woman,” and you needn’t mind what I say. Well, when Walter grew to be a fine young man, he was very fond of strolling off to see beautiful scenery, and when he once began these journeys, he never knew how fast time was passing, how far he had gone, and when and where to stop. Not knowing how to draw pictures of the places he visited with his pencil (he did not know then how beautifully his pen would do it some day), he resolved to cut a branch of a tree from every place which particularly pleased him, and label it with the name of the spot where it grew, and afterward have a set of chess men made out of the wood, as he was then very fond of this game, which, by the way, with a courtesy to Paul Morphy, I think a very stupid game; though perhaps this is because I never could sit still long enough to learn how to play it. This idea of Walter’s was a very pretty one, though he never carried it into execution. He never played chess after boyhood—saying that it was a sad “waste of brains;” and he might have added, a sad waste of backbone; at least for “Young America,” who has few enough outdoor sports now, to keep his breastbone and his backbone from clinging together.
Walter’s mother was very anxious he should learn music; but he declares he had neither voice nor ear for it. He says that, when the attempt was made to instruct him, and the music teacher came to give him lessons, a lady who lived in their neighborhood sent in “to beg that the children in that house might not all be flogged at the same hour, because, though, doubtless, they all deserved it, the noise they made was really dreadful!”
Walter’s mother appears to have been a very intelligent, kind-hearted, well-educated woman. Not educated according to our standard, exactly; since, at the age of eighty, when sitting down, she never touched the back of her chair any more than if the eye of the schoolmistress was then upon her, who used to force pupils “to sit upright.” She died before Walter came to be the “great unknown” whom everybody was wondering about. But, after all, what matters it, so far as she was concerned? since it is love, not greatness, for which a mother’s heart hungers; and Walter loved his mother.
After her death, among her papers was found a weak, boyish scrawl, with penciled marks still visible, of a translation in verse from Horace and Virgil, by “her dear boy Walter.” I said, just now, what mattered it to her that he was famous? little, truly, so that he loved her; and yet, for him, for any one, to whom the world’s praises have come, ah, it is of the loved dead that they then think?
With all his glory, with all his troop of friends, seen and unseen, I doubt if he was ever so happy as when lying at her feet, wrapped in the warm sheepskin, in the little sunny parlor at Sandy Knowe. When you read his books—and it is a great thing to say that children may read them—you will remember all these little stories I have been telling you about his childhood; and that, when he came to die, full of age and honors, this is what he said to his son, as he stood by his bedside: “My dear, be a good man: be virtuous, be religious—be a good man. Nothing else will give you any real comfort when you come to lie here.”