When royal James beheld the fray,
Prize to the victor of the day;
When Home and Douglas, in the van,
Bore down Buccleuch's retiring clan,
Till gallant Cessford's heart-blood dear
Reek'd on dark Elliot's border spear."
[Original]
Less than a couple of miles to the west from Darnick, we come to that which Ruskin pronounced to be "perhaps the most incongruous pile that gentlemanly modernism ever designed." I fear that even the most devoted Borderer must admit that Abbotsford is an incongruous pile. Nevertheless it is hallowed ground, and one may not judge it by common standards. It reminds only of the gallantest struggle against hopeless odds that ever was made by mortal man; it speaks only of him whom everyone loved, and loves. "The glory-dies not, and the grief is past."
But what a marvellous change has been wrought over all that countryside since "the Shirra" bought Abbotsford, a hundred and two years ago. Undrained, unenclosed, treeless and bare, covered for the most part only with its rough native heath—that was the character of the country. And the house; "small and poor, with a common kail-yard on one flank, and a staring barn on the other; while in front appeared a filthy pond covered with ducks and duckweed, from which the whole tenement had derived the unharmonious designation of Clarty Hole." It does not sound enticing; and already offers had been made to him of a property near Selkirk, where, among fields overhanging the river, was a site unsurpassed for natural beauty of prospect, whence Ettrick could be viewed winding past "sweet Bowhill," far into the setting sun. It was Erskine, I think, who urged him to buy this property—land which then belonged to the writer's grandfather and greatgrandfather. But it was too far from Tweed, Scott said; "Tweed was everything to him—a beautiful river, flowing broad and bright over a bed of milk-white pebbles," (pebbles, alas! that, there at least, are no longer milk-white, but rather grey with sewage fungus and the refuse of mills). In spite of all its manifest drawbacks, "Clarty Hole," appealed to Scott. It was near the beautiful old abbey, and the lands had been abbey-lands. An ancient Roman road led through the property from Eildon Hills to that ford over Tweed which adjorned the farm, (and with this ford for sponsor, he changed the name from "Clarty Hole" to "Abbot's Ford.") Over the river, on the rising ground full in his view was the famous Catrail; and through his own land ran the Rhymer's Glen, where True Thomas foregathered with the Queen of Faëry. Bit by bit, Scott added to his land, bit by bit to his cottage, regarding which his first intention was "to have only two spare bedrooms, with dressing-rooms, each of which will on a pinch have a couch-bed." And his tree-planting had begun at once. When the property was first acquired from the Reverend Dr. Douglas of Galashiels, there was on it but one solitary strip of firs, so long and so narrow that Scott likened it to a black hair-comb.