BRACKENBURY TOWER, BARNARD CASTLE
Barnard Castle, however, interesting as it is, was not the magnet that drew the poet to this region for his scenery. In 1808, Scott began his intimacy with John B. S. Morritt, a man of sterling character and high literary attainments, for whom he came to entertain a genuine affection. Morritt had inherited the estate of Rokeby, situated about four miles southeast of Barnard Castle. The Rokebys, like their neighbours, the Baliols, were descended from one of the followers of the Conqueror. The old manor house was destroyed by the Scotch after the battle of Bannockburn (1314), and the Rokeby of that day built the Castle of Mortham, much of which still remains standing on the opposite bank of the Greta. The present Hall was built in 1724. It stands in the midst of an extensive and beautiful park, which Scott, on the occasion of his first visit, thought 'one of the most enviable places' he had ever seen. 'It unites,' said he, 'the richness and luxuriance of English vegetation with the romantic variety of glen, torrent, and copse, which dignifies our Northern scenery. The Greta and Tees, two most beautiful and rapid rivers, join their currents in the demesne. The banks of the Tees resemble, from the height of the rocks, the Glen of Roslin, so much and justly admired.' The letter containing this enthusiastic praise of his friend's estate was written in 1809. Two years later, when the purchase of Abbotsford seemed to require another poem for its consummation, it was to the one place worthy of comparison with his beloved Glen of Roslin that the poet instinctively turned for his backgrounds.
Scott's ambition to be the 'laird' of an estate was gratified in the summer of 1811 when he became the owner of an unprepossessing farm of about one hundred acres. The land was in a neglected state, but little of it having been under cultivation. The farmhouse was small and poor, and immediately in front of it was a miserable duck pond. The place, from its disreputable appearance, had been known as 'Clarty Hole.' But Scott's prophetic vision could look beyond all this and see something, if not all, of the transformation which was to be wrought in the next twelve years. The farm lay for half a mile along the banks of the beautiful Tweed, the river which Scott loved. He knew the fertility of the soil and saw the possibility of making the place a beautiful grove. At first he thought only of 'a cottage and a few fields,' but as the passion for buying, planting, and building grew with his apparent prosperity, the farm became a beautifully wooded estate of eighteen hundred acres, the cottage grew into a castle, and 'Clarty Hole,' its name changed into 'Abbotsford' within less than an hour after the new owner took possession, became one of the most famous private possessions in the world.
The farm cost £4000, one half of which was borrowed from the poet's brother, Major John Scott, and the other half advanced by the Ballantynes on the security of 'Rokeby,' though the poem was not yet written. The plans for the purchase out of the way, Scott wrote to his friend, Morritt, outlining the new poem, having for its scene the domain of Rokeby and its subject the civil wars of Charles I. Morritt was delighted and immediately responded with a letter full of valuable information. The following summer was a busy one. Until the middle of July, Scott's duties as Clerk of the Court of Sessions kept him at Edinburgh five days in the week. Saturdays and Sundays were spent at Abbotsford. He composed poetry while planting trees and wrote down the verses amid the noise and confusion incident to building his new cottage. 'As for the house and the poem,' he wrote to Morritt, 'there are twelve masons hammering at the one and one poor noddle at the other.' Both 'Rokeby' and 'The Bridal of Triermain' were written under these conditions and at the same time, while Scott found opportunity also to continue his work on the 'Life of Swift,' which eventually reached nineteen octavo volumes, and to render other literary services to his publishers, the Ballantynes.
It was not long before Scott found an opportunity to visit Rokeby again, where he remained about a week. On the morning after his arrival, he informed Morritt that he needed 'a good robber's cave and an old church of the right sort.' Morritt promptly undertook to supply both, and to find the former rode with his friend to Brignall Woods, where the Greta flows through a deep glen, on one side of which are some perpendicular rocks, the site of an old quarry. I could not find any robber's caves, but it was easy enough for Scott to make one in such a rock formation. I could, however, form a pretty good idea of the wild flight of Bertram Risingham as he
Now clomb the rocks projecting high
To baffle the pursuer's eye:
Now sought the stream, whose brawling sound
The echo of his footsteps drowned.
In all probability, the scene is the same to-day, as it was in Scott's time, wild and beautiful. The stream winds around through shady nooks, here rippling over the rocks and then widening out into a placid pool; occasionally passing out from beneath the trees into an open glade, where the well-worn boulders that punctuated its course lay gleaming in the sun, and presenting at every turn some new and changing view.
O, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta Woods are green.
In describing the visit to this place Mr. Morritt gives an excellent idea of Scott's method:—