The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

It is not correct, however, in spite of the striking resemblances, to speak of Traquair House as the 'original' of Tully Veolan. Scott himself says in his note in the edition of 1829, 'There is no particular mansion described under the name of Tully Veolan; but the peculiarities of description occur in various old Scottish seats.' Among these were the house of Sir George Warrender upon Bruntsfield Links; the old house of Ravelston, owned by Sir Alexander Keith, the author's friend and kinsman, from which he took some hints for the garden; and the house of Dean, near Edinburgh. He adds,'The author has, however, been informed that the house of Grandtully resembles that of the Baron of Bradwardine still more than any of the above.'

Acting upon this hint, when we were making the city of Perth our centre, we took a long journey by motor with Grandtully Castle as the objective point. I doubt if there is a more beautiful drive in all Scotland. We followed the left bank of the river Tay through a fertile valley of surpassing loveliness. In the whole journey of nearly one hundred miles it seemed as though there was never a blot on the landscape. No neglected farms, no rough patches of naked earth, no tumble-down fences, no unsightly railroad excavations nor bare embankments, no swamps filled with fallen timber, no hideous bill-boards, none of the hundreds of unsightly objects which mar the scenery of so many country drives. Everything seemed well kept. The big estates were filled with beautiful trees and shrubs, many of them in full bloom, and the humbler places did equally well, though on a smaller scale. I remember passing a hedge of beeches, half a mile long, the trees growing ninety feet high and so close together as to make a wall impenetrable to the sunlight. I was told that this hedge was trimmed once in three years at an expense of fifteen hundred dollars each time. This is only one item in the care of a large estate. We passed the park and palace of Scone, where the coronation stone was kept before its removal to Westminster Abbey, and from which it received its name. Farther to the north we stopped a few minutes at Campsie Linn, which I shall mention later in connection with 'The Fair Maid of Perth.' A little beyond Cargill our course turned sharply to the West, although the main road continues to the north until it reaches Blairgowrie, some two or three miles beyond which is another 'original' of Tully Veolan, the house of Craighall. Unfortunately lack of time did not permit a visit to this place, but I must digress long enough to explain its significance. It was the seat of the Rattray family, who were related to William Clerk, one of Scott's most intimate companions of the early days spent among the law courts of Edinburgh. During one of the Highland excursions the friends stopped at Craighall. When 'Waverley' came out, twenty-one years later, Mr. Clerk was so much struck with the resemblance of Tully Veolan to the old mansion of the Rattrays that he immediately said, 'This is Scott's.' The reason for the conviction was probably not so much the similarity of the real house to the fictitious one as the recollection of a little incident of the early excursion. Clerk, seeing the smoke of a little hamlet before them, when they were tired and heated from their journey, is said to have exclaimed, 'How agreeable if we should here fall in with one of those signposts where a red lion predominates over a punch-bowl!' In spite of the lapse of so many years, Clerk recognized his own expression (with which he knew Scott had been particularly amused) in that part of the description of Tully Veolan where 'a huge bear, carved in stone, predominated over a large stone basin.'

GRANDTULLY CASTLE

Following the course of the beautiful river, upstream, we came at length, far up in the Perthshire hills, to the Castle of Grandtully. It is a large and stately mansion, situated in one of those beautiful parks with which the region abounds. It has the pepper-box turrets and small windows of Tully Veolan. It is now, as in Scott's time, the home of a family of Stewarts, one of whom, Sir George, supported the cause of 'the Young Chevalier' in 1745. The gardener, who, in the absence of the family, did the honours of the place, told me that Scott had visited the house many years after 'Waverley' appeared and had said then that it was more nearly like what he had described than any other castle, and that 'the only mistake he had made was in putting bears on the gateway instead of bees.' There is a fine wrought-iron gate at Grandtully with the figures of two bees, forming a part of the coat of arms of the Stewart family. An avenue of limes formerly led to this gate, but it is no longer used and only two of the trees remain. Scott was always cautious about admitting any connection of his writings with definite 'originals,' but was ever ready to humour those who fancied they saw certain resemblances. It is curious that he does not mention either Traquair House or Craighall in his note, though both were identified as 'originals' during his lifetime. No doubt, consciously or unconsciously, he wove into his novel partial descriptions of both, as well as of Grandtully, while the houses which he particularly mentions also furnished some of the details.

The historical value of 'Waverley' lies in its picture of the rising of the Highland clans in favour of Charles Edward Stuart, called the 'Young Pretender' by the supporters of the reigning king, but affectionately known among his Scottish adherents as 'Bonnie Prince Charlie.' The ambitious young man, the grandson of James II, left France in the summer of 1745 in a small vessel, with only seven friends, and landed on one of the Hebridean Islands. Before the end of August he had raised his standard in the valley of Glenfinnan and found himself at the head of an army of fifteen hundred men, chiefly of the clans of MacDonald and Cameron. He soon made a triumphant march to Edinburgh, where he established himself in the Palace of Holyrood, which the Stuart family had already made famous. On Tuesday, the 17th of September, he caused the proclamation of his father, 'the Old Pretender,' as King James VIII, to be read by the heralds at the old Market Cross in Parliament Square. The people crowded around the 'Young Chevalier,' eager to kiss his hand or even to touch for a single instant the Scottish tartan which he wore. So great was the crowd that he was compelled to call for his horse, for otherwise he could make no progress. It is said that his noble appearance so won the hearts of all who beheld him that before he reached the palace the polish of his boots was dimmed by the kisses of the multitude.

That night the old palace reawakened to something of its former brilliancy, on the occasion of a great ball, given by the Prince. The old picture gallery, with its array of queer portraits of long-forgotten Scottish kings, was a scene of glittering splendour. The long-deserted halls, now brilliant with a thousand lights, were crowded with an assembly of men of education and fortune, accompanied by their ladies in gowns of such elegance as the confusion of the times might permit. Mingling with these representations of the Jacobean gentry of Edinburgh were the handsomely arrayed officers of the clans, the Highland gentlemen of importance, with their many coloured plaids and sashes, their broadswords glittering with heavy silver plate and inlaid work, and all the other elegant appurtenances for which the picturesque Highland costume offered abundant scope. In the chapter on the Ball, Scott merely introduced into an historic assemblage two handsome women, Flora MacIvor and Rose Bradwardine, and two men, Fergus MacIvor and Edward Waverley.

The palace is to-day much the same as it was in the time of the Prince, though the adjoining abbey is now roofless and very much more of a ruin. A walk through the Canongate, from Holyrood to the Market Cross, would give one a very fair idea of the street through which Fergus MacIvor and Waverley passed to the lodgings of the former in the house of the buxom Widow Flockhart, where Waverley received his new Highland costume from the hands of James of the Needle. At the other end of the town, beneath the castle, is St. Cuthbert's Church, then called the West Kirk, where the honest Presbyterian clergyman, MacVicar, preached every Sunday and prayed for the House of Hanover in spite of the fact that many of the Jacobites were present. In one of those petitions he referred to the fact that 'a young man has recently come among us seeking an earthly crown' and prayed that he might speedily be granted a heavenly one!

Much of the material for 'Waverley' was stored up in the retentive memory of the novelist when he was a mere boy. At six years of age he was taken for a visit to Prestonpans. If the old veteran of the German wars, Dalgetty, whom he met here and who found a ready listener in the bright-eyed little boy, was able to tell the story of the battle in anything like a graphic manner, it must have made a profound impression upon the mind of a lad who had already learned to fight the battles of Scotland with miniature armies of pebbles and shells. On one side was an army of Highlanders, the chief men of each clan proudly dressed in their distinctive tartans. They were tall, vigorous, hardy men, all proud of their ancestry, each capable of deeds of individual daring and courage, but all loyal to their chiefs and to their temporary leader, Prince Charles Edward Stuart. They were not only well dressed but well armed, each man having a broadsword, target, dirk, and fusee, or flintlock gun, and perhaps a steel pistol. These were the gentlemen of the Highlands. Contrasting strangely with them and forming the larger part of the army was the rear guard, a motley crowd, bearing every appearance of extreme poverty. They were rough, uncouth, half-naked men of savage aspect, armed with whatever weapon could be most easily obtained. Some had pole-axes; some carried scythes, securely fastened to the ends of poles; a few had old guns or swords; while many had only dirks and bludgeons. But all had the fighting spirit and a keen desire for plunder. To complete this curious but formidable array, there was an old iron cannon, dragged along by a string of Highland ponies. This constituted the entire artillery of the army and it could only be used for firing signals, yet the leaders allowed it to be retained because of the belief on the part of the men in the ranks that it would in some miraculous way contribute to their expected victory.