English Literature for Boys and Girls

by H. E. Marshall

Everybody read The Novels, from the King to the shepherd. Friends, money, and fame came tumbling in upon the author. He had refused to be made Poet Laureate, and passed the honor on to Southey, but he accepted a baronetcy. He added wing after wing to his beautiful house, and acre after acre to his land, and rejoiced in being laird of Abbotsford.

The speed with which Scott wrote was marvelous. His house was always full of visitors, yet he always had time to entertain them. He was never known to refuse to see a friend, gentle or simple, and was courteous even to the bores who daily invaded his home. He had unbounded energy. He rose early in the morning, and before the rest of the family was astir had finished more than half of his daily task of writing. Thus by twelve o'clock he was free to entertain his guests.

If ever man was happy and successful, Scott seemed to be that man. But suddenly all his fair prospects were darkened over. Sir Walter was in some degree a partner in the business both of his publisher and his printer. Now both publisher and printer failed, and Scott found himself ruined with them. At fifty-five he was not only a ruined man, but loaded with a terrible debt of 117,000 pounds.

It was a staggering blow, and most men would have been utterly crushed by it. Not so Scott. He was proud, proud of his old name and of his new-founded baronial hall. He was stout of heart too. At fifty-five he began life again, determined with his pen to wipe out the debt. Many were the hands stretched out to help him; rich men offered their thousands, poor men their scanty savings, but Scott refused help from both rich and poor. His own hand must wipe out the debt, he said. Time was all he asked. So with splendid courage and determination, the like of which has perhaps never been known, he set to work.

But evil days had begun for Sir Walter. Scarcely four months after the crash, his wife died, and so he lost a companion of nearly thirty years. "I think my heart will break," he cries in the first bitterness of sorrow. "Lonely, aged, deprived of my family, an impoverished, an embarrassed man." But dogged courage comes to him again. "Well, that is over, and if it cannot be forgotten must be remembered with patience." So day after day he bent to his work. Every morning saw his appointed task done. Besides novels and articles he wrote a History of Napoleon, a marvelous book, considering it was written in eighteen months.

Then Scott began the book which will be the first of all his books to interest you, The Tales of a Grandfather. This is a history of Scotland, and it was written for his grandson John Hugh Lockhard, or Hugh Littlejohn as he is called in The Tales. "I will make," said Scott, "if possible, a book that a child shall understand, yet a man shall feel some temptation to peruse should he chance to take it up."

Hugh Littlejohn was a delicate boy, indeed he had not long to live, but many a happy day he spent, this summer (1827), riding about the woods of Abbotsford with his kind grandfather, listening to the tales he told. For Scott, too, the rides were a joy, and helped to make him forget his troubles. When he had told his tale in such a simple way that Littlejohn understood, he returned home and wrote it down.

In the December of the same year the first part of The Tales was published, and at once was a tremendous success, a success as great almost as any of the novels. Hugh Littlejohn liked The Tales too. "Dear Grandpapa," he writes, "I thank you for the books. I like my own picture and the Scottish chief: I am going to read them as fast as I can."

Two more volumes of Tales followed. Then there was no need to write more for the dearly loved grandson, as a year or two later, when he was only eleven, poor Littlejohn died. But already the kind grandfather was near his end also, the tremendous effort which he made to force himself to work beyond his strength could not be kept up. His health broke down under it. Still he struggled on, but at last, yielding to his friends' entreaties, he went to Italy in search of health and strength. It gives us some idea of the high place Sir Walter had won for himself in the hearts of the people, when we learn that his health seemed a national concern, and that a warship was sent to take him on his journey. But the journey was of no avail. Among the great hills and blue lakes of Italy Scott longed for the lesser hills and grayer lochs of Scotland. So he turned homewards. And at home, in his beloved Abbotsford, in the still splendor of an autumn day, with the meadow-scented air he loved fanning his face, and the sound of rippling Tweed in his ears, he closed his eyes for ever. In the grass-grown ruin of Dryburgh Abbey, not far from his home, he was laid to rest, while the whole countryside mourned Sir Walter.

Before he died Scott had paid 70,000 pounds of his debt, an enormous sum for one man to make by his pen in six years. He died in the happy belief that all was paid, as indeed it all was. For after the author's death, his books still brought in a great deal of money, so that in fifteen years the debt was wiped out.