Sometimes the evening closed with a "burning of the water;" and then the Sheriff, though now not so agile as when he practised that rough sport in the early times of Ashestiel, was sure to be one of the party in the boat,—held a torch, or perhaps took the helm,—and seemed to enjoy the whole thing as heartily as the youngest of his company,—
"'T is blithe along the midnight tide,
With stalwart arm the boat to guide—
On high the dazzling blaze to rear,
And heedful plunge the barbed spear;
Rock, wood, and scaur, emerging bright,
Fling on the stream their ruddy light,
And from the bank our band appears
Like Genii armed with fiery spears."[101]
The other "superior occasion" came later in the season; the 28th of October, the birthday of Sir Walter's eldest son, was, I think, that usually selected for the Abbotsford Hunt. This was a coursing-field on a large scale, including, with as many of the young gentry as pleased to attend, all Scott's personal favorites among the yeomen and farmers of the surrounding country. The Sheriff always took the field, but latterly devolved the command upon his good friend Mr. John Usher, the ex-laird of Toftfield; and he could not have had a more skilful or a better-humored lieutenant. The hunt took place either on the moors above the Cauldshiels Loch, or over some of the hills on the estate of Gala, and we had commonly, ere we returned, hares enough to supply the wife of every farmer that attended, with soup for a week following. The whole then dined at Abbotsford, the Sheriff in the chair, Adam Ferguson croupier, and Dominie Thomson, of course, chaplain. George, by the way, was himself an eager partaker in the preliminary sport; and now he would favor us with a grace, in Burns's phrase, "as long as my arm," beginning with thanks to the Almighty, who had given man dominion over the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field, and expatiating on this text with so luculent a commentary, that Scott, who had been fumbling with his spoon long before he reached his Amen, could not help exclaiming as he sat down, "Well done, Mr. George! I think we've had everything but the view holla!" The company, whose onset had been thus deferred, were seldom, I think, under thirty in number, and sometimes they exceeded forty. The feast was such as suited the occasion—a baron of beef, roasted, at the foot of the table, a salted round at the head, while tureens of hare-soup, hotchpotch, and cocky-leeky, extended down the centre, and such light articles as geese, turkeys, entire sucking-pigs, a singed sheep's head, and the unfailing haggis, were set forth by way of side dishes. Blackcock and moorfowl, bushels of snipe, black puddings, white puddings, and pyramids of pancakes, formed the second course. Ale was the favorite beverage during dinner, but there was plenty of port and sherry for those whose stomachs they suited. The quaighs of Glenlivet were filled brimful, and tossed off as if they held water. The wine decanters made a few rounds of the table, but the hints for hot punch and toddy soon became clamorous. Two or three bowls were introduced, and placed under the supervision of experienced manufacturers,—one of these being usually the Ettrick Shepherd,—and then the business of the evening commenced in good earnest. The faces shone and glowed like those at Camacho's wedding: the chairman told his richest stories of old rural life, Lowland or Highland; Ferguson and humbler heroes fought their peninsular battles o'er again; the stalwart Dandie Dinmonts lugged out their last winter's snowstorm, the parish scandal, perhaps, or the dexterous bargain of the Northumberland tryste; and every man was knocked down for the song that he sung best, or took most pleasure in singing. Sheriff-Substitute Shortreed (a cheerful, hearty, little man, with a sparkling eye and a most infectious laugh) gave us Dick o' the Cow, or Now Liddesdale has ridden a Raid; his son Thomas (Sir Walter's assiduous disciple and assistant in Border Heraldry and Genealogy) shone without a rival in The Douglas Tragedy and The Twa Corbies; a weather-beaten, stiff-bearded veteran, Captain Ormistoun, as he was called (though I doubt if his rank was recognized at the Horse-Guards), had the primitive pastoral of Cowdenknowes in sweet perfection; Hogg produced The Women Folk, or The Kye comes Hame; and, in spite of many grinding notes, contrived to make everybody delighted, whether with the fun or the pathos of his ballad; the Melrose doctor sang in spirited style some of Moore's masterpieces; a couple of retired sailors joined in Bould Admiral Duncan upon the High Sea;—and the gallant croupier crowned the last bowl with Ale, good Ale, thou art my Darling! Imagine some smart Parisian savant—some dreamy pedant of Halle or Heidelberg—a brace of stray young Lords from Oxford or Cambridge, or perhaps their prim college tutors, planted here and there amidst these rustic wassailers—this being their first vision of the author of Marmion and Ivanhoe, and he appearing as heartily at home in the scene as if he had been a veritable Dandie himself—his face radiant, his laugh gay as childhood, his chorus always ready. And so it proceeded until some worthy, who had fifteen or twenty miles to ride home, began to insinuate that his wife and bairns would be getting sorely anxious about the fords, and the Dumples and Hoddins were at last heard neighing at the gate, and it was voted that the hour had come for doch an dorrach—the stirrup-cup—to wit, a bumper all round of the unmitigated mountain dew. How they all contrived to get home in safety, Heaven only knows—but I never heard of any serious accident except upon one occasion, when James Hogg made a bet at starting that he would leap over his wall-eyed pony as she stood, and broke his nose in this experiment of "o'ervaulting ambition." One comely goodwife, far off among the hills, amused Sir Walter by telling him, the next time he passed her homestead after one of these jolly doings, what her husband's first words were when he alighted at his own door: "Ailie, my woman, I'm ready for my bed, and oh lass (he gallantly added), I wish I could sleep for a towmont, for there's only ae thing in this warld worth living for, and that's the Abbotsford Hunt!"
It may well be supposed that the President of the Boldside Festival and the Abbotsford Hunt did not omit the good old custom of the Kirn. Every November, before quitting the country for Edinburgh, he gave a harvest-home, on the most approved model of former days, to all the peasantry on his estate, their friends and kindred, and as many poor neighbors besides as his barn could hold. Here old and young danced from sunset to sunrise,—John of Skye's bagpipe being relieved at intervals by the violin of some Wandering Willie;—and the laird and all his family were present during the early part of the evening—he and his wife to distribute the contents of the first tub of whiskey-punch, and his young people to take their due share in the endless reels and hornpipes of the earthen floor. As Mr. Morritt has said of him as he appeared at Laird Nippy's kirn of earlier days, "To witness the cordiality of his reception might have unbent a misanthrope." He had his private joke for every old wife or "gausie carle," his arch compliment for the ear of every bonny lass, and his hand and his blessing for the head of every little Eppie Daidle from Abbotstown or Broomielees.
"The notable paradox," he says in one of the most charming of his essays, "that the residence of a proprietor upon his estate is of as little consequence as the bodily presence of a stockholder upon Exchange, has, we believe, been renounced. At least, as in the case of the Duchess of Suffolk's relationship to her own child, the vulgar continue to be of opinion that there is some difference in favor of the next hamlet and village, and even of the vicinage in general, when the squire spends his rents at the manor-house, instead of cutting a figure in France or Italy. A celebrated politician used to say he would willingly bring in one bill to make poaching felony, another to encourage the breed of foxes, and a third to revive the decayed amusements of cock-fighting and bullbaiting—that he would make, in short, any sacrifice to the humors and prejudices of the country gentlemen, in their most extravagant form, provided only he could prevail upon them to 'dwell in their own houses, be the patrons of their own tenantry, and the fathers of their own children.'"[102]
CHAPTER L
PUBLICATION OF THE ABBOT. — THE BLAIR-ADAM CLUB. — KELSO, WALTON HALL, ETC. — BALLANTYNE'S NOVELISTS' LIBRARY. — ACQUITTAL OF QUEEN CAROLINE. — SERVICE OF THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH. — SCOTT ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. — THE CELTIC SOCIETY. — LETTERS TO LORD MONTAGU, CORNET SCOTT, CHARLES SCOTT, ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, ETC. — KENILWORTH PUBLISHED.
1820-1821
In the September of 1820, Longman, in conjunction with Constable, published The Abbot—the continuation, to a certain extent, of The Monastery, of which I barely mentioned the appearance under the preceding March. I had nothing of any consequence to add to the information which the subsequent Introduction affords us respecting the composition and fate of the former of these novels. It was considered as a failure—the first of the series on which any such sentence was pronounced;—nor have I much to allege in favor of the White Lady of Avenel, generally criticised as the primary blot—or of Sir Piercie Shafton, who was loudly, though not quite so generally, condemned. In either case, considered separately, he seems to have erred from dwelling (in the German taste) on materials that might have done very well for a rapid sketch. The phantom, with whom we have leisure to become familiar, is sure to fail—even the witch of Endor is contented with a momentary appearance and five syllables of the shade she evokes. And we may say the same of any grotesque absurdity in human manners. Scott might have considered with advantage how lightly and briefly Shakespeare introduces his Euphuism—though actually the prevalent humor of the hour when he was writing. But perhaps these errors might have attracted little notice had the novelist been successful in finding some reconciling medium capable of giving consistence and harmony to his naturally incongruous materials. "These," said one of his ablest critics, "are joined—but they refuse to blend. Nothing can be more poetical in conception, and sometimes in language, than the fiction of the White Maid of Avenel; but when this ethereal personage, who rides on the cloud which 'for Araby is bound'—who is
'Something between heaven and hell,
Something that neither stood nor fell,'