For Dr. Rutherford was also an excellent linguist, and, according to the custom of the times, delivered his prelections to the students in Latin, (like the conversation in Beardie’s Jacobite Club). Nowadays, you mean to have no more Latin talked, as I understand; nor prayers said. Pills—Morison’s and others—can be made up on cheaper terms, you think,—and be equally salutary?
Be it so. In these ancient manners, however, Scott’s mother is brought up, and consistently abides; doubtless, having some reverence for the Latin tongue, and much faith in the medicine of prayer;—having had troubles about her soul’s safety also; perhaps too solicitous, at one time, on that point; but being sure she has a soul to be solicitous about, which is much; obedient herself to the severest laws of morality and life; mildly and steadily enforcing them on her children; but naturally of light and happy temper, and with a strong turn to study poetry and works of imagination.
I do not say anything of his father till we come to the apprenticeship,—except only that he was no less devout than his mother, and more formal. Of training which could be known or remembered, neither he nor the mother give any to their boy until after the Sandy-Knowe time. But how of the unremembered training? When do you suppose the education of a child begins? At six months old it can answer smile with smile, and impatience with impatience. It can observe, enjoy, and suffer, acutely, and, in a measure, intelligently. Do you suppose it makes no difference to it that the order of the house is perfect and quiet, the faces of its father and mother full of peace, their soft voices familiar to its ear, and even those of strangers, loving; or that it is tossed from arm to arm, among hard, or reckless, or vain-minded persons, in the gloom of a vicious household, or the confusion of a gay one? The moral disposition is, I doubt not, greatly determined in those first speechless years. I believe especially that quiet, and the withdrawal of objects likely to distract, by amusing the child, so as to let it fix its attention undisturbed on every visible least thing in its domain, is essential to the formation of some of the best powers of thought. It is chiefly to this quietude of his own home that I ascribe the intense perceptiveness and memory of the three-years’-old child at Sandy-Knowe; for, observe, it is in that first year he learns his Hardiknute; by his aunt’s help he learns to read at Bath, and can cater for himself on his return. Of this aunt, and her mother, we must now know what we can. You notice the difference which Scott himself indicates between the two: “My grandmother, who was meekness itself, and my aunt, who was of a higher temper.” Yet his grandmother, Barbara Haliburton, was descended from the so-called, in speciality of honour, ‘Standard-bearer’ of the Douglases; and Dryburgh Abbey was part of her family’s estate, they having been true servants to the monks of it, once on a time. Here is a curious little piece of lecture on the duties of master and servant,—Royal Proclamation on the 8th of May, 1535, by James the Fifth:[6] “Whereas we, having been advised, and knowing the said gentlemen, the Halliburtons, to be leal and true honest men, long servants unto the saide abbeye, for the saide landis, stout men at armes, and goode borderers against Ingland; and doe therefore decree and ordaine, that they shall be re-possess’d, and bruik and enjoy the landis and steedings they had of the said abbeye, paying the use and wonte: and that they sall be goode servants to the said venerabil father, like as they and their predecessours were to the said venerabil father, and his predecessours, and he a good master to them.” The Abbot of Dryburgh, however, and others in such high places, having thus misread their orders, and taken on themselves to be masters instead of ministers, the Reformation took its course; and Dryburgh claims allegiance no more—but to its dead.
You notice the phrase, “good borderers against England.” Lest I should have to put it off, too long, I may as well, in this place, let you know the origin of the tune which Scott’s uncle was so fond of. From the letter of one of his friends to Dr. Brown I gratefully take the following passage:—
“In the fourteenth century some English riders were slaking their thirst on the banks of the Tweed, nearly opposite Cartley Hole,—now Abbotsford,—where wild plums grew. The borderers came down upon them unexpectedly, and annihilated them, driving some into the Tweed, at a place called the Englishman’s Dyke. The borderers accordingly thought their surprise sourer fruit to the invaders than the plums they went to pluck, and christened themselves by the soubriquet of ‘Sour Plums in Galashiels,’ which gave a text for the song and tune, and a motto for the arms of the town of Galashiels.”
There is something to think of for you, when next you see the blackthorn blow, or the azure bloom spread on its bossed clusters of fruit. I cannot find any of the words of the song; but one beautiful stanza of the ballad of Cospatrick may at least serve to remind you of the beauty of the Border in its summer time:—
“For to the greenwood I maun gae
To pu’ the red rose and the slae,
To pu’ the red rose and the thyme,
To deck my mother’s bour and mine.”