‘All that I have said is for your consideration and making up your mind, for nothing can be certain till we hear what the persons principally concerned please to say. But then, if they accede to the trust, we will expect to have the pleasure of seeing you here with a list of stock and a scheme of what you think best to be done. My purpose is that everything shall be paid ready money from week to week.
‘I have £180 to send to you, and it is in my hands. Of course it will be paid, but I am unwilling to send it until I know the exact footing on which I am to stand. The gentleman whom I wish should be my trustee—or one of them—is John Gibson, the Duke’s factor.
‘Lady Scott’s spirits were affected at first, but she is getting better. For myself, I feel like the Eildon Hills—quite firm, though a little cloudy. I do not dislike the path which lies before me. I have seen all that society can shew, and enjoyed all that wealth can give me, and I am satisfied much is vanity, if not vexation of spirit. I am arranging my affairs, and mean to economise a good deal, and I will pay every man his due.—Yours truly,
Walter Scott.’
There was some delusion in all this. Sir Walter never fully comprehended the state of his pecuniary affairs. It was one of his weaknesses, as James Ballantyne has said, to shrink too much from looking evil in the face, and he was apt to carry a great deal too far ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ Laidlaw mentions another small weakness: ‘he was always in alarm lest the servants should suspect he was in want of money.’ This, of course, was subsequent to the public declaration of the failure. Laidlaw went to Edinburgh to report to the trustees with respect to the best way of closing the farm business, and there met Sir Walter.
‘He bears himself wonderfully. Miss Scott does not seem to be quite aware or sensible of anything but that they are to reside in retirement at Abbotsford. Lady Scott is rather unwilling to believe it, and does not see the necessity of such complete retrenchment as Sir Walter tells her is absolutely necessary. I have dined three times there, and there is not much difference in their manner. Sir W. is often merry, and so are they all, but still oftener silent. I think that if they were a week or two at Abbotsford they would be more happy than they have been for many a day. I am sure this would be the case with Sir Walter, for the weight of such an immense system of bills sent for his signature every now and then would be off his mind. I heard to-day that the Duke of Somerset and another English nobleman have written to Sir Walter, offering him £30,000 each, which he has firmly refused; and it is reported that the young Duke of Buccleuch has written him, offering to take the whole loss on himself, and to pay the interest of Sir Walter’s debt until he comes of age. If that is true, Sir Walter should accept the offer for the Duke’s own sake—for the glorious moral effect it would have upon the truly noble young fellow. But, apart from all this, cannot they set up Constable again? He has likewise been a real benefactor to his country, and then Sir Walter would, of course, be relieved.’
The private grief of Scott was for a short time merged in what he considered an important public cause. The Liverpool Administration at this time proposed to change the Scotch system of currency, abolishing the small bank-notes, and assimilating the monetary system of Scotland to that of England. This project was assailed by the wit, humour, sound sense, and nationality of Scott, in a series of letters signed ‘Malachi Malagrowther,’ and the letters of Malachi were as successful as those of Swift’s ‘M. B. Drapier’ concerning the currency of Ireland. The English government, in both cases, was compelled to abandon the denationalising scheme. Scott writes to Laidlaw, March 1, 1826:
‘I enclose a couple of copies of a pamphlet on the currency, which may amuse you. The other copy is for Mr Craig, Galashiels. I have got off some bile from my stomach which has been disturbing me for some years. The Scotch have a fair opportunity now to give battle, if they dare avail themselves of it. One would think I had little to do, that I should go loose upon politics.’
He had, in fact, entered upon his herculean task of paying off some £120,000 of debt by his pen! The Life of Napoleon was commenced, and in the autumn the biographer set off for London and Paris to consult state-papers and gather information. He succeeded well in his errand. ‘My collection of information,’ he writes, ‘goes on faster than I can take it in; but, then, it is so much coloured by passion and party-feeling, that it requires much scouring. I spent a day at the Royal Lodge at Windsor, which was a grand affair for John Nicholson, as he got an opportunity to see his Majesty.’ And the incident, no doubt, afforded as much gratification to the kind, indulgent master as it did to the servant.
After the Abbotsford establishment was broken up, Laidlaw was some time engaged in cataloguing the large library of Scott of Harden, and at times visiting his brothers, sheep-farmers in Ross-shire. The following description of a scene he witnessed, a Highland Summer Sacrament out of doors, evinces no mean powers of observation and description: