‘I had your letter from Bowhill, and was much gratified to learn that you and Miss Scott had passed so much time with the duke and duchess. I have no doubt that His Grace would bring our friend the Shepherd and his concerns before you, and I am anxious to know if it is the duke’s intention to render him a little more comfortable at Altrive. You know that Hogg built the cottage there, at his own expense (with an allowance of wood, perhaps), and he likewise built a considerable addition to Mount Benger, and a barn—all which cost him a great sum of money, quite disproportionate to a holding of £7 a year, even at a nominal rent. The cottage was intended for a bachelor’s abode, and is very inadequate to what is now required by the bard’s family; and I see that if His Grace does not think of giving him some allowance as an addition, it will most likely banish him from the district with which his poetry and feeling are so closely associated. I mention all this because I have observed that there is a prejudice against him among the sub-agents since Christie left the service, or rather, since the late duke’s death. One of them said to me, when I mentioned Hogg’s genius and amiable character, Cui bono? I, too, say, Cui bono? What is the use of all his poetry, and the rest? Now, from R.’s usage of him, there is every reason to suspect that he is a cui bono man too, and Hogg stands a bad chance among them, and I believe the duke knows nothing about the truth of the matter.’
Nothing was done. ‘As to the success of an application to the duke,’ writes Scott, ‘I am doubtful. The duke seemed to have made up his mind on the subject, and I saw no chance of being of service.’ Literature and the journey to London did something for the Shepherd. He wrote and struggled on at Altrive till November 1835, when the ‘world’s poor strife’ was over, and he sank to rest.
Among the dearest and most valued of all the visitors at Abbotsford were the Fergusons of Huntly Burn. Here is a kindly note sent to Kaeside:
‘Miss Ferrier is to be at Abbotsford this day, being Tuesday, 20th October’ [1829], ‘and Mr Wilkie is to be there on Thursday; so, if you come, you will have painting, poetry, history, and music—as Miss Wilkie is a musician. In short, all the Muses will be there. If this does not tempt you, I don’t know what will.—Yours truly,
Isabella Ferguson.’
Ill-health and political agitation brought darker days to Abbotsford. The Reform Bill was Sir Walter’s bête noire. The neighbouring Tory lairds, proud of his co-operation, induced him to join in their local movement against the bill, and this still further aggravated his morbid feeling. In March 1831, he was present at a meeting of the freeholders of Roxburgh, held at Jedburgh, to pass resolutions against the Reform Bill. He was dragged to the meeting by the young Duke of Buccleuch and Mr Henry Scott of Harden, contrary to his prior resolution, and his promise to Miss Scott; for his health was then much shattered. ‘He made a confused imaginative speech,’ says Laidlaw, ‘which was full of evil forebodings and mistaken views. The people who were auditors, in proportion to their love and reverence for him, felt disappointed and sore, and, like himself, were carried away by their temporary chagrin, to the great regret of the country around.’ At the election in Jedburgh, Sir Walter was hooted at, and hissed, and saluted with cries of ‘Burke Sir Walter!’ Laidlaw adds: ‘The same people, a few weeks afterwards, when Mr Oliver, the sheriff of Roxburgh, was foolishly swearing in constables at Melrose, said boldly they need not bring them to fight against reform, for they would fight for it; but if any one meddled with Sir Walter Scott, they would fight for him.’ Amidst all the excitement of politics, and in sinking health, Sir Walter continued to write, or rather to dictate, and worked steadily at his novel of Count Robert of Paris.
‘I am now writing as amanuensis for Sir Walter,’ said Laidlaw; ‘and have the satisfaction of finding that I am of essential service to him, as he was attacked with chilblains on his hands to such a degree as to unfit him for writing long unless with great pain. We go on with almost as great spirit as when he dictated Ivanhoe. He has become a good deal lamer, which prevents him from taking his usual walks; and he gets upon a pony with great difficulty. But of late he has been in excellent spirits. His memory seems to be as good as ever; at least, it is far beyond that of other people. I come down at seven o’clock, and write until nine; we are at it again before ten, and continue until one. He is impatient and miserable when not employed.’
About this time—the spring of 1831—Joanna Baillie published a thin volume of selections from the New Testament ‘regarding the nature and dignity of Jesus Christ.’ The tendency of the work was Socinian, or at least Arian; and Scott was indignant that his friend should have meddled with such a subject. ‘What had she to do with questions of that sort?’ He refused to add the book to his library, and gave it to Laidlaw. One day Sir Walter was loud in praise of one of the workmen engaged at Abbotsford, a native of the neighbouring village of Darnick. ‘Yes,’ added Laidlaw; ‘and do you know, Sir Walter, he is an excellent Burgher preacher.’[11] ‘A preacher, d—n him!’ exclaimed Scott jocularly, and wheeling round as if to whistle the Burgher preacher down the wind.
In a very manly and interesting letter, addressed to Lockhart (of which he had kept a copy), Laidlaw enters into further particulars concerning the studies at Abbotsford:
‘Sir Walter is very greatly better. He has given up smoking, and takes porridge to his supper instead of the long and hearty pull of brown stout. He is full of jokes and glee. Were it possible to prevail upon him to wear a greatcoat when he rides out to the hills in a north-west wind, and to take champagne and water instead of a monstrous tumbler of strong ale after tea, I am positive—and so are the regular medical people—that he would get right again. He drinks no wine, and has been advised to take gin-toddy instead of whisky. He has given up the regular dram out of a quaich, but takes a sly taste of the excellent hollands before he coups it into the tumbler, thereby satisfying his conscience, no doubt, by reducing it to the half-glass which, it seems, is the Abercromby law as to strong liquors. Don’t you mind the style of his letters; that is all, or nearly all, humbug. What he dictates of Robert of Paris is, much of it, as good as anything he ever wrote. He does not go on so fast; but I do not see that he is much more apt to make blunders—that is, to let his imagination get ahead of his speech—than when he wrote Ivanhoe. The worst business was that accursed nonsensical petition in the name of the magistrates, justices of the peace, and freeholders of the extensive, influential, and populous county of Selkirk! We were more than three days at it. At the beginning of the third day, he walked backwards and forwards, enunciating the half-sentences with a deep and awful voice, his eyebrows seemingly more shaggy than ever, and his eyes more fierce and glaring—altogether, like the royal beast in his cage! It suddenly came over me, as politics was always Sir Walter’s weak point, that he was crazy, and that I should have to come down to Abbotsford, and write on and away at the petition until the crack of doom! I was seized at the same moment with an inclination, almost uncontrollable, to burst into laughter. But seriously, you know, as well as anybody, his great excitability on political matters; and I must say it surprised me not a little that a person of your sagacity and acuteness should have thought of writing him upon politics at all, the more, because I believe that if a magpie were to come and chatter politics, or even that body, Lord M., he would believe all they said, if they spoke of change, and danger, and rumours of war—belli servilis more than all. (May I speak and live!) I felt inclined to doubt whether you had not gane gyte’ [gone crazy] ‘yourself! Could you not have sent him literary chit-chat and amusing anecdotes from London, which would have been the very thing for him, as it was of great consequence that his mind should be kept calm and cheerful?’