It may be said, indeed, that, of all places in the south of Scotland, the attention of the great novelist was first fixed upon Liddesdale. In his second literary effort—the Lay of the Last Minstrel—he confined himself in a great measure to Teviotdale, in the upper part of which, about three miles above Hawick, stands Branxholm Castle, the chief scene of the poem. The old house has been much altered since the supposed era of the Lay; but it has nevertheless more of an ancient than a modern appearance, and does not much disappoint a modern beholder. For a long time, the Buccleuch family have left it to the occupancy of the individuals who act as their agents or chamberlains on this part of their extensive property; and it is at present kept in the best order, and surrounded by some fine woods of ancient and modern growth. Seated on a lofty bank, it still overlooks that stream, and is overtopped by those hills, to which, it will be recollected, ‘the lady’ successively addressed her witching incantations.
The small vale of Borthwick Water, which starts off from the strath of the Teviot a little above Hawick, contains a scene which cannot well be overlooked—namely, Harden Castle, the original though now deserted seat of the family of Scott of Harden, from which, through the Raeburn branch, Sir Walter Scott was descended. This, though neglected alike by its proprietor and by tourists, is one of the most remarkable pieces of scenery which we, who have travelled over nearly the whole of Scotland, have yet seen within its shores. Conceive, first, the lonely pastoral beauty of the vale of Borthwick; next, a minor vale receding from its northern side, full of old and emaciated, but still beautiful wood: penetrating this recess for a little way, the traveller sees, perched upon a lofty height in front, and beaming perhaps in the sun, a house which, though not picturesque in its outline, derives that quality in a high degree from its situation and accompaniments. This is Harden House or Castle; but, though apparently near it, the wayfarer has yet to walk a long way around the height before he can wind his way into its immediate presence. When arrived at the platform whereon the house stands, he finds it degraded into a farm-house; its court forming perhaps a temporary cattle-yard; every ornament disgraced; every memorial of former grandeur seen through a slough of plebeian utility and homeliness, or broken into ruin. A pavement of black and white diced marble is found in the vestibule, every square of which is bruised to pieces, and the whole strewed with the details of a dairy. The dining-room, a large apartment with a richly ornamented stucco roof, is now used as the farmer’s kitchen. Other parts of the house, still bearing the arms and initials of Walter Scott, Earl of Tarras, great-grandfather of the late Mr Scott of Harden, and of his second wife, Helen Hepburn, are sunk in a scarcely less proportion. This nobleman was at first married to Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, who died, however, without issue, leaving the succession open to her sister Anne, who became the wife of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, eldest natural son of Charles II. Through this family connection, the Earl of Tarras was induced to join in the conspiracy which usually bears the name of the Rye-house Plot, for which he was attainted, only saving his life by giving evidence against his more steadfast companion, Baillie of Jerviswood, the great-grandfather of another Scottish proprietor, who happened to be an immediate neighbour of Harden. It may be asked why Mr Scott did not inherit the title of his ancestor: the answer is, that it was only thought necessary to invest the husband of the Countess of Buccleuch with a title for his own life—which proves that the hereditary character of the peerage has not always been observed in our constitution. While all of this scene that springs from art is degraded and wretched, it is striking to see that its natural grandeur suffers no defalcation. The wide-sweeping hills stretch off grandly on all hands, and the celebrated den, from which the place has taken its name, still retains the features which have rendered it so remarkable a natural curiosity. This is a large abyss in the earth, as it may be called, immediately under the walls of the house, and altogether unpervaded by running water—the banks clothed with trees of all kinds, and one side opening to the vale, though the bottom is much beneath the level of the surrounding ground. Old Wat of Harden—such is the popular name of an aged marauder celebrated in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border—used to keep the large herds which he had draughted out of the northern counties of England in this strange hollow; and it seems to have been admirably adapted for the purpose. It was this Border hero of whom the story is told somewhere by his illustrious descendant, that, coming once homeward with a goodly prey of cattle, and seeing a large haystack standing in a farm-yard by the way, he could not help saying, with some bitterness: ‘By my saul, an ye had four feet, ye should gang too!’
SCHOOL-BOY DAYS.
It is understood that, at the ‘evening fire’ of Sandyknow, Sir Walter learned much of that Border lore which he afterwards wrought up in his fictions. To what extent his residence there retarded his progress in school instruction, is not discovered. After being at Sandyknow, he was, for the sake of the mineral waters, sent, in his fourth year, to Bath, where he attended a dame’s school, and received his first lessons in reading. Returning to Edinburgh, he made some advances in the rudiments of learning at a private school kept by a Mr Leechman in Hamilton’s Entry, Bristo Street [now a small, decayed building, with a tiled roof, occupied by a working blacksmith]. This was his first school in Edinburgh. It is almost certain that his attendance at school was rendered irregular by his delicate health. He entered Fraser’s class at the High School in the third year—that is to say, when that master had carried his class through one half of the ordinary curriculum of the school; wherefore it is clear that any earlier instruction he could have received must have been in some inferior institution, and very probably communicated in a hurried and imperfect manner. It is at the commencement of the school year in October 1779 that his name first appears in the school register: he must have then been eight years of age, which, it may be remarked, is an unusually early period for a boy to enter the third year of his classical course. What is further remarkable, his elder brother attended the same class. It is therefore to be suspected that his educational interests were sacrificed, in some measure, to the circumstances of the school, which were at that period in such an unhappy arrangement as to teachers, that parents often precipitated their children into a class for which they were unfitted, in order to escape a teacher whom they deemed unqualified for his duties, and secure the instructions of one who bore a superior character.
Although Mr Luke Fraser was one of the severest flagellators even of the old school, he enjoyed the reputation of being a sound scholar, so far as scholarship was required for his duties, and also that of a most conscientious and painstaking teacher. He first caused his scholars to get by heart Ruddiman’s Rudiments, and as soon as they were thoroughly grounded in the declensions, the Vocabulary of the same great grammarian was put into their hands, and a small number of words prescribed to be repeated every morning. They then read in succession the Colloquies of Corderius, four or five lives of Cornelius Nepos, and the first four books of Cæsar’s Commentaries. Ere this course was perfected, the greater part of Ruddiman’s Grammatica Minora, in Latin, was got by heart. Select passages from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Bucolics and the first Æneid of Virgil, concluded the fourth year; after which the boys were turned over to the rector, by whom they were instructed for two years more; making the course in all six years. It must also be understood, that every one of the three masters besides Mr Fraser pursued the same system, bringing forward a class from the first elements to the state in which it was fitted for the attention of the rector; after which he returned once more to take up a new set of boys in the first class—and so forth for one lustrum after another, so long as he was connected with the school. If any teacher could have brought a boy over such a difficulty as that which attended the commencement of Sir Walter’s career at the High School, it would have been Mr Fraser; for few of his profession at that time were more anxious to explain away every obstruction in the path of his pupils, or took so much pains to ascertain that they were carrying the understandings of the boys along with them through all the successive stages. Apparently, however, neither the care of the master nor the inborn genius of the pupil availed much in this case, for it is said that the twenty-fifth place was no uncommon situation in the class for the future author of the Waverley Novels.
After two years of instruction, commenced under these unfavourable circumstances, Sir Walter, in October 1781, entered the rector’s class, then taught by Dr Alexander Adam, the author of many excellent elementary books, and one of the most meritorious and most eminent teachers that Scotland has ever produced. The authors read by Dr Adam’s class at this period, and probably during the whole of his career, were Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Terence; but it was not in reading and translating alone that an education under this eminent man consisted. Adam, who was an indefatigable student, as the number and excellence of his works testify, was a complete contrast to Mr Fraser. The latter hardly ever introduced a single remark but what was intended to illustrate the letter of the author; whereas Dr Adam commented at great length upon whatever occurred in the course of reading in the class, whether it related to antiquities, customs, and manners, or to history. He was of so communicative a disposition, that whatever knowledge he had acquired in his private studies, he took the first opportunity of imparting to his class, paying little regard whether it was above the comprehension of the greater number of his scholars or not. He abounded in pleasant anecdote; and while he never neglected the proper business of his class, it is certain that he inspired a far higher love of knowledge and of literary history into the minds of his pupils than any other teacher of his day. At the same time, he displayed a benevolence of character which won the hearts of his pupils, and nothing ever gave him so much pleasure as to hear of their success in after-life. To this venerable person, Sir Walter was always ready to acknowledge his obligations, and it is not improbable that much of his literary character was moulded on that of Dr Adam.
As a scholar, nevertheless, the subject of this memoir never became remarkable for proficiency. There is his own authority for saying, that, even in the exercise of metrical translation, he fell far short of some of his companions; although others preserve a somewhat different recollection, and state that this was a department in which he always manifested a superiority. It is, however, unquestionable, that in his exercises he was remarkable, to no inconsiderable extent, for blundering and incorrectness; his mind apparently not possessing that aptitude for mastering small details, in which so much of scholarship, in its earliest stages, consists.
Regarding his school-days, we may introduce an extract from an original letter on the subject. ‘The following lines were written by Walter Scott when he was between ten and eleven years of age, and while he was attending the High School, Edinburgh. His master there had spoken of him as a remarkably stupid boy, and his mother with grief acknowledged that they spoke truly. She saw him one morning, in the midst of a tremendous thunder-storm, standing still in the street, and looking at the sky. She called to him repeatedly, but he remained looking upwards without taking the least notice of her. When he returned into the house, she was very much displeased with him: “Mother,” he said, “I could tell you the reason why I stood still, and why I looked at the sky, if you would only give me a pencil.” She gave him one, and, in less than five minutes, he laid a bit of paper on her lap, with these words written on it:
“Loud o’er my head what awful thunders roll,
What vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,