‘About the middle of August’

(writes his son-in-law, Lockhart, in 1820), ‘my wife and I went to Abbotsford. We remained there for several weeks, during which time I became familiarised with Sir Walter Scott’s mode of existence in the country. It was necessary to observe it, day after day, for a considerable period, before one could believe that such was, during nearly half the year, the routine of life with the most productive author of his age. The humblest person who stayed merely for a short visit must have departed with the impression that what he witnessed was an occasional variety; that Scott’s courtesy prompted him to break in upon his habits when he had a stranger to amuse; but that it was physically impossible that the man who was writing the Waverley romances at the rate of nearly twelve volumes in the year, could continue, week after week, and month after month, to devote all but a hardly perceptible fraction of his mornings to out-of-doors occupations, and the whole of his evenings to the entertainment of a constantly varying circle of guests.

‘The hospitality of his afternoons must alone have been enough to exhaust the energies of almost any man; for his visitors did not mean, like those of country houses in general, to enjoy the landlord’s good cheer and amuse each other; the far greater proportion arrived from a distance, [420] ]for the sole sake of the Poet and Novelist himself, whose person they had never before seen, and whose voice they might never again have any opportunity of hearing. No other villa in Europe was ever resorted to from the same motives, and to anything like the same extent, except Ferney; and Voltaire never dreamt of being visible to his hunters, as he called them, except for a brief space of the day. Few of them even dined with him, and none of them seem to have slept under his roof. Scott’s establishment, on the contrary, resembled in every particular that of the affluent idler, who, because he has inherited, or would fain transmit, political influence, keeps open house, receives as many as he has room for, and sees their apartments occupied, as soon as they vacate them, by another troop of the same description.

. . . . . . . . .

‘But with few exceptions Scott was the sole object of the Abbotsford pilgrims; and evening followed evening only to show him exerting for their amusement more of animal spirits, to say nothing of intellectual vigour, than would have been considered by any other man in the company as sufficient for the whole expenditure of a week’s existence. Yet this was not the chief marvel: he talked of things that interested himself, because he knew that by doing so he should give most pleasure to his guests. It is needless to add that Sir Walter was familiarly known, long before these days, to almost all the nobility and higher gentry of Scotland; and consequently there seldom wanted a fair proportion of them to assist him in [421] ]doing the honours of his country. It is still more superfluous to say so respecting the heads of his own profession in Edinburgh; Abbotsford was their villa, whenever they pleased to resort to it, and few of them were absent from it long.

‘As to the composition of the guests. Some were near relations who, except when they visited him, rarely, if ever, found admittance to what the dialect of the upper world is pleased to designate as “society.” These were welcome guests, let who might be under that roof. It was the same with many a worthy citizen of Edinburgh, habitually moving in the obscurest of circles, who had been in the same class as Scott at the High School. To dwell on nothing else, it was surely the perfection of real universal humanity and politeness that could enable this great and good man to blend guests so multifarious in one group, and contrive to make all equally happy with him, with themselves, and with each another.

‘It was a clear, bright September morning, and all was in readiness for a grand coursing match on Newark Hill. Sir Walter, mounted on Sibyl Grey, was marshalling the order of the procession with a huge hunting-whip, and among a dozen frolicsome youths and maidens appeared on horseback, eager as the youngest sportsman in the troop, Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston, and the patriarch of Scottish belles lettres, Henry Mackenzie. The Man of Feeling, however, was persuaded to resign his steed, and to join Lady Scott in the sociable, until the ground of the battue was reached. Laidlaw, on a longtailed, [422] ]wiry Highlander, yclept Hoddin Grey, which carried him nimbly and stoutly, though his feet almost touched the ground, was the adjutant.

‘But the most picturesque figure was the illustrious inventor of the safety lamp. He had come for his favourite sport of angling, but had not prepared for coursing fields, and his fisherman’s costume—a brown hat with flexible brims, surrounded with line upon line, and innumerable fly-hooks, jack-boots worthy of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian coat dabbled with the blood of salmon—made a fine contrast with the smart jackets, white cord breeches, and well-polished jockey boots of the less distinguished cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was in black, and with his noble, serene dignity of countenance might have passed for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Mackenzie, at this time in the seventy-sixth year of his age, with a white hat turned up with green, green spectacles, and long brown leather gaiters, wore a dog-whistle round his neck, and had all over the air of as resolute a devotee as the gay captain of Huntly Burn. Tom Purdie had preceded us by a few hours, with all the greyhounds that could be collected at Abbotsford, Darnick, and Melrose; but the giant Maida had remained as his master’s orderly, and now gambolled about Sibyl Grey, barking for mere joy like a spaniel puppy.

‘On reaching Newark Castle we found Lady Scott, her eldest daughter, and the venerable Mackenzie, all busily engaged in unpacking a basket, and arranging a luncheon it contained, in [423] ]the mossy rocks overhanging the bed of the Yarrow. When such of the company as chose had partaken of the refection, the Man of Feeling resumed his pony and all ascended, duly marshalled in proper distances, so as to beat in a broad line over the heather, Sir Walter directing the movement from the right across towards Blackandro. Davy laid his whip about the fern like an experienced hand, and surveying the long, eager battalion of “bushrangers” [sic], exclaimed, “Good Heavens! is it thus that I visit the scenery of the Lay of the Last Minstrel?” He kept muttering to himself, as his glowing eye ran over the landscape, some of those beautiful lines from the conclusion of the Lay:—

But still,