Mr Scrope's first visit to the Tweed was made before the "Ariosto of the North" had sung those undying strains which have since added so much associated interest to the finely varied courses of that fair river. But many fond lovers of nature, then as now,
"Though wanting the accomplishment of verse,"
were well acquainted with all its unrecorded beauties.
"What stranger," asks our author, "just emerging from the angular enclosures of the south, scored and subdued by tillage, would not feel his heart expand at the first sight of the heathy mountains, swelling out into vast proportions, over which man had no dominion? At the dawn of day he sees, perhaps, the mist ascending slowly up the dusky river, taking its departure to some distant undefined region; below the mountain range his sight rests upon a deep and narrow glen, gloomy with woods, shelving down to its centre. What is hid in that mysterious mass the eye may not visit; but a sound comes down from afar, as of the rushing and din of waters. It is the voice of the Tweed, as it bursts from the melancholy hills, and comes rejoicing down the sunny vale, taking its free course through the haugh, and glittering amongst sylvan bowers—swelling out at times fair and ample, and again contracted into gorges and sounding cataracts—lost for a space in its mazes behind a jutting brae, and re-appearing in dashes of light through bolls of trees opposed to it in shadow.
"Thus it holds its fitful course. The stranger might wander in the quiet vale, and far below the blue summits he might see the shaggy flock grouped upon some sunny knoll, or struggling among the scattered birch-trees, and lower down on the haugh, his eye perchance might rest awhile on some cattle standing on a tongue of land by the margin of the river, with their dark and rich brown forms opposed to the brightness of the waters. All these outward pictures he might see and feel; but he would see no farther: the lore had not spread its witchery over the scene—the legends slept in oblivion. The stark moss-trooper, and the clanking stride of the warrior, had not again started into life; nor had the light blazed gloriously in the sepulchre of the wizard with the mighty book. The slogan swelled not anew upon the gale, sounding, through the glens and over the misty mountains; nor had the minstrel's harp made music in the stately halls of Newark, or beside the lonely braes of Yarrow.
"Since that time I have seen the Cottage of Abbotsford, with the rustic porch, lying peacefully on the haugh between the lone hills, and have listened to the wild rush of the Tweed as it hurried beneath it. As time progressed, and as hopes arose, I have seen that cottage converted into a picturesque mansion, with every luxury and comfort attached to it, and have partaken of its hospitality; the unproductive hills I have viewed covered with thriving plantations, and the whole aspect of the country civilized, without losing its romantic character. But, amidst all these revolutions, I have never perceived any change in the mind of him who made them,—'the choice and master spirit of the age.' There he dwelt in the hearts of the people, diffusing life and happiness around him; he made a home beside the border river, in a country and a nation that have derived benefit from his presence, and consequence from his genius. From his chamber he looked out upon the grey ruins of the Abbey, and the sun which set in splendour beneath the Eildon Hills. Like that sun, his course has been run; and, though disastrous clouds came across him in his career, he went down in unfading glory.
"These golden hours, alas! have long passed away; but often have I visions of the sylvan valley, and its glittering waters, with dreams of social intercourse. Abbotsford, Mertoun, Chiefswood, Huntly-Burn, Allerley—when shall I forget ye?"—P. 102.
How many share these sad and vain regrets! The very voice of the living waters, which once glittered so rejoicingly through the green pastures, or reflected in their still expanse the lichen-covered crag or varied woodland, seems now to utter an "illœtabile murmur," while
"A trouble not of clouds or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light,
Engender'd, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height."
On the 21st of September 1832, Sir Walter Scott breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. "It was a beautiful day," we have been elsewhere told, "so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever modelled a more majestic image of repose."[[17]]