Edinburgh Under Sir Walter Scott

by W. T. Fyfe

Another warning was the loss of his 'old and faithful servant,' the never-failing Tom Purdie. He died suddenly, and on his grave, close to the Abbey at Melrose, may be seen the monument placed there by Sir Walter 'in sorrow for the loss of a humble but sincere friend.' This bereavement was felt so keenly that, for once in his life, Scott was impatient to leave Abbotsford and resume the engrossing cares of the city. 'I am so much shocked, that I really wish to be quit of the country and safe in the town.'

CHAPTER LXIV

Last Winter in Edinburgh—The Ayrshire Tragedy—Apoplectic Stroke—Retirement from the Clerkship—Visit to Edinburgh—Refusal to stop Literary Work—John Nicolson—Scott at Cadell's House—His Will.

On reaching 'the safety of the town' he began work without delay. The Ayrshire Tragedy, his most ambitious attempt in drama, was finished before the close of the year. It is founded on the horrible story of Mure of Auchindrane. The 'tragedy' is, however, really less interesting and dramatic than the simple prose version of the story which forms the preface.

So was Scott's life going on—the regular daily routine of his Court duties and then the daily portion of 'work,' of which, in spite of all that happened, he seems to have done as much in 1830 as in the previous year. There was no immediate warning of the terrible collapse. On the 15th of February he returned from the Court as usual about two o'clock. An old lady was waiting to show him some papers. He sat with her for half an hour, seeming to be occupied with the MS. When he rose from his chair to usher out his visitor, he sank back again. His features were slightly convulsed. After a few minutes he rose and staggered to the drawing-room. His daughter Anne and Miss Lockhart ran to him, but they were not in time—he fell at full length on the floor. A surgeon was fetched without delay, and bleeding proved effective. So fully did he recover his faculties, that he was able shortly to go out as usual, and few noticed any serious change. For a time he and his friends tried to believe that 'the attack had proceeded merely from the stomach.' The symptoms, however, too clearly indicated the more serious danger. 'When we recollect,' says the biographer, 'that both his father and his elder brother died of paralysis, and consider the violences of agitation and exertion to which Sir Walter had been subjected during the four preceding years, the only wonder is that this blow (which had, I suspect, several indistinct harbingers) was deferred so long; there can be none that it was soon followed by others of the same description.'

His health continued to improve till the autumn of this year. He was now preparing to bid farewell to Edinburgh. In July he retired from the Clerkship of Session, receiving an allowance of £800 a year, and refusing (with consent of his masters) a pension of £500, which would have made up the loss of income. The idea of leaving Edinburgh was, all the same, very painful. 'I can hardly' (he wrote at this time) 'form a notion of the possibility that I am not to return to Edinburgh.' The breaking up of a routine which had lasted for twenty-six years, was in itself a serious change. It meant also the loss, during the winter, of the society which helped so much to cheer him. And then, as Lockhart says, 'he had a love for the very stones of Edinburgh, and the thought that he was never again to sleep under a roof of his own in his native city, cost him many a pang.'

His return to Edinburgh in November was for the purpose of consulting his physicians there after another slight attack of apoplexy. One of these was the famous Abercrombie. They prescribed a severe regimen of spare diet, and strongly urged him to cease from brain-work. Lockhart and his relatives did the same. His reply was: 'I am not sure that I am quite myself in all things; but I am sure that in one point there is no change. I mean, that I foresee distinctly that if I were to be idle, I should go mad. In comparison to this, death is no risk to shrink from.' It can be seen from his diary what this 'work' meant; he speaks of being 'fogged with frozen vigils'—of working 'without intermission'—and grudges an afternoon's chat with visitors, 'though well employed and pleasantly.' And all this time the symptoms of physical collapse were growing daily more plain and more painful. 'I speak with an impediment—the constant increase of my lameness—the thigh-joint, knee-joint, and ancle-joint. I should not care for all this, if I were sure of dying handsomely.... But the fear is, lest the blow be not sufficient to destroy life, and that I should linger on, "a driveller and a show."'

In January 1831 he became convinced that it was now a pressing duty to make his will. A heavy fall of snow began on the 30th, but next morning he set out on horseback, attended only by his 'confidential attendant,' John Nicolson, whose services in these last years were of extraordinary value to the disabled man. Lockhart's praise of him was doubtless well-deserved: 'He had been in the household from his boyhood, and was about this time advanced to the chief place in it. Early and continued kindness had made a very deep impression on this fine handsome young man's warm heart; he possessed intelligence, good sense, and a calm temper; and the courage and dexterity which Sir Walter had delighted to see him display in sports and pastimes, proved henceforth of inestimable service to the master whom he regarded, I verily believe, with the love and reverence of a son.' On reaching Edinburgh, Sir Walter took up his quarters for the night in a hotel. It was the first time he had done so in his native city. He could not sleep, lay listening to the endless noises of the street, and next day he yielded to Cadell's kindly pressure and accepted the publisher's hospitality at his house in Atholl Crescent. 'Here,' he mentions in a letter to Mrs. Lockhart, 'I saw various things that belonged to poor No. 39. I had many sad thoughts on seeing and handling them—but they are in kind keeping, and I was glad they had not gone to strangers.' These were some articles which had been bought in at the sale by a friend and returned to Scott, who himself had presented them to Mrs. Cadell. With the Cadells the snowstorm prolonged his stay for a week. He was cheered by the sight of one or two old intimates, such as Clerk and Skene, but they could not look on him without feeling pain at the great change. Even now he kept on writing, working for some hours daily on Count Robert of Paris. The will was duly completed, signed, and left in the safe keeping of Cadell. The account of the visit in the Journal concludes: 'I executed my last will, leaving Walter burdened, by his own choice, with £1000 to Sophia, and another received at her marriage, and £2000 to Anne, and the same to Charles. I have made provisions for clearing my estate by my publications, should it be possible.... My bequests must, many of them, seem hypothetical.

'Besides during the unexpected stay in town, I employed Mr. Fortune, an ingenious artist, to make a machine to assist my lame leg....

'The appearance of the streets was most desolate; the hackney coaches, with four horses, strolling about like ghosts, and foot-passengers few but the lowest of the people.