Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by William Howitt

While stretched at length upon the floor,

Again I fought each battle o'er;

Pebbles and shells in order laid,

The mimic works of war displayed;

And onward still the Scottish lion bore,

And still the scattered southron fled before."

Here we have the elements of Waverley at work in the child of four or five years old. In fact, the years that he spent here were crowded with the impressions of romance and the excitement of the imagination. He was surrounded by singular and picturesque characters. The recluse old clergyman;—old MacDougal, of Markstoun, in his little laced cocked hat, embroidered scarlet waistcoat, light-colored coat, and white hair tied military fashion, kneeling on the carpet before the child, and drawing his watch along to induce him to follow it. Old Ormistoun, the herdsman, that used to carry him out into the moorlands, telling him all sorts of stories, and blew his whistle when the nurse was to fetch him home. The nurse herself, who went mad, and to escape from this solitude, confessed that she had carried the child up among the crags, under a temptation of the devil, to cut his throat with her scissors, and bury him in the moss; and was therefore dismissed at once, but found to be a maniac. All these things were certain of sinking deep into the child's mind, amid the solitude and wildness of the place; but all this time too he was stuffed daily with all sorts of border and other ballads: Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood, Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead, Hardyknute, and the like; and the stories of the cruelties practiced on the rebels at Carlisle, and in the Highlands, after the battle of Culloden, related to him by a farmer of Yethyn who had witnessed them—"tragic tales which," said Scott, "made so great an impression upon me." In fact, here again were future materials of Waverley. Before quitting the stern old tower of Smailholm, and Sandy-knowe, why so called, and why not rather Whinstone-knowe, it were difficult to say,—we may, in the eloquent words of Mr. Lockhart, point out the celebrated scenes which lie in view from it. "Nearly in front of it, across the Tweed, Lessudden, the comparatively small, but still venerable and stately abode of the lairds of Raeburn; and the hoary abbey of Dryburgh, surrounded with yew-trees as ancient as itself, seem to lie almost at the feet of the spectator. Opposite him rise the purple peaks of Eildon, the traditional scene of Thomas the Rhymer's interview with the Queen of Faerie; behind are the blasted peel which the seer of Erceldoun himself inhabited, 'The Broom of the Cowdenknowes,' the pastoral valley of the Leader, and the black wilderness of Lammermoor. To the eastward, the desolate grandeur of Hume Castle breaks the horizon, as the eye travels toward the range of the Cheviot. A few miles westward, Melrose, 'like some tall rock with lichens gray,' appears clasped amid the windings of the Tweed; and the distance presents the serrated mountains of the Gala, the Ettrick, and the Yarrow, all famous in song. Such were the objects that had painted the earliest images on the eye of the last and greatest of the border minstrels."

The next place which became a haunt of the boyhood of Scott was Kelso. Here he had an uncle, Captain Robert Scott, and an aunt, Miss Janet Scott, under whose care he had spent the latter part of his time at Sandy-knowe. Scott, as I have observed, was one of the most fortunate men that ever lived in the circumstances of his early life, in which every possible event which could prepare him for the office of a great and original novelist concurred, as if by appointment of Providence. He was led to visit and explore all the most beautiful scenery of his country—the Borders, the Highlands, those around Edinburgh; and in every place at that time existed multitudes of singular characters, many of them still retaining the quaint garb and habits of a former day. We have seen that his school and college fellows comprised almost all the afterward distinguished men of their age, no trivial advantage to him in his own progress. At Sandy-knowe, beside the characters we have referred to, his old grandfather and grandmother, and their quiet life—"Old Mrs. Scott sitting, with her spinning-wheel, at one side of the fire in a clean, clean parlor; the grandfather, a good deal failed, in his elbows-chair opposite; and the little boy lying on the carpet at the old man's feet, listening to the Bible, or whatever good book Miss Jenny was reading to them." He was away sometimes at Prestonpans, and there, as fortune would have it, for he must be enriched with all such treasure, he saw in George Constable the original of Monkbarns, and also the original Dalgetty. Kelso now added to the number of his original characters, and scenes for future painting. Miss Janet Scott lived, he tells us, in a small house in a large garden to the eastward of the church-yard of Kelso, which extended down to the Tweed. This fine old garden of seven or eight acres, had winding walks, mounds, and a banqueting house. It was laid out in the old style, with high pleached hornbeam hedges, and had a fine plane-tree. In many parts of the garden were fine yews and other trees, and there was also a goodly old orchard. Here, as in a very paradise, he used to read and devour heaps of poetry. Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, Percy's Reliques, and the works of Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Mackenzie, and other of the great novelists. The features of this garden remained deeply imprinted in his mind, and have been reproduced in different descriptions of his works. Like the garden of Eden itself this charming old garden has now vanished. Indeed, he himself relates with what chagrin he found, on revisiting the place many years afterward, the good old plane-tree gone, the hedges pulled up, and the bearing trees felled! I searched for some trace of it on my visit there in vain, though its locality is so well defined. There was, however, the old grammar-school not far off to which he used to go, and where he found, in Lancelot Whale, the prototype of Dominie Sampson, and in two of the boys, his future printers, James and John Ballantyne. The neighborhood of Kelso, the town itself, quiet and old-fashioned, was well calculated to charm a boy of his dreaming and poetry-absorbing age. The Tweed here is a fine, broad stream, the banks are steep and magnificently hung with splendid woods. The adjoining park and old castle, the ruins of the fine abbey in the town, and charming walks by the Tweed or the Teviot, which here unite, with their occasional broad, sandy beach, and anglers wading in huge boots; all made their delightful impressions upon him. He speaks with rapture of the long walks along the river with John Ballantyne, repeating poetry and telling stories. His uncle, Captain Robert Scott, lived somewhat farther out on the same side as his aunt, at a villa called Rosebank, which still stands unchanged amid much fine lofty timber, and with its lawn running down to the Tweed.

Kelso was the last country abode of the boyhood of Scott. Edinburgh, with his occasional flights into the Highlands, and his raids into Liddesdale, kept him till his manhood. That found him with his blithe little wife in his cottage at Lasswade.

Lasswade is a lovely neighborhood. It is thrown up with lofty ridges all finely wooded. The country there is rich, and the noble woods, the fine views down into the fertile valleys, and the Esk coming sounding along its channel from Rosslyn and Hawthornden, make it very charming. It is in the immediate neighborhood not only of Rosslyn with its beautiful chapel, and the classic cliffs and woods of Hawthornden, but of Dalkeith; and Lord Melville's park is at Lasswade itself.