Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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I have got two cadetships for the sons of Allan Cunningham.
6th. I have got leave to Andrew Shortreed to go out to India.
7th. I have put John Eckford into correspondence with Mr. Loch, who thinks he can do something for his claim.
8th. I have been of material assistance to poor Terry in his affairs.
9th. I have effectually protected my Darnick neighbours and myself against the New Road Bill.
Other advantages there are, besides the great one of scouring up one’s own mind a little and renewing intercourse with old friends, bringing one’s-self nearer in short to the currency of the time.
All this may weigh against the expenditure of £200 or £250, when money is fortunately not very scarce with me.
We went out for a most agreeable drive through the Hertfordshire Lanes — a strange intricate combination of narrow roads passing through the country, winding and turning among oaks and other large timber, just like pathways cut through a forest. They wind and turn in so singular a manner, and resemble each other so much, that a stranger would have difficulty to make way amongst them. We visited Moor Park (not the house of Sir William Temple, but that where the Duke and Duchess of Monmouth lived). Having rather a commanding situation, you look down on the valley, which, being divided into small enclosures bordered with wood, resembles a forest when so looked down on. The house has a handsome entrance-hall, painted by Sir James Thornhill, in a very French taste, yet handsome. He was Hogarth’s fatherin-law, and not easily reconciled to the match. Thornhill’s paintings are certainly not of the first class, yet the practice of painting the walls and roof of a dwellinghouse gives, in my eyes, a warm and rich air to the apartments. Lord Grosvenor has now bought this fine place, once Lord Anson’s — hence the Moor Park apricot is also called Ansoniana. After seeing Moor Park we went to the Grove, the Earl of Clarendon’s country-seat. The house looks small and of little consequence, but contains many good portraits, as I was told, of the Hyde family. The park has fine views and magnificent trees.
We went to Cashiobury, belonging to the Earl of Essex, an old mansion, apparently, with a fine park. The Colne runs through the grounds, or rather creeps through them.
“For the Colne
Is black and swollen,
Snake-like, he winds his way,
Unlike the burns
From Highland urns
That dance by crag and brae.”
Borthwickbrae came to dinner from town, and we had a very pleasant evening. My excellent old friend reminded me of the old and bitter feud between the Scotts and the Haliburtons, and observed it was curious I should have united the blood of two hostile clans.
May 28. — We took leave of our kind old host after breakfast, and set out for our own land. Our elegant researches carried us out of the highroad and through a labyrinth of intricate lanes, — which seem made on purpose to afford strangers the full benefit of a dark night and a drunk driver, — in order to visit Gill’s Hill, famous for the murder of Mr. Weare.
The place has the strongest title to the description of Wordsworth: —
“A merry spot, ‘tis said, in days of yore,
But something ails it now — - the place is cursed.”
The principal part of the house has been destroyed, and only the kitchen remains standing. The garden has been dismantled, though a few laurels and garden shrubs, run wild, continue to mark the spot. The fatal pond is now only a green swamp, but so near the house that one cannot conceive how it was ever chosen as a place of temporary concealment of the murdered body. Indeed the whole history of the murder, and the scenes which ensued, are strange pictures of desperate and shortsighted wickedness. The feasting — the singing — the murderer with his hands still bloody hanging round the neck of one of the females — the watch-chain of the murdered man, argue the utmost apathy. Even Probert, the most frightened of the party, fled no further for relief than to the brandy bottle, and is found in the very lane, and at the spot of the murder, seeking for the murderous weapon, and exposing himself to the view of the passengers. Another singular mark of stupid audacity was their venturing to wear the clothes of their victim. There was a want of foresight in the whole arrangement of the deed, and the attempts to conceal it, which argued strange inconsideration, which a professed robber would not have exhibited. There was just one single shade of redeeming character about a business so brutal, perpetrated by men above the very lowest rank of life — it was the mixture of revenge which afforded some relief to the circumstances of treachery and premeditation which accompanied it. But Weare was a cheat, and had no doubt pillaged Thurtell, who therefore deemed he might take greater liberties with him than with others.
The dirt of the present habitation equalled its wretched desolation, and a truculent-looking hag, who showed us the place, and received half-a-crown, looked not unlike the natural inmate of such a mansion. She indicated as much herself, saying the landlord had dismantled the place because no respectable person would live there. She seems to live entirely alone, and fears no ghosts, she says.
One thing about this mysterious tragedy was never explained. It is said that Weare, as is the habit of such men, always carried about his person, and between his flannel waistcoat and shirt, a sum of ready money, equal to £1500 or £2000. No such money was ever recovered, and as the sum divided by Thurtell among his accomplices was only about £20, he must, in slang phrase, have bucketed his pals.
We came on as far as Alconbury, where we slept comfortably.
May 29. — We travelled from Alconbury Hill to Ferry Bridge, upwards of a hundred miles, amid all the beauties of “flourish” and verdure which spring awakens at her first approach in the midland counties of England, but without any variety save those of the season’s making. I do believe this great north road is the dullest in the world, as well as the most convenient for the traveller. Nothing seems to me to have been altered within twenty or thirty years, save the noses of the landlords, which have bloomed and given place to another set of proboscises as germane us the old ones to the very welcome, — please to light — ‘Orses forward, and ready out. The skeleton at Barnby Moor has deserted his gibbet, and that is the only change I recollect.
I have amused myself to-day with reading Lockhart’s Life of Burns, which is very well written — in fact, an admirable thing. He has judiciously slurred over his vices and follies; for although Currie, I myself, and others, have not said a word more on that subject than is true, yet as the dead corpse is straightened, swathed, and made decent, so ought the character of such an inimitable genius as Burns to be tenderly handled after death. The knowledge of his vicious weaknesses or vices is only a subject of sorrow to the well-disposed, and of triumph to the profligate.
May 30. — We left Ferry Bridge at seven, and turning westwards, or rather northwestward, at Borough Bridge, we roach Rokeby at past three. A mile from the house we met Morritt looking for us. I had great pleasure at finding myself at Rokeby, and recollecting a hundred passages of past time. Morritt looks well and easy in his mind, which I am delighted to see. He is now one of my oldest, and, I believe, one of my most sincere, friends, a man unequalled in the mixture of sound good sense, high literary cultivation, and the kindest and sweetest temper that ever graced a human bosom. His nieces are much attached to him, and are deserving and elegant, as well as beautiful young women. What there is in our partiality to female beauty that commands a species of temperate homage from the aged, as well as ecstatic admiration from the young, I cannot conceive, but it is certain that a very large proportion of some other amiable quality is too little to counterbalance the absolute want of this advantage. I, to whom beauty is and shall henceforth be a picture, still look upon it with the quiet devotion of an old worshipper, who no longer offers incense on the shrine, but peaceably presents his inch of taper, taking special care in doing so not to burn his own fingers. Nothing in life can be more ludicrous or contemptible than an old man aping the passions of his youth.
Talking of youth, there was a certain professor at Cambridge who used to keep sketches of all the youths who, from their conduct