Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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But I believe even that kind of life is more endurable than we could suppose. Your wishes are limited to your little circle — yet the idea is terrible to a man who has been active. My own circle in bodily matters is daily narrowing; not so in intellectual matters, but I am perhaps a bad judge. The plough is coming to the end of the furrow, so it is likely I shall not reach the common goal of mortal life by a few years. I am now in my sixtieth year only, and
“Three score and ten years do sum up.”
May 5. — A fleece of letters, which must be answered, I suppose — all from persons, my zealous admirers, of course, and expecting a degree of generosity, which will put to rights all their maladies, physical and mental; and expecting that I can put to rights whatever losses have been their lot, raise them to a desirable rank, and [stand] their protector and patron. I must, they take it for granted, be astonished at having an address from a stranger; on the contrary, I would be astonished if any of these extravagant epistles were from any one who had the least title to enter into correspondence with me. I have all the plague of answering these teasing people.
Mr. Burn, the architect, came in, struck by the appearance of my house from the road. He approved my architecture greatly. He tells me the edifice for Jeanie Deans — that is, her prototype — is nigh finished, so I must get the inscription ready. Mr. Burn came to meet with Pringle of Haining; but, alas! it is two nights since this poor young man, driving in from his own lake, where he had been fishing, an ill-broken horse ran away with him, and, at his own stable-door, overturned the vehicle and fractured poor Pringle’s skull; he died yesterday morning. A sad business; so young a man, the proprietor of a good estate, and a well-disposed youth. His politics were, I think, mistaken, being the reverse of his father’s; but that is nothing at such a time. Burn went on to Richardson’s place of Kirklands, where he is to meet the proprietor, whom I too would wish to see, but I can hardly make it out. Here is a world of arrangements. I think we will soon hit upon something. My son Walter takes leave of me to-day to return to Sheffield. At his entreaty I have agreed to put in a seton, which they seem all to recommend. My own opinion is, this addition to my tortures will do me no good; but I cannot hold out against my son. So, when the present blister is well over, let them try their seton as they call it.
May 6 and 7. — Here is a precious job. I have a formal remonstrance from these critical persons, Ballantyne and Cadell, against the last volume of Count Robert, which is within a sheet of being finished. I suspect their opinion will be found to coincide with that of the public; at least it is not very different from my own. The blow is a stunning one I suppose, for I scarcely feel it. It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as if I had a remedy ready. Yet God knows, I am at sea in the dark, and the vessel leaky, I think, into the bargain. I cannot conceive that I should have tied a knot with my tongue which my teeth cannot untie. We will see. I am determined to write a political pamphlet coûte que coûte; ay, — should it cost me my life.
I will right and left at these unlucky proof-sheets, and alter at least what I cannot mend.
May 8. — I have suffered terribly, that is the truth, rather in body than in mind, and I often wish I could lie down and sleep without waking. But I will fight it out if I can. It would argue too great an attachment of consequence to my literary labours to sink under. Did I know how to begin, I would begin this very day, although I knew I should sink at the end. After all, this is but fear and faintness of heart, though of another kind from that which trembleth at a loaded pistol. My bodily strength is terribly gone; perhaps my mental too?
May 9. — The weather uncommonly beautiful and I am very eager to get on thinning woods while the peeling season lasts. We made about £200 off wood last season, and this is a sum worth looking at.
May 10. — Some repairs on the milldam still keep the people employed, and we cannot get to the thinning. Yet I have been urging them for a month. It’s a great fault of Scottish servants that they cannot be taught to time their turns.
May 11. — By old practice I should be going into town to-day, the Court sitting tomorrow. Am I happier that I am free from this charge? Perhaps I am; that is certain, time begins to make my literary labour more precious than usual. Very weak, scarce able to crawl about without the pony — lifted on and off — and unable to walk half a mile save with great pain.
May 12. — Resolved to lay by Robert of Paris, and take it up when I can work. Thinking on it really makes my head swim, and that is not safe. Miss Ferrier comes out to us. This gifted personage, besides having great talents, has conversation the least exigeante of any author, female at least, whom I have ever seen among the long list I have encountered, — simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee; and all this without the least affectation of the blue stocking.
May 13. — Mr., or more properly Dr., Macintosh Mackay comes out to see me, a simple learned man, and a Highlander who weighs his own nation justly — a modest and estimable person.
I was beat up at midnight to sign a warrant against some delinquents. I afterwards heard that the officers were pursued by a mob from Galashiels, with purpose of deforcing them as far as St. Boswell’s Green, but the men were lodged in Jedburgh Castle.
Reports of mobs at all the elections, which, I fear, will prove too true. They have much to answer for who in gaiety of heart have brought a peaceful and virtuous population to such a pass.
May 14. — Rode with Lockhart and Mr. Mackay through the plantations, and spent a pleasanter day than of late months. Story of a haunted glen in Laggan: — A chieftain’s daughter or cousin loved a man of low degree. Her kindred discovered the intrigue and punished the lover’s presumption by binding the unhappy man, and laying him naked in one of the large ants’ nests common in a Highland forest. He died in agony of course, and his mistress became distracted, roamed wildly in the glen till she died, and her phantom, finding no repose, haunted it after her death to such a degree that the people shunned the road by day as well as night. Mrs. Grant of Laggan tells the story, with the addition, that her husband, then minister of Laggan, fixed a religious meeting in the place, and, by the exercise of public worship there, overcame the popular terror of the Red Woman. Dr. Mackay seems to think that she was rather banished by a branch of the Parliamentary road running up the glen than by the prayers of his predecessor. Dr. Mackay, it being Sunday, favoured us with an excellent discourse on the Socinian controversy, which I wish my friend Mr. Laidlaw had heard.
May 15. — Dr. M. left us early this morning; and I rode and studied as usual, working at the Tales of My Grandfather. Our good and learned Doctor wishes to go down the Tweed to Berwick. It is a laudable curiosity, and I hope will be agreeably satisfied.
May 16 and 17. — I wrote and rode as usual, and had the pleasure of Miss Ferrier’s company in my family hours, which was a great satisfaction; she has certainly less affectation than any female I have known that has stood so high — Joanna Baillie hardly excepted. By the way, she [Mrs. Baillie] has entered on the Socinian controversy, for which I am very sorry; she has published a number of texts on which she conceives the controversy to rest, but it escapes her that she can only quote them through a translation. I am sorry this gifted woman is hardly doing herself justice, and doing what is not required at her hands. Mr. Laidlaw of course thinks it the finest thing in the world.
May 18. — Went to Jedburgh to the election, greatly against the wishes of my daughters. The mob were exceedingly vociferous and brutish, as they usually are now-a-days. But the Sheriff had two troops of dragoons at Ancrum Bridge, and all went off quietly. The populace gathered in formidable numbers — a thousand from Hawick alone; they were sad blackguards, and the day passed with much clamour and no mischief. Henry Scott was reelected — for the last time, I suppose. Troja fuit.
I left the burgh in the midst of abuse and the gentle hint of “Burke Sir Walter.” Much obliged to the brave lads of Jeddart. Upwards of forty freeholders voted for Henry Scott, and only fourteen for the puppy that opposed him. Even of this party he gained far the greater number by the very awkward coalition with Sir William Scott of Ancrum. I came home at seven at