The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography. S. Fowler Wright

back, we observe that the horrors of the French revolution did not extend to this island. We observe England as the guide and comforter of all who opposed, from whatever motive, the effort which the French Directory made to impose its political doctrines upon the rest of Europe. So, in retrospect, the fact stands. But to those who lived through the years of strife, the issue was not so clear. The civil difference was acute, bitter, and often violent. The revolutionary element in Edinburgh was so strong that there was at one time a plot to seize the castle, and defy the government. To a superficial view it might not have seemed surprising if the young lawyer, hungry for adventurous living, full of anti-Hanoverian sympathies, might have been drawn into participation in such disorders. But his reaction was different.

      In the theatre, treason had found expression until it was louder than loyalty. An actor’s phrase which could be misconstrued into a seditious meaning would bring a roar of applause. Such sentiments might have more weight than any artistic merit in deciding between the success or failure of the play. The first bars of the National Anthem would be the signal for an outburst of cat-calls, hisses and howls. An Irish element, led by some medical students of that nationality, was blamed primarily for this rowdyism. They came, shillelahs in hand, overawing the quieter and more loyal elements of the audience.

      There was a night, after a number of minor disturbances, when a young man rose up in the stalls and announced that he and his friends were determined not merely that the National Anthem should be played in silence, but that it should be sung by the audience. Anyone of a different mind had better leave. Should he interrupt, he would be thrown out. A howl of derision answered from the pit. It flourished defiant sticks. But the warning was no idle threat. There were ready clubs among the group of youthful barristers and attorneys in the stalls from which the challenge came. Conflict roared and did not cease till the last disloyalist had fled or been ejected from the theatre doors. Law and medicine had fought, and the law triumphed. They sang the National Anthem to their own satisfaction.

      Proceedings followed in the Magistrates’ Court. With some lack of humour, the defeated party appealed to the law to which it had professed its defiance. One of the defendants was Walter Scott. He was accused of having led the attack. Three complainants showed broken heads, and identified him as the one whose cudgel had knocked them out. With four others, he was bound over to keep the peace, and ordered to find bail for his good behaviour in future. His opponents got little satisfaction from that. There were sureties to be had in plenty. He could have had half the town.

      It was at this time—as early as 1794—though he was unable to effect his purpose till a later date, that he conceived the idea of the formation of an Edinburgh regiment of volunteer horse, which his lameness would not prevent him from joining. Drilling was becoming general over the country. The fear of invasion grew. The regular army was required for foreign service. Loyal citizens must learn to defend themselves. Before breakfast, in the summer days, his brother Tom drilled as a grenadier. But even the volunteer army had no use for Walter Scott, though Nelson’s physical weakness had not kept him out of the navy. Today, we know better. We should have rejected both.

      CHAPTER XV.

      It was in the course of 1796 that the five-years dream of marrying Williamina Stuart came to the end which mutual friends appear to have anticipated, though they were reluctant to express their doubts to the one who was most concerned, or found him unwilling to be convinced.

      By this time he was doing considerable ill-paid work at the Bar—his fee-book for the previous year showed payments of £84. 4. 0d., a much more considerable sum then than it would be today—and he was busily occupied in the translation of German ballads, not yet published, but having some private circulation.

      Two new friends come on the scene here—George Cranston (afterwards Lord Corehouse) and his sister Jane Anne (afterwards the Countess of Purgstall). Jane was in his confidence, and actively corresponding and intriguing on his behalf. It was she who wrote about this time, in the random course of a personal letter, “Upon my word, Walter Scott is going to turn out a poet—something of a cross, I think, between Burns and Gray”. It was a shrewd judgement on the material that she then had on which to form it. As a lyric poet, it probably defines what he became as accurately as a chapter of criticism would be likely to do.

      When he went to Invermay early this April, Miss Cranston had an idea. She shared it with William Erskine, and together they had his translation of Leonore set up in type, and one beautifully-bound copy followed and surprised him a few days after he arrived at Williamina’s home.

      Miss Cranston seems to have had some hope at the time that her little scheme had advanced his interests, but, in fact, it was a wasted effort. There may have been girls who would have considered the fact that a man could translate a German ballad a sufficient reason for marrying him, but Williamina thought differently. What her mother thought was revealed long after (when Williamina herself was dead and most of those who were busy now with intrigue and speculation concerning her) but she had the wisdom to let her make her own choice.

      In the autumn, Scott was again at Invermay, and appears to have had a disappointing reception, for Miss Cranston writes to him, after he had left the house “—to trot quietly away, without so much as one stanza to Despair—never talk to me of love again—never, never, never...! Heaven speed you, and hope to the end.”

      But Scott knew that the end had come. Early in October it was public knowledge that Miss Stuart was engaged to William Forbes, and that the marriage would promptly follow. His friends, by the evidence of correspondence that still remains, appear to have had some apprehension of the way in which he would take the shattering of his five-year dream. But they did not know him. He spent a few days riding in solitude in the Montrose district. He came back, seeming his usual self, and saying nothing to anyone. He was never one to expose his feelings lightly. But the wound remained unhealed to his life’s end. Characteristically, his friendship with his successful rival remained unbroken.

      Lockhart professes to identify Miss Stuart both with Margaret of Branksome and Matilda of Rokeby. He may be right about one or other, but not both. Margaret had yellow hair, and there is evidence that Williamina (whom Lockhart calls Margaret, in evident error) had hair of the same colour. Beyond that, there is no description of Margaret’s appearance by which comparison can be made. As to character, all we are told of Margaret is that, at a time of acute grief, she neglected to dress properly, that she could rise early and tread lightly at the call of love, and that she bolted like a hare at the approach of danger to her lover’s life. Those who knew Williamina may have recognised her immediately from these incidents, but it seems unlikely.

      Matilda was not physically heroic, but she lacked Margaret’s pleasantly putty-like qualities. She managed her two lovers with some adroitness, and she did manage to “seize upon their leader’s rein” and give the troopers commendably brief and accurate directions, which saved her lovers’ lives. Had Margaret been placed in Matilda’s situation we feel that the singing of

      “Let our halls and towers decay”

      would have lacked spirit.

      There is some evidence that the plot of Rokeby was suggested by the triangle of Scott himself and Williamina and Willie Forbes; and Matilda may have been as like Williamina as he was like the consumptive Wilfred—which would not be much. But if we accept these comparisons, we must entirely acquit Miss Stuart of any measure of deceit or inconstancy. It is the central idea of Rokeby that love neither overcame honour nor destroyed friendship in those who were of sufficient nobility to equal the assault of circumstance.

      Lockhart, with more reason, regards the following passage from the twelfth chapter of Peveril of the Peak as having been written with its author’s own experience in mind:

      “The period at which love is formed for the first time, and felt most strongly, is seldom that at which there is much prospect of its being brought to a happy issue. The state of artificial society opposes many complicated obstructions to early marriages; and the chance is very great that such obstacles prove insurmountable. In fine, there are few men who do not look back in secret to some period of their youth, at which a sincere and early affection was repulsed, or betrayed, or became abortive from opposing circumstances.”