Abbotsford (Scotland); Scott, Walter, 1771-1832 -- Homes and haunts
'Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill,
Fair and too fair you be;
You tell me that the voice is still
That should have welcomed me.'
Lockhart's next visit (with John Ballantyne), on April 10, 1819,
found Scott still in the grip of his cramp enemy, and changed in
appearance far beyond what Lockhart was led to expect. In the night
he had a recurrence of his pains, and Lockhart, naturally, intended
to leave next morning. But Scott, recovered, and wishful to 'drive
away the accursed vapours of the laudanum I was obliged to swallow
last night,' was bent on taking him 'for a good trot in the open
air'--'up Yarrow'--the home phrase, none dearer.
Past Carterhaugh they rode, where the Forest waters meet, and
where Janet rescued Tamlane from the fairies; Philiphaugh, Scott
describing the battle as vividly as if he had witnessed it; Newark
where the 'Lay' was chanted; and Slain Men's Lea, where the
Covenanters butchered prisoners taken under promise of quarter
(darkest memory of Philiphaugh). They saw Minchmoor, too, and
recalled Montrose and his cavaliers scurrying Tweedwards. Next day
they rode across Bowden Moor, and up the Ale Water to Lilliesleaf
and 'ancient Riddell's fair domain,' Scott doing election business
on the way. Next day, again, from the crest of the Eildons
Lockhart was shown the 'Kingdom of Border Romance'--Eildon itself
a not unfitting centre. Between the Lammermoors and the Cheviots
on one side, and from the Merse to Moffatdale on the other, there
is perhaps no range of landscape more intensely interesting from
a literary point of view, and none in which Lockhart felt a more
personal sympathy. Though not a Borderer (a measure of Border blood
in his veins, however), the dearest ties of his life were destined
to be with the Border; nor, so long as the English language lasts,
will there be lacking generous hearts to love and remember the man
who had Sir Walter for friend and hero. As to Irving, Scott pointed
out to Lockhart the more notable landmarks of the locality and
the places connected with his own career. Sandyknowe he saw, the
home of Scott's boyhood; Earlston, where the Tower of the Rhymer
recalled 'Sir Tristrem,' one of his early essays in literature;
song-haunted Cowdenknowes; Bemersyde of the perennial Haigs, 'a
wizard-spell hanging over it'; Mertoun, where he penned the 'Eve of
St. John'; and Dryburgh,
'Where with chiming Tweed
The lintwhites sing in chorus';
and many another spot long famous in popular song and story. He
repeated the lines (often on his lips)[23] ascribed to Burne
the Violer, the last of the race of Border minstrels, and the
prototype, doubtless, of his own 'Last Minstrel':
'Sing Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes,
Where Homes had ance commanding;
And Drygrange, wi' the milk-white yowes,
Twixt Tweed and Leader standing.
The bird that flees through Redpath trees
And Gladswood banks each morrow
May chant and sing sweet Leader Haughs,
And bonnie howms of Yarrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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