The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography. S. Fowler Wright
He met her first, as the tale goes, in the porch of the Greyfriars Church. She had no umbrella and was faced by a sudden storm, so he offered his, and they went home together. That may have been the occasion on which they first spoke, but how long he may have desired such an opportunity of acquaintance is another matter. Sir John’s Edinburgh residence was near to George’s Square. They found (they may have known it before) that they went the same way home.... But they are not usually alone. Their two mothers come to church also. The elder ladies recognise each other. Thirty years ago, more or less, they were school friends, though they have not met since. They have common subjects of conversation. The Edinburgh pavements of that time were not adapted for four people to walk abreast. We may guess how the pairing went.
So far, all went well. The mothers did not oppose, and Williamina did not repulse. In fact, she gave a willing friendship at this time, if not more. She was observed to sit out dances with a boy whose lameness withheld him from that diversion. Walter’s father knew nothing of the growing intimacy. We may deduce that he had given up going to Church. He had the excuse of weakening health, though he appears to have been able to attend to his professional work for several subsequent years.
But the time came when Sir John and his family went back to Invermay, and Walter found that a holiday in that neighbourhood had become an urgent necessity. The obstinacy of his selection of the locality intrigued his father’s mind, and explanations followed.
His father did not directly oppose the acquaintance, but he was disturbed by doubts. Did Sir John know what was happening? It appeared that Sir John didn’t. Like Mr. Walter Scott he stands convicted by this ignorance. He also must have given up the habit of going to Church. Well, he must know Without telling his son, who, in fact, was in ignorance of the event until many years afterwards, he wrote to Sir John? telling him what his son’s position and prospects were. It led to nothing, for Sir John declined to interfere. We may conclude that it was the women—the two elder women—who had their way. There came a time when the younger woman had her way also—but that is looking ahead.
CHAPTER X.
Fortunately, we are not dependent upon Lockhart’s surmises for the reasons which led to Scott’s choice of the advocate’s rather than the attorney’s profession. Against his suggestion of exterior influences we have Scott’s own statement, which is clear and explicit. He says: “My father behaved with the most parental kindness. He offered, if I preferred his own profession, immediately to take me into partnership with him, which, though his business was much diminished, still afforded me an immediate prospect of a handsome independence. But he did not disguise his wish that I should relinquish this situation to my younger brother, and embrace the more ambitious profession of the Bar. I had little hesitation in making my choice—for I was never very fond of money; and in no other particular do the professions admit of a comparison. Besides, I knew and felt the inconveniences attached to that of a Writer; and I thought (like a young man) many of them were ‘ingenio non subounda meo.’ The appearance of personal dependence which that profession requires was disagreeable to me; the sort of connection between the client and the attorney seemed to render the latter more subservient than was quite agreeable to my nature; and, besides, I had seen many sad examples, while overlooking my father’s business, that the utmost exertions and the best-meant services do not secure the man of business, as he is called, from great loss, and most ungracious treatment on the part of his employers. The Bar, though I was conscious of my deficiencies as a public speaker, was the line of ambition and liberty; it was that also for which most of my contemporary friends were destined. And, lastly, although I would willingly have relieved my father of the labours of his business, yet I saw plainly that we could not have agreed on some particulars if we had attempted to conduct it together, and that I should disappoint his expectations if I did not turn to the Bar. So to that object my studies were directed with great ardour and perseverence during the years 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792.”
A careful examination of this statement will show that Lockhart’s picture of the youth diverted from boorish companionships and an attorney’s desk by the impulses of ambitious love and the influences of a mentor of superior social position is not merely conjectural, but of a demonstrable falsehood. The decision was taken at least as far back as 1789—when he was no more than eighteen, at no very great distance from his illness. It is also worth notice that he mentions that he was influenced (though it can be no more than a very subordinate consideration) by the fact that the Bar was the profession to which “most of his contemporary friends” were destined. We may transform this into the singular, and take it to refer exclusively to William Clerk, if we will, but it would be an unreasonable perversity. So far as we have any authoritative evidence, his closest friends at this time, apart from Irving and Clerk, were George (afterwards Lord) Abercromby, David Boyle (afterwards Lord Justice Clerk) Thomas Grierson, the Hon. Thomas Douglas (afterwards Earl of Selkirk), Adam Fergusson (Professor Fergusson’s son), and James Ramsey. Judging by the careers of these men, it is not a boorish list.
The fact is that, while no man would be more sympathetic to human weakness, or tolerant of human folly, Scott was always honest with himself and others in seeing failures for what they were, and calling them by plain names. Through all his life, in the highest sense of the word, he was the neighbour of those around him. He was helpful to thousands. But he chose his friends with discrimination.
His suggestion that, while he would have felt competent to take over his father’s practice entirely, he saw the elements of probable friction if they should have been in partnership, is interesting, and may have been a well-founded fear. They were ‘both men, in spite of the “sweetness” of disposition which was attributed to them, of strong opinions and strong wills. The elder man was in gradually failing health, and relaxing energies. The practice, though it could still have spared an ample income for an incoming partner, tended to contract as old clients died or drifted away. There were probably many leakages which a younger man could have stopped: debts which he would have been more energetic to collect: parasites which he would have brushed away. Youth is intolerant, and not always wise. Values would have differed. He may have seen his father’s weaknesses more clearly than he would see his own at a later day. They were both capable of romantic perversities, which a prosaic wisdom cannot defend.
There is an earlier incident, authenticated in after-years by a still existing saucer, which illuminates the characters of both—and of Mrs. Scott also.
The lawyer did not talk about his clients’ business at home. Not even to Anne. That was understood. But when a closely cloaked stranger came to George’s Square, night after night, to hurry with a muffled face from his sedan chair to her husband’s private room, and to remain there in conferences which sometimes lasted long into the night-hours, and when Anne’s natural questions as to the identity of this mysterious visitor were turned aside, her curiosity was aroused. That can be understood too.
A direct answer being refused, Anne did not badger her husband, or make it a cause of quarrel. Neither did she watch surreptitiously, nor abandon her resolution to know who the secret caller might be. She waited up till the ringing of a bell from her husband’s room announced that his visitor was about to leave, and his sedan-chair must be summoned to the door. Then she appeared on the scene with a hospitable tea-tray, and the suggestion that the gentleman would be glad to have some refreshment after so long a conference.
The stranger thanked her, and drank. Walter Scott sat silently before his untasted tea. When his client had gone, he rose and took up the emptied cup. He opened the window. The night-air came in, and the precious china was flung out. He turned to his indignant wife to say that he did not blame her curiosity, but neither he nor his should put lip to cup where Murray of Broughton drank.
The name means nothing to us today. Fame and infamy go down to the same oblivion. This was the man who had been secretary to Charles Stuart in his invasion of England in ’45, and had afterwards bought his own life by giving evidence through which others died.
The lawyer had no use for the Stuarts. He looked for an ordered government which would bring even the wilder northern counties to the benefit of a settled peace. He might feel also that Murray, in these last shameful years, had troubles to which he could not refuse his professional aid. But his inward scorn of the man was of an intensity