THE LATER ABBOTSFORD

Sir Walter's Abbotsford, as we saw, was completed in 1824. For the next thirty years there was practically no alteration on the place. At Scott's death the second Sir Walter came into possession. He does not appear to have lived at Abbotsford after 1832, and indeed for many years previous his time had been spent almost entirely with his regiment, the 15th Hussars, of which, at his father's death, he was Major. In 1839, as Lieutenant-Colonel, he proceeded to Madras, and subsequently commanded the Hussars in India. At Bangalore, in August, 1846, having exposed himself rashly to the sun during a tiger-hunt, he was smitten with fever, from which he never recovered. Obliged to return to England, his death took place on board the Wellesley, near the Cape of Good Hope, February 8, 1847, in his forty-sixth year. His widow conveyed his remains to this country for interment at Dryburgh Abbey on May 4 following. Lady Scott—the pretty 'Jeanie' Jobson of Lochore,[27] as she was affectionately called by the old people of Ballingry, in which parish Lochore estate lies—continued to reside for the most part in London, and only once visited Abbotsford. They had no family, which put a pathetic finis to Scott's most cherished dream. Lady Scott died at London, March 19,1877, in her seventy-sixth year, and was buried at Dryburgh.[28] Charles Scott,[29] younger son of Sir Walter, 'whose spotless worth tenderly endeared him to the few who knew him intimately,' and with whom much of the Naples pilgrimage was spent, died at Teheran, October 29, 1841, in his thirty-sixth year. He was buried there, whither he had gone as attachÉ and private secretary to Sir John McNeill, Commissioner to the Court of Persia. Anne Scott, the 'Lady Anne' of many delightful pleasantries (the original of Alice Lee in 'Woodstock'), Scott's younger daughter, died June 25, 1833, less than a year after her father. A handsome sarcophagus, still in excellent repair, covers her remains in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Charlotte Sophia Scott—so named in honour of a French lady, Sophia Dumergue, who had befriended the first Lady Scott's mother on her arrival in England—wife of John Gibson Lockhart, died May 17, 1837. Of her two sons, the elder, John Hugh ('Hugh Littlejohn') died December 15, 1831, and, like his mother and aunt, was interred at Kensal Green. Walter Scott Lockhart, the younger, born April 16, 1826, became a Lieutenant in the 16th Lancers, and succeeded to Abbotsford on the death of his uncle in 1847, assuming the additional surname of Scott. He died, unmarried, at Versailles, January 10, 1853, and was buried in the Notre Dame Cemetery there. Charlotte Harriet Jane, born January 1, 1828, only daughter of the Lockharts, and granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott, then came into possession. She was the wife of James Robert Hope, Q.C., who, on her succeeding to Abbotsford, also assumed the family name of Scott. To Mr. Hope Scott and his wife were born: A boy, who died at birth, 1848; Walter Michael, born June 2, 1857, died December 11, 1858; Mary Monica, by-and-by heiress of Abbotsford, born at Tunbridge Wells, October 2, 1852; Margaret Anne, born September 17, 1858, died December 3 of the same year. Mrs. Hope Scott died of consumption at Edinburgh, October 26, 1858, aged thirty. Mr. Hope Scott married January 7, 1861, as his second wife, Lady Victoria Alexandrina Fitzalan Howard, eldest daughter of the fourteenth Duke of Norfolk, by whom he had two sons: Philip, born April 8, 1868, who died next day, and James, born December 18, 1870, now M.P. for the Brightside Division of Sheffield; also four daughters—Minna Margaret, born June 6, 1862, wife of Sir Nicholas O'Conor, G.C.M.G., British Ambassador at Constantinople; and Catherine, a twin, who died the day of her birth; Josephine Mary, born May 18, 1864, married Wilfred Philip Ward, B.A., son of 'Ideal' Ward of the Oxford Movement, and himself a well-known writer on ecclesiastical controversies; Theresa Anne, born September 14, 1865, a Carmelite nun, who died November 1, 1891. Lady Victoria died December 20, 1870, aged thirty, the same age, curiously, as Mr. Hope Scott's first wife. Mr. Hope Scott himself died April 29, 1873. His remains were laid beside those of Mrs. Hope Scott and her children in the vaults of St. Margaret's Convent at Edinburgh, Lady Victoria and her children being buried at Arundel.

Mary Monica Hope Scott, the sole surviving descendant of Sir Walter Scott, now succeeded to the estate, and on July 21, 1874, married the Hon. Joseph Constable-Maxwell, third son of William, eleventh Baron Herries of Terregles, and Marcia, eldest daughter of the Hon. Sir Edward Marmaduke Vavasour, first Bart., of Hazlewood, Yorkshire, then Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade. Their children are:

1. Walter Joseph, born April 10, 1875, Captain in the Cameronians. He volunteered for South Africa, and was in Ladysmith throughout the siege.

2. Joseph Michael, born May 25, 1880, a Lieutenant R.N., H.M.S. Dominion.

3. Malcolm Joseph Raphael, born October 22, 1883, Sub-Lieutenant R.N., H.M.S. Pegasus.

4. Herbert Francis Joseph, born March 14, 1891, a student at Stonyhurst.

5. Mary Josephine, born June 5, 1876; married (1897) Alexander Dalglish.

6. Alice Mary Josephine, born October 9, 1881; married (1905) Edward Cassidy of Monasterevan, County Kildare.

7. Margaret Mary Lucy, born December 13, 1886.

James Robert Hope Scott, who may be styled the second maker of Abbotsford, was born at Great Marlow, in Berkshire, July 15, 1812. He was the third son (not second, as the 'Abridged Lockhart' has it) of General the Hon. Sir Alexander Hope of Rankeillour and Luffness, G.C.B., M.P., sometime Governor of Chelsea Hospital. His mother was Georgina Alicia, youngest daughter of George Brown of Elleston, Roxburghshire. The family of Hope, honourable in Scottish history to the present day, is of considerable antiquity. The name is derived from the Saxon hop or hope, signifying a sheltered place among hills. The names of Adam le Hope and John de Hope appear on the Ragman Roll as swearing fealty to Edward I. in 1296. Edward Hope was a leading Edinburgh citizen in Queen Mary's time. His grandson was the celebrated King's Advocate, Sir Thomas Hope, of Craighall, whose great-grandson, again, Charles Hope, of Hopetoun, became the first Earl of that name. His son, the second Earl, had for his third wife Lady Elizabeth Leslie, daughter of the Earl of Leven and Melville, and of two sons born to them, the second was General Sir Alexander, father of James Robert Hope.

Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, young Hope was called to the Bar in 1838, and specializing as a Parliamentary Counsel, soon found himself in a large and lucrative practice. On August 19, 1847, he married Lockhart's daughter. Her description is that of 'a very attractive person, with a graceful figure, a sweet and expressive face, brown eyes of great brilliance, and a beautifully shaped head. The chin, indeed, was heavy, but even this added to the interest of the face by its striking resemblance to the same feature in her great ancestor, Sir Walter Scott.' There is a portrait of her at Abbotsford. The following year Mr. Hope Scott rented Abbotsford from his brother-in-law, removing thither in August. Five years after, on the death of the latter, Abbotsford fell to him as possessor in right of his wife, and for the remainder of his life it became his principal residence. The place had been sadly neglected since Scott's death in 1832, and everything needed restoration. But the new laird's purse was splendidly equal to the occasion. He did wonders for Abbotsford. Between the years 1855 and 1857 he built a new west wing to the house, consisting of a Chapel, hall, drawing-room, boudoir, and a suite of bedrooms. The old kitchen was turned into a linen-room, and a long range of new kitchen offices facing the Tweed was erected, which materially raised the elevation of Scott's edifice, and improved the appearance of the whole pile as seen from the river. An ingenious tourist access was also arranged, with other internal alterations. Outside, the grounds and gardens were completely overhauled, the overgrown plantations thinned, and the old favourite walks cleaned and kept as Scott himself would have wished. In the lifetime of the Great Magician the ground on which he fixed his abode was nearly on a level with the highway running along the south front, and wayfarers could survey the whole domain by looking over the hedge. A high embankment was now thrown up on the road-front of Abbotsford, the road itself shifted several yards back, the avenue lengthened, a lodge built, and the new mound covered with a choice variety of timber, which has now grown into one of the most pleasing features of the Abbotsford approach. The courtyard was at the same time planted as a flower-garden, with clipped yews at the corners of the ornamental grass-plots, and beds all ablaze with summer flowers. The terraces on the north, so rich and velvety, date from this period.

These, with much elaborate and costly furnishing for the new interior, make up the Abbotsford of to-day. Mr. Hope Scott had not the 'yerd-hunger' of his illustrious predecessor. His was rather a 'stone-and-lime mania,' all to most excellent purpose, however. Most visitors to Abbotsford have the impression that Sir Walter was responsible for every part of the present edifice, whereas it is at least a third larger from that of Scott's day. From the south, the Hope Scott addition is easily recognisable, being of light freestone, in contrast to the darker hue of the 1824 pile, which is built of native red whin. The Hope Scott succession practically rescued Abbotsford when its fortunes were at their lowest, and its history almost at a standstill. After sixteen years, Abbotsford had once more a family life and a domestic happiness of a singularly exalted type. Everybody must admit the ideally happy life spent by Scott himself at Abbotsford—prior to 1826, at any rate. Few men enjoyed life more. His happiness, in the main, sprang from the physical side of things—the out-of-doors sports and exercises in which he revelled, and which were among the chief attractions of his Abbotsford. Scott was never happier than when he was making others happy. No man sacrificed himself more on that side. And surely that was religion at its reallest. Scott did not say much about religion. He had, like Lockhart, all a Scotsman's reticence on the subject. But that he gave it profound and reverent thought—that there was in him a vein of earnest religious feeling,[30] goes without saying, strong man of the world though he was, and exhibiting, as he did, many things outrÉ to the ordinary religious sense—seldom going to church, for instance, (he read the Church of England Service-Book, however, to his household); and 'writing his task' on Sundays more often than he should.

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'Trim Abbotsford so gay,

The rose-trees flaunting there so bold,
The ripening fruits in rind of gold,

And thou their lord away.'

Mr. Hope Scott's happiness, on the other hand, was the outcome of striking spiritual experiences. He had always been eminent for piety, and his views in connection with the Oxford Movement were well known. In 1851, after anxious deliberation, he became a Roman Catholic, and was received on the same day as Cardinal Manning. Shortly afterwards his wife followed him into the same communion. Mr. Hope Scott's religion was consequently a dominating influence at Abbotsford, permeating, as was said, the whole atmosphere of the place. 'The impression left by that most interesting and charming family,' writes a lady visitor in 1854, 'could never be effaced from my mind. It always seemed to me the most perfect type of a really Christian household, such as I never saw in the world before or since. A religious atmosphere pervaded the whole house, and not only the guests, but the servants, must, it seems to me, have felt its influence. Mr. Hope Scott was the beau-idÉal of an English gentleman, and a Christian.' There were many guests at the later Abbotsford—a different order from those of an earlier day. Hither came John Henry Newman for five weeks during the winter of 1852-53, and again, for a fortnight, in 1872. 'We have a Chapel in the house, but no Chaplain,' wrote Hope Scott to Newman. 'You can say Mass at your own hour, observe your own ways in everything, and feel all the time perfectly at home.' Newman replied: 'It would be a pleasure to spend some time with you; and then I have ever had the extremest sympathy for Walter Scott, that it would delight me to see his place. When he was dying, I was saying prayers for him continually (whatever they were worth), thinking of Keble's words, "Think on the Minstrel as ye kneel."' And, again, we have Newman writing: 'I have ever had such a devotion, I may call it, to Walter Scott. As a boy, in the early summer mornings, I read "Waverley" and "Guy Mannering" in bed, when they first came out, before it was time to get up; and long before that—I think when I was eight years old—I listened eagerly to the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which my mother and aunt were reading aloud. When he was dying I was continually thinking of him. Hope Scott was one of the Cardinal's 'intimates.' He was also on affectionate terms with Manning and Gladstone, to the latter of whom he dedicated his edition of Lockhart's 'Abridgment of the Life.'[31] Several passages in Morley's 'Gladstone' show how strong and genuine was the bond between them. 'Hope especially had influence over me more than, I think, any other person at any period of my life. My affection for him during those latter years before his change was, I may almost say, intense; there was hardly anything, I think, which he could have asked me to do, and which I would not have done.' When Hope Scott joined the Roman Church, Gladstone, the day after, made a codicil to his will, striking him out as executor. Friendship did not die, however, but only lived 'as it lives between those who inhabit separate worlds.'

A man of great wealth,[32] Mr. Hope Scott never spared his means when the interests of religion were in question. As an example of his Christian zeal and affection for Romanism, it may be stated that he built the Church of Our Lady and St. Andrew at Galashiels at a cost of £10,000, also the Chapel at Selkirk, the Church on Loch Shiel, and the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Kelso. He helped churches and schools and convents all over the country. Following his death in 1873 (Newman preaching his funeral sermon), Abbotsford went to Mary Monica[33] (named from a favourite saint). So we are thankful that there is still a Scott—one of Sir Walter's blood—his great-granddaughter, 'Lady of Abbotsford.'

THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD

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