Chapter XXV: St. Ronan's Well

If, as I have said in the preceding chapter, the true Scott Country comprises the United Kingdom, except Ireland, the inner circle of that country, the _Sanctum Sanctorum_, so to speak, must be considered as including that part of Scotland lying between the Firth of Forth and the English border; or, more strictly, the counties of Edinburgh, Peebles, Selkirk, and Roxburgh. This was Scott's home, his workshop, and his playground. From the spring of 1806 to the early winter of 1830, a period of nearly twenty-five years, he performed the duties of Clerk of the Court of Session. This required his presence in Edinburgh usually from the 12th of May to the 12th of July and from the 12th of November to the 12th of March, excepting an interval at Christmas. This meant from four to six hours' work a day for four or five days each week, extending over about six months of every year. During the sessions of the court his residence was No. 39, North Castle Street, a three-story stone dwelling-house, within sight of Edinburgh Castle.

The day after the rising of the court usually found its distinguished clerk ready to 'escape to the country.' For six years his retreat was the little thatched cottage at Lasswade, in the vale of the Esk. The next eight summers found him at Ashestiel, and after that Abbotsford was the lodestone that drew him from the city. Scott loved the wide sweep of the bare hills, especially {347} when tinged with the purple hue of the heather. Their pure air was the tonic which had saved his life, when as a child he rolled about on the rocks of Smailholm, a companion of the sheep and lambs. Their streams gave him an opportunity to lure the salmon from their hiding-places. Their rounded summits gave him many a distant view of battle-fields, famed in the Border warfare, which filled up centuries of Scottish and English history. Their pleasant glens and thickets gave him delightful walks in the woods. Their hospitable cottages extended him a never failing welcome, and yielded up to him, from the lips of hundreds of old wives, a treasure of Scottish ballads, songs, and tales of Border chivalry. Their castles and mansions threw open their doors at his approach, rivalling the humbler dwellings in the cordiality of their greeting.

No wonder Scott loved the Border country. 'It may be partiality,' said he to Washington Irving, 'but to my eye, these grey hills and all this wild Border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die!'

It was while riding with Lockhart and Willie Laidlaw, along the brow of the Eildon Hills, looking down upon Melrose, one fine afternoon in July, 1823, that the suggestion came which led eventually to 'St. Ronan's Well.' 'Quentin Durward' had recently appeared and Scott, commenting upon its reception, remarked that he {348} could probably do something better with a German subject. 'Na, na, sir,' protested Laidlaw, 'take my word for it, you are always best, like Helen MacGregor, when your foot is on your native heath; and I have often thought that if you were to write a novel, and lay the scene here in the very year you were writing it, you would exceed yourself.' 'Hame 's hame,' smilingly assented Scott, 'be it ever sae hamely. There's something in what you say, Willie.' Although Laidlaw insisted that his friend should 'stick to Melrose in July, 1823,' Scott took a little broader field and made the scene of 'St. Ronan's Well,' the valley of the Tweed.

This was the country which he had pictured in 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' at the very beginning of his fame. He had come back to it for a bit of the scenery of 'The Monastery' and 'The Abbot.' These, however, were romances of an earlier period. He was now for the first time to write of his own country in his own time. The tale was to depict society life, not of the wholesome and genuine kind to which Scott was personally accustomed, whether in Edinburgh or the country, but of the type he had seen at various watering-places and summer resorts which he had visited.

'St. Ronan's Well' may be considered a true picture of this society or a caricature, according to one's own sympathies. Some of its readers have been able to find among their own 'social set,' Lady Penelope Penfeather, Sir Bingo and Lady Sinks, Mr. Winterblossom, Dr. Quackleben, and even the 'man of peace,' Captain Mungo MacTurk, and have praised or condemned the author's portraits according to their own predilections toward such personages.

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Scott saw something of this life at Gilsland in the memorable summer of 1797, the year when he met Miss Carpenter at the dance in Shaw's Hotel. Below the hostelry is a deep and attractive glen, through which flows the river Irthing, and just above the bridge spanning the river, is one of those mineral springs, which have the strange power, whatever may be their medicinal virtues, of drawing hundreds of people away from their homes in the summer months. There is another of these springs at Innerleithen, on the banks of the Tweed, and for this reason--for I can see no other--the people of that town have laid claim to the honour of residing in the original 'St. Ronan's.'

Innerleithen, now a prosperous town of about three thousand inhabitants, is situated amid the hills which border the Tweed in the most picturesque part of its course. In Scott's time it was only a small village. Traquair, on the contrary, a few miles to the south, was of more importance in Scott's time than now, when it is a mere hamlet, remarkable for nothing except the fine old feudal mansion to which I have previously referred.[1] If we are to think of Innerleithen, then, as the 'ancient and decayed village of St. Ronan's' we must picture it, not as the thriving commercial town of to-day, but more like its neighbour on the south.

Of course I felt anxious to taste the waters of the real St. Ronan's Well, and made a journey to Innerleithen for the purpose. I gained nothing beyond the experience of exchanging a good shilling for a bad drink. One taste was enough, and when the girl was n't looking I threw the rest away. I found an old two-story house in the {350} town which claims to be the original 'Cleikum Inn'--a claim which is disputed by a public house in Peebles, 'The Cross Keys Hotel,' formerly a pretentious seventeenth-century mansion. The latter was kept in Scott's time by a maiden lady named Marian Ritchie, who seems to have possessed some of the characteristics which the novelist exaggerated in his delightfully humorous picture of Meg Dods. She found fault with the new 'hottle,' and did not hesitate to vent her sarcasm upon those travellers who ventured to stay there in preference to her own respectable inn. Scott, according to local history, was occasionally one of her guests. She ruled with a rod of iron, permitting no excesses, and did not hesitate to send a young man 'hame to his mither' if she suspected him to be imbibing too freely. Scott gave this model landlady the real name of a hostess whom he had patronized when only seventeen years old. It was on a fishing excursion to a loch near Howgate, in the Moorfoot Hills, when Scott and three of his boon companions stopped at a little public-house kept by Mrs. Margaret Dods. It was thirty-five years later when, in writing 'St. Ronan's Well' the novelist adopted the name of the real landlady for his fictitious character.

So far as the rival claimants of the 'Cleikum Inn' honours are concerned, I do not believe that Scott had any particular house in mind, either for the 'inn,' or the 'hottle.' Nor can I find any evidence of the existence of an 'original' for Shaw's Castle, the family seat of the Mowbrays, though Raeburn House, near St. Boswell's Green may be taken as a excellent type. The same doubt applies to the village of St. Ronan's itself. Scott's {351} design seems to have been merely to place the scene of his story, broadly speaking, in the valley of the Tweed.

This picturesque stream rises in the high lands near Moffat and flows north through a country still wild and solitary. A score of miles or less from its source, it makes a bend toward the east, above the town of Peebles, and from this point, until it discharges its waters into the North Sea at Berwick, there is scarcely a bend in the river or a village or town on its banks that does not suggest memories of Sir Walter Scott.

From the high ground overlooking the river, just at the point where it bends to the east, we had a view, through the trees, of surpassing beauty. Below was the ancient Castle of Neidpath, once a scene of stately splendour, when nobles and monarchs frequented its halls, and richly attired ladies promenaded in the well-kept gardens, laden with the perfume and brilliant with the hues of many flowers; when well-ordered terraces lined the banks of the stream and orchards smiled from the surrounding hillsides. Amid such scenes the 'Maid of Neidpath' sat in the tower,--

To watch her love's returning--

and broke her heart when the lover came and passed with heedless gaze--

As o'er some stranger glancing.[2]

Time and Nature, working together as landscape artists, have converted the castle into a picturesque ruin, and replaced the artificial gardens and terraces with thick groves of fine old trees, clothing the hillsides {352} with a richer and deeper verdure, and leaving only the river as of yore, still brightening the scene with the sparkle of its silvery tide. In the distance we could see the spires and chimneys of Peebles.

Following the river, we passed Innerleithen, six miles below Peebles, and a short distance beyond we paused for a moment to look toward the ruins of Elibank, high up on the hillside. This was Scott's favourite objective point for a summer afternoon walk from Ashestiel, and the scene of the famous legend of 'Muckle-Mouthed Meg.'[3] Two miles farther on is Ashestiel, where Scott spent many happy summers. Keeping the left bank we soon came to a place where we could see Abbotsford on the opposite side of the river--and a charming view it makes. Then comes Melrose with all its varied associations. Driving toward the east, we ascended a hill near the summit of Bemerside Heights and halted to enjoy 'Scott's favourite view.' Below was a bend of the river marking the site of Old Melrose, the establishment which preceded the more pretentious abbey in the village. Far away were the summits of the Eildon Hills. On the day of Scott's funeral, the procession climbed this hill on the way to Dryburgh Abbey, the hearse being drawn by Sir Walter's own coach-horses. At the spot where we were standing, it is said, the faithful animals halted of their own accord, not knowing that their master could no longer enjoy his favourite view.

We soon came to the beautiful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, where Scott lies buried. It is a place he was fond of visiting, so much so that in a letter to Miss Carpenter, before they were married, he referred to it {353} with enthusiasm, adding, 'When I die, Charlotte, you must cause my bones to be laid there.' This brought a lively reply from the young lady: 'What an idea of yours was that to mention where you wished to have your _bones laid_. If you were married, I should think you were tired of me. A very pretty compliment _before marriage_.... Take care of yourself if you love me, as I have _no wish_ that you should _visit_ that _beautiful_ and _romantic_ scene, the burying-place.'

Still farther to the east lies Kelso, where Scott spent several summers with a relative and attended the village school; while in the valley below lie the principal scenes of 'Marmion.' In the hills to the north, between Melrose and Kelso, is Sandy Knowe, the farm of the poet's grandfather, where the fresh air of the Scottish hills gave a new lease of life to the child of three years. Some recollections of these early days found their way into 'St. Ronan's Well,' published nearly half a century later. A frequent visitor at the fireside of Sandy Knowe was the parish clergyman, Dr. Duncan, who perhaps failed to appreciate the presence of a poet in embryo. Scott had early committed to memory long passages from Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany' and one or two other favourite volumes, which he would shout at the top of his voice, regardless of the presence of the good minister, who would testily exclaim, 'One may as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child is.' The old gentleman lived to be nearly ninety. 'He was,' says Scott, 'a most excellent and benevolent man, a gentleman in every feeling, and altogether different from those of his order who cringe at the tables of the gentry or domineer and riot at those of the yeomanry.' There {354} seems to be no doubt that in the personage of Mr. Josiah Cargill, the shy, absent-minded, but learned and conscientious, and always lovable, clergyman of 'St. Ronan's Well,' Scott drew a portrait of the excellent divine whom he had learned to respect in his early days.

[1] See _ante_, p. 106, Chapter viii, 'Waverley.'

[2] _The Maid of Neidpath_, 1806.

[3] See _ante_, Chapter 1, page 36.

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