Chapter XXVI: Redgauntlet

I was standing, one afternoon, among some rugged rocks, half covered with sand and seaweed, which lined the shores of the Solway Firth, when my attention was suddenly attracted by a large black horse ridden by a woman. They were far away from shore and the animal seemed to be lightly cantering over the surface of the water. I suddenly realized the peculiar characteristic of the Solway. The tide was going out and what seemed to be the surface of a wide, inland sea was in reality a broad stretch of glistening white sand, still wet enough to catch and reflect the rays of the sun.

In spite of the fact that the rider was a woman, I was reminded of the thrilling incident that marks one of the earlier chapters of 'Redgauntlet.' Darsie Latimer had wandered out in the late afternoon over the wet sands of the Solway, watching with great interest the exertions of some horsemen, who were intent upon the sport of spearing salmon. The ebb of the tide leaves numberless little pools, formed by the inequality of the surface, and in these the fish dart about, making frantic efforts to escape to deeper water. The horsemen chase the salmon at full gallop, striking at them with their spears,--a form of amusement requiring great skill and perfect horsemanship. The riders had ceased their sport and were returning to the shore, while Darsie lingered on the sands. Suddenly he heard an abrupt voice, calling out, {356} 'Soho, brother! you are late for Bowness to-night'; and, turning, recognized the most expert of the salmon fishers, a tall man riding a powerful black horse. Darsie replied that he was a stranger and about to return to the shore. 'Best make haste, then,' said the fisherman. 'He that dreams on the bed of the Solway, may wake in the next world. The sky threatens a blast that will bring in the waves three feet abreast.' The young man, not realizing the danger, had to be warned a third time, and finally was pulled up on the horse behind his rescuer, who was compelled to gallop to safety at full speed.

At a later time, the tall fisherman, who proved to be Hugh Redgauntlet, kidnapped young Latimer, whom he had recognized as his long-lost nephew, and carried him in a cart across the Solway to England. While lying on his back upon some sacks of straw, his arms and legs tightly bound with cloth bandages, Darsie again heard the rush of the advancing tide. He 'not only heard the roar of this dreadful torrent, but saw, by the fitful moonlight, the foamy crests of the devouring waves, as they advanced with the speed and fury of a pack of hungry wolves.' One or two of the great waves of the 'howling and roaring sea' had reached the cart, when he was again rescued by Redgauntlet in much the same manner as before.

The reality of these fearful tides exceeds even Scott's vivid description. In a volume published more than eighty years ago[1] by a local writer, I find this account:--

During spring tides, and particularly when impelled by a strong southwester, the Solway rises with prodigious {357} rapidity. A loud booming noise indicates its approach, and is distinguishable at the distance of several miles. At Caerlaverock and Glencaple, where it enters the Nith, the scene is singularly grand and imposing; and it is beautiful to see a mighty volume of water advancing, foam-crested, and with a degree of rapidity which, were the race a long one, would outmatch the speed of the swiftest horses. The tide-head, as it is called, is often from four to six feet high, chafed into spray, with a mighty trough of bluer water behind--swelling in some places into little hills, and in others scooped into tiny valleys, which, when sunlit, form a brilliant picture of themselves. From the tide-head proceed two huge jets of water, which run roaring along, searching the banks on either side--the antennæ, as it were, which the ocean puts forth, and by which it feels its way when confined within narrow limits. A large fire-engine discharging a strong stream of water bears a close resemblance to this part of the phenomena of a strong spring tide; but the sea-water is broken while the other is smooth, and runs hissing, or rather gallops, along in a manner to which no language of ours can do justice.

Between Bowness, the northernmost point of Cumberland, and Whinnyrig, south of Annan in Dumfriesshire, the Solway is only two miles wide. It is now safely crossed by a railroad bridge, but two generations ago the Scottish farmers and dealers were in the habit of crossing the sands at low tide to save a long and tedious detour of about thirty miles by way of Carlisle. Many a belated traveller, missing his way in the darkness or the fog, has been overtaken by the tide and lost.

All the scenes of 'Redgauntlet,' except those in Edinburgh and Dumfries, are laid near the shores of the Solway. Shepherd's Bush and Brokenburn, imaginary places, of course, may be considered to be somewhere on the Scottish side near Annan. Mount Sharon, the {358} residence of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, supposed to be in the same vicinity, was really modelled after some pleasant recollections of the author's boyhood at Kelso. It was a place of quiet contentment, where one might wander through fields and pastures and woodlands by convenient paths amid scenes of peaceful beauty. Even the partridges and the hares had learned the kindly nature of the good Quaker and his amiable sister, and did not fear their approach.

Scott drew the charming picture of the Quaker household from his early friendship for the Waldie family in Kelso. Their son Robert was one of his school-fellows. He spent many happy hours in their hospitable home, where he was treated with the utmost kindness by Robert's mother, universally known in the neighbourhood as Lady Waldie. A privilege which Scott particularly appreciated was the permission to 'rummage at pleasure' through the small but well-selected library which the good lady's deceased husband had left her.

On the English side of the Solway, the Wampool River, where the Jumping Jenny landed Alan Fairford, along with a cargo of contraband goods, including gunpowder for the use of the Jacobites, may be easily found on the map. The English scenes were laid between here and Carlisle, but the story of the visit to this region of Charles Edward, disguised as Father Buonaventure, is pure fiction, and of course the localities cannot be identified, except Burgh-upon-Sands, where there is a monument to Edward I, to which Hugh Redgauntlet refers as the party is passing by.

The English residence of Hugh Redgauntlet to which Darsie was conducted by his captor, described as ancient {359} and strong, with battlemented roof and walls of great thickness, but otherwise resembling a comfortable farmhouse, is purely fictitious. We visited, however, on the Scottish side of the Solway, a splendid modern castle, which, judged by an old painting of the place as it was in 1789, would admirably fit the description. This is Hoddam Castle, five miles southwest of the village of Ecclefechan, Carlyle's birthplace, where we spent a night in one of the quaintest little inns in Scotland, a survival of the time when Scottish inns offered few comforts to the traveller, but made up for it in proffered sociability.

Hoddam Castle is beautifully situated in the midst of a grove of fine trees overlooking the river Annan. A battlemented tower, surmounted by conical turrets, rises high above the extensive modern structure surrounding it. This is the ancient building, for centuries occupied by the Herries family. Scott originally intended to call his novel 'Herries' instead of 'Redgauntlet,' and was with much difficulty persuaded by Constable to accept the latter title. The old castle was built in the fifteenth century by John, Lord Herries, to whom was granted an extensive tract of land, extending over three or four counties.

The Herries family, to which Hugh Redgauntlet is supposed to belong, was always powerful. In their later years, like their fictitious descendant, its members were ardent supporters of the Stuart family. John Maxwell, who took the name of Lord Herries upon his marriage, was a zealous defender of Mary Queen of Scots. He assisted her escape from Loch Leven Castle, fought for her at Langside, escorted her, after the battle, to his {360} own house in Galloway, and thence to Dundrennan Abbey, and finally conducted her, in a small vessel, to England. His descendant, William, the ninth Lord Herries and fifth Earl of Nithsdale, participated in the Jacobite uprising of 1715. He was made a prisoner at Preston and sent to the Tower, where he was tried and condemned to death. His countess, with rare courage and resourcefulness, first forced her way to an audience with the King in St. James's Palace, and pleaded on her knees for her husband's life. Finding this ineffectual, she paid a last farewell visit to her husband, taking several lady friends with her. They succeeded in disguising the Earl in feminine apparel and thus effected his escape. When Darsie Latimer was obliged, at his uncle's command, to wear petticoats as a means of concealing his identity, he was only following the example of one of his ancestors.

In 1690 the castle and Barony of Hoddam passed from the Herries family to John Sharpe, and remained in the hands of his heirs until very recent times. One of these was Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Scott's intimate friend, who helped collect the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' to which he contributed two ballads. Scott was a frequent guest at his house, and he often dined with Scott's family in Edinburgh or at Abbotsford. He was a man of distinction in letters and an artist as well. Two well-known etchings by him, the 'Dish of Spurs' and 'Muckle-Mouthed Meg,' besides a caricature of Queen Elizabeth, adorn the walls of Abbotsford. His ancestors, like the Herries family, were ardent Jacobites.

The Sharpes claimed relationship to the notorious {361} Grierson of Lag, who was the original of Sir Robert Redgauntlet in 'Wandering Willie's Tale.' Sir Robert Grierson, who was born in 1655 and died in 1733, was an infamous scoundrel who took fiendish delight in persecuting the Covenanters. In his drunken revels he made them the theme of scurrilous jests. In a vaulted chamber of his Castle of Lag, now in ruins, he had an iron hook upon which he hanged his prisoners. Often he would amuse himself by rolling his victims down a steep hill in barrels filled with knives and iron spikes. He was an object of terror and hatred through all the neighbouring country and for many years after his death was represented in theatrical productions as a hideous monster. Scott heard in his youth the wild tales of the terrible Grierson, and made them the basis of the story told by Wandering Willie.

If by Redgauntlet Castle we mean the house of the blind fiddler's hero, we must take for its original the ancient ruin of Lag Castle, built in the fourteenth century; but if the seat of the Herries family is meant, Hoddam Castle is of course the prototype, even though Scott places it on the English side of the Solway.

A bit of scenery worth recalling in connection with this novel is the Marquis of Annandale's Beefstand, or as it is now called, the Devil's Beef Tub, the place where the Laird of Summertrees had his wonderful adventure, escaping from his captors by rolling, over and over, like a barrel, down the steep incline that leads to the bottom of the hollow. It is as lonely and desolate a spot as we saw anywhere in Scotland. The hills circle about to form a huge bowl, in the rim of which there is apparently no break, so that one wonders how the little brook at the {362} bottom manages to find an outlet so as to remain a brook at all, instead of accumulating its waters to form a great natural lake. The old Border raiders used the hollow as a convenient place in which to collect stolen cattle. From the road on the rim it seems to be a dark, dismal hole, without sign of life except an occasional ring of earth and stone, built for the protection of the sheep. Scott knew personally a Jacobite gentleman, who escaped at this place in precisely the same manner as 'Pate-in-Peril,' while being taken to Carlisle a prisoner for participation in the 'affair of 1745.'

'Redgauntlet' is autobiographical to a greater extent than any other of Scott's novels. It is true that 'Waverley' gives a hint of his own early love of reading, while 'The Antiquary' reflects his interest in the relics of an older civilization. Indeed, bits of personal reminiscence are woven into nearly all his tales. But 'Redgauntlet' more directly reveals Scott himself and those nearest to him than any or all of the others.

The voluminous correspondence of Alan Fairford and Darsie Latimer is full of recollections of school days in Edinburgh, when as a boy Scott climbed the 'kittle nine stanes,' a difficult and dangerous passage over the steep granite rock upon which the castle stands, or helped 'man the Cowgate Port,' an ancient gateway to the city from which the youngsters in snowballing time annoyed the passers-by and defied the town guard. One of his most intimate companions in the days when he was reading law was William Clerk, whom he describes as a man of acute 'intellect and powerful apprehension,' but somewhat trammelled with 'the fetters of indolence.' There is no doubt that Scott himself was the original of {363} Alan Fairford nor that William Clerk was the model for Darsie Latimer. The fine portrait of Saunders Fairford, who was so anxious to have his son 'attain the proudest of all distinctions--the rank and fame of a well-employed lawyer,' was drawn from Scott's own father, many years after the death of that worthy gentleman.

Mr. Saunders Fairford, ... was a man of business of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical and even niggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting his own affairs and those of his clients, but taught by long experience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the clock of St. Giles tolled nine, the neat dapper form of the little hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the Court-hall ... trimly dressed in a complete suit of snuff-coloured brown, with stockings of silk or woolen, as suited the weather; a bob wig and a small cocked hat; shoes blacked as Warren would have blacked them; silver shoe-buckles and a gold stock-buckle. A nosegay in summer, and a sprig of holly in winter, completed his well-known dress and appearance.

Even Peter Peebles, the poor old derelict, ruined by a lifetime of perpetual litigation, was a real character, well known in Edinburgh, and Scott himself, in common with most young lawyers, took his turn in 'practising' on this case.

The re-introduction of Charles Edward, who was so fascinating as a figure in 'Waverley,' was not so successful. In the earlier novel, his movements are, in the main, historically accurate. His reappearance, twenty years later, under circumstances purely fictitious, is by comparison almost wholly lacking in interest. There is, however, a certain attractiveness about the enthusiasm of his ardent supporter, Hugh Redgauntlet, and the {364} book is not lacking in minor characters, who are almost as fascinating as any of the novelist's earlier creations. Wandering Willie is one of these--the blind fiddler who holds communication with the captive Darsie, by the rendering of appropriate tunes, the words of which the latter is quick to recall and clever enough to interpret. Another is Nanty Ewart, the skipper of the Jumping Jenny, who can read his Sallust like a scholar, and appeals to one's sympathies in spite of his dissipation.

Although 'Redgauntlet' was at first received somewhat coldly, it is nevertheless true, in the words of Lady Louisa Stuart, that 'the interest is so strong one cannot lay it down.' Its lack of value historically is more than offset by the personal interest of its characters and the many episodes of intense dramatic realism.

[1] _Picture of Dumfries, with Historical and Descriptive Notices_, by John McDiarmid, 1832.

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