the autumn of 1797, Scott was a frequent visitor to the city of Carlisle, where Miss Carpenter was living in Castle Street. A few steps beyond the site of her house is Carlisle Cathedral, the most striking feature of which is the beautiful East Window, said to be the finest in England. The cathedral was founded by Henry I in 1101. During the Civil War it was occupied by soldiers, who pulled down ninety-six feet of the nave to build fortifications. The portion that remained, thirty-nine feet, was later enclosed and used as the parish Church of St. Mary. Here, standing between two great Norman pillars of red sandstone, on the day before Christmas, 1797, Walter Scott and Charlotte Carpenter were married.
They went to live in Edinburgh, but during the following summer took up their abode in a charming little cottage with a thatched roof and a delightful garden on the banks of the river Esk at Lasswade. It was then a small house with only one room of fair size, though now very much enlarged. The thatched portion, however, is carefully preserved. Mrs. Scott's good taste and her husband's enthusiasm soon converted the house and grounds into a veritable bower of delight. Unfortunately, the rustic archway of ivy, which Scott took so much pleasure in fashioning, has disappeared. But the vale of the Esk still remains, to thrill the souls of the romantic. Not even in lovely Scotland is there a river or glen to surpass it. Deep down between precipitous cliffs and rocks, shaded by tall trees and overgrown by a bewildering profusion of creeping plants and overhanging vines, the little river flows merrily along, seeming to sparkle at every bend with some new recollection of the romantic legends or fantastic tales of the barons of old, who once peopled its ancient castles and drank their wine while they listened to the rhythmic stories of the minstrel bards. Here six happy summers were spent. Friends came down from Edinburgh and new friendships were formed with important personages living in the villas and castles of the vicinity. All found that Scott had formed a connection with one who had the 'sterling qualities of a good wife,' to quote Lockhart's phrase. The brothers of the Mountain—a group of boon companions who were closely associated and very fond of each other's society—welcomed Mrs. Scott with the greatest delight. A married life of perfect serenity was inaugurated, which lasted until the death of 'the ever faithful and true companion' in 1826.
In a confidential letter to Lady Abercorn, written in 1810, Scott refers to his attempt, in the 'Lady of the Lake,' to make 'a knight of love who never broke a vow,' and mentions his own melancholy experience of early days. He adds: 'Mrs. Scott's match and mine was one of our own making, and proceeded from the most sincere affection on both sides, which has rather increased than diminished during twelve years' marriage. But it was something short of love in all its forms, which I suspect people only feel once in their lives; folks who have been nearly drowned in bathing rarely venturing a second time out of their depth.'
These words should not be misconstrued. Whatever the ardency of his first love, the second was no less sincere and true. If the first was the highly poetic type, the young dream of a peculiarly sensitive nature, the second was the kind that enables young couples to meet in peace and serenity all the varied problems of life, to establish their housekeeping in mutual helpfulness, to laugh away their cares, as Scott wrote to Miss Carpenter, or if the load is too heavy, to share it between them, 'until it becomes almost as light as pleasure itself.' It was in this spirit that the young people established their household gods in the cottage at Lasswade.
To a man of Scott's disposition, happy in his new home life, with every incentive to improve his opportunities, his mind steeped from infancy in the rude ballads of the border country and his heart bounding with delight at the beauties of nature, this new environment seemed all that was needed to turn his whole thought to poetry.
Sweet are the paths, O passing sweet!
By Esk's fair streams that run
O'er airy steep through copsewood deep
Impervious to the sun.
There the rapt poet's step may rove,
And yield the muse the day;
There Beauty, led by timid Love
May shun the telltale ray.
No afternoon stroll could be more delightful than one through the valley of the Esk as far as Roslin. Many go to Roslin by coach from Edinburgh, but they fail to see the glen. Guided by a Scottish friend, we found that the better way is to go to Hawthornden and walk through the gardens and grounds of the ancient castle where the poet Drummond lived and wrote to his heart's content of the beauties of the scene. Here we saw the caves, cut out of the solid rock beneath the castle, which sheltered Robert Bruce during the troublous times when Fortune seemed to frown. Here, too, we stood under the sycamore tree where Drummond welcomed Ben Jonson to his home. Descending the path to the river, we crossed by a little wooden bridge, with a gate in the middle, which can be opened only from the Hawthornden side. Then a walk, which was half scramble, brought us finally to Roslin Castle, on a rock peeping over the foliage, high above the river. Both Roslin and Hawthornden are mentioned in 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel' in the ballad of the lovely Rosabelle:—
O'er Roslin all that dreary night
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
'T was broader than the watch-fire light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied all the copsewood glen;
'T was seen from Dreyden's groves of oak,
And seen from caverned Hawthornden.
The quiet of Lasswade gave Scott the opportunity for the compilation of the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' and its romantic beauty furnished the inspiration for his first serious attempts to write new ballads in imitation of the old ones. 'It was amidst these delicious solitudes,' says Lockhart, 'that he produced the pieces which laid the imperishable foundations of all his fame. It was here that when his warm heart was beating with young and happy love, and his whole mind and spirit were nerved with new motives for exertion—it was here in the ripened glow of manhood he seems to have first felt something of his real strength, and found himself out in those splendid original ballads which were at once to fix his name.'
At this period Scott was a man of unusually robust health. In spite of the lameness with which he had been afflicted from infancy, his powers of endurance were very great. He could walk thirty miles a day or ride one hundred without resting. He was quartermaster of the Edinburgh Volunteers and had a great reputation as a skilful horseman. 'He had a remarkably firm seat on horseback,' said Mr. Skene, 'and in all situations a fearless one: no fatigue ever seemed too much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sustain the enthusiasm of the whole corps.' His companions called him 'Earl Walter,' and whenever there came, at drills, a moment of rest, all turned intuitively to the quartermaster, whose ever ready fun never failed to lighten the burdens of the day. It was really this remarkable gift of good companionship, coupled with his fondness for horses and unusual powers of endurance, that enabled Scott to gather the materials for his poems.
'Eh me,' said Shortreed, his companion and guide in the Liddesdale raids, 'sic an endless fund o' humour and drollery as he then had wi' him! Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring or singing. Wherever we stopped, how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybody! He aye did as the lave did; never made himsel' the great man, or took ony airs in the company.' It was literally true, as he said, that he 'had a home in every farmhouse.'
To his rare good fellowship and his powers of endurance, Scott added one other quality without which his vigorous search for literary material might have been of little use, namely, a most extraordinary memory, which enabled him to retain what he had heard and use it many years afterward. James Hogg, the eccentric Ettrick shepherd, gives a fine instance of this power. One night Scott, with his friends, Hogg and Skene, was out on a fishing expedition. 'While we three sat down on the brink of a river,' says Hogg, 'Scott desired me to sing them my ballad