Ragged Lion

by Allan Massie

  As I spoke in this manner, the tears ran down my cheeks, for I was sorely moved, but my inquisitor threw back his head and laughed. I can hear that laughter yet, ringing down the corridors of a rational Hell, where indeed at that moment I believed myself to be imprisoned.

  But I spoke up again, for my blood was high.

  ‘To pay tribute to the defeated is not, as you appear to suggest, to be in love with defeat. I see what you are at. You would copy the hand that wrote on the wall at Belshazzar’s Feast and delivered its terrible judgement. You have weighed me in the balance and found me wanting. Well, maybe so. In the end which of us is not found wanting? So, in a sense it maun be, for all of us. As Sir John says, “tush, man, mortal men, mortal men”.

  Late at e’en, drinking the wine,

  And ere they paid the lawin’.

  They set a combat them between,

  To fight it in the dawin’

  ‘Just so,’ I said, ‘just so it is for all of us. That combat is a contract in which we all engage, and at the close of day, victors and defeated alike, we maun pay the lawin’. But neither victory nor defeat is ever absolute, for something of the victor dies in his triumph, and something of the defeated and broken lives; and it is the duty of the poet to breathe life into dead bones, into what would otherwise be lost and sunk in the blackest tarn of History. It is in this way that he may enrich the experience of all men and women. The defiance and lamentation of the lost and broken ring down the waste of centuries, and if we are deaf to their cries we stop our ears to truth, pity, and poetry. The world rolls on, and in each revolution of the globe, in each turn of the cruel machine of History, much is crushed, destroyed, buried, and near obliterated. It is the task of the poet and novelist to rescue these broken things and re-animate them, and so save us from the tyranny of the present, from the rant of the conqueror, from the brutal dictatorship of success, which stifles thought and smoors the imagination. And, sir, let me tell you,’ I said, ‘it is by the exercise of the imagination that we live, and to keep the past alive is to hold open the gates of wonder . . .’

  And then I woke. I had been thinking myself dead, suffering my inquisition in that rational Hell. I shivered as I sat in my chair, a Paisley shawl pulled around my shoulders to guard me against the draughts.

  It is not strange to dream of death, and indeed there have been days and nights in the last months when I have been guilty of hoping that Death would not be over-long in summoning me. And if my dream, which is all it was, when awthing is said and done, tells me anything, it assures me that I shall be the same man in death as I hae been in life.

  Which is consolation of a sort.

  But it is strange all the same, that accusations of this nature should rise up against me from within my own being.

  I mind once I was at the funeral of an old man so extravagant in his notions as to be properly thought by many to have left his wits at the world’s end. One of the congregation – my cousin Maxpoffle as I remember – observed that the body was laid the wrong way in the grave.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said I.

  ‘Weel,’ he said, ‘dae ye no see, Wattie? His feet are pointing the wrang airt.’

  And so they were. Maxpoffle was all for having the appropriate adjustment made, but I told him to hold his hand, observing that a man that had been wrang in the heid all his life, could scarcely be expected to lie richt-heided in the grave.

  But, on the evidence of my dream, I think I may; and that’s consolation for ye, as Tom Purdie was wont to say.

  What sad tricks the mind plays on a man! There is no surer mark of Shakespeare’s genius, I have often thought, than the last act of Macbeth, and the manner in which he traces the vagaries of a disordered mind, brought like a stag to bay. But have I tried to be a good man? Yes, I truly believe so. If I were to subject myself, now I am awake, to a catechism, what charges would I bring? I think myself more often guilty of ill-feelings than ill-deeds. Are we to be judged on what we succeed in suppressing? When I pray, the line I speak with most urgency is: ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’.

  In my youth temptation led me a merry dance, but the invitations that were extended to me were innocent enough, a matter of thoughtless dares, willingly accepted, and high spirits. So, for example, I scaled the Castle rock here in Edinburgh, a thing that would have caused acute anxiety to my dear mother, had she known of this foolish audacity. Then, later, in student days, it was a question of how far we could, or rather would – for we felt no incapacity – carry our cantrips. There was nothing, I believe, vicious in our merriment.

  In my prime, worldly ambition drew me on; and again I felt it easy enough to acquit myself of any malignity in this respect. The desire to make a brave show, the wish to be well-thought of, these are innocent enough. Even the drive for riches may be excused, since in benefitting myself, I benefitted my family and dependents also. Some may accuse me of a greed for possessions, especially land, and, though I dislike the word ‘greed’ employed in this respect, I do not altogether deny the charge. Yet it is natural for a man to wish to be able to plant his foot on earth which he can call his own, and in building Abbotsford and extending my estates, I acted as the world expects a successful man to act. Moreover, again, though I confess that my acquisition of property, and its management, pleased me mightily, I worked at the same time for the good of others. There are many cottagers at Abbotsford who have sufficient reason to be grateful to me; as of course have my children.

  As for my financial affairs and business dealings, I see nothing reprehensible in them. No doubt I was rash, but I never engaged myself more deeply than I had a rational expectation of being able to redeem. I had by my own industry opened up, as it appeared to me, a well-nigh inexhaustible seam of treasure; and indeed, though I now have to crank up my imagination, where it once soared on the wings of the morning, the seam, as has been proved to me, is indeed not yet exhausted. But this is a matter too painful to dwell on now, though if I carry this work forward, I shall in time confront it face to face.

  Age offers new temptations. In the present condition of my affairs, I hear sad seductive voices muttering of despair. ‘Why put yourself to this trouble?’ they insinuate, ‘when there is no longer joy in labour, and all you sigh for is rest from toil?’ It is a siren voice that summons me to easeful and inglorious repose. But this I can defy. Please God, I have aye done my duty; and ever shall.

  There is another temptation that assails a man as the years pass, youth fades to a flickering memory, and the grave yawns. I do not refer to the desire for death, though that is a temptation close allied to despair, and one which every man, who feels his strength departing him, as the God Hercules deserted Antony, must feel on occasion. No, this temptation is more insidious, not hard to account for, difficult to combat. It was to this, I believe, that poor Heber succumbed. I feel it, though happily not in the precise form that attracted, and destroyed, him.

  I have written in these notes of man’s duality; but there is more to it than that. As we enter into manhood, the world spreads itself before us, offering what appears to be an infinite number of roads which we may choose to take. We go through life, and with each step that we take, the choice narrows. We fix our character by the decisions that we take. We determine what we are going to be, and each act of such determination requires us to reject other possibilities of what we might have been. We do this naturally and for the most part unthinkingly. Then comes a moment when we look back, when we are conscious of darkness waiting to engulf us, and we may feel a sharp stab of regret for all the possible routes, all the possible selves, which we left unexplored. This realization brings with it the whisper that it may not be too late to try out, or test, neglected parts of our nature. It arouses the Ulysses that lurks within all men who have striven to know themselves. Can it be supposed that he was content to remain at home in Ithaca?

  I have known many men, too numerous to list, who, at some point in the middle of their journey, be
came weary of success, happiness, worldly ambition, domesticity, family life, and so committed acts which the world deems folly or worse, by which they destroyed themselves, or at the very least lowered themselves in the estimation of others: and I believe that in each such case, they were lured on by a spirit of dissatisfaction with their achievements, a feeling that they had imprisoned themselves in what they had made of their life, and by a wish that things could be different. That wish is a sweet cheat. When True Thomas lay on Huntlie Bank, and the Queen of fair Elfland summoned him, was he not yielding to a like temptation; or rather is the ballad not a poetic representation of what I have been attempting to describe?

  Oh see ye not yon narrow road,

  So thick beset with thorns and briars?

  That is the path of righteousness,

  Tho’ after it but few inquires.

  And see ye not that braid braid road,

  That lies across that lily leven?

  That is the path of wickedness,

  Tho’ some call it the road to heaven.

  And see ye not that bonnie road

  That winds about the fernie brae?

  That is the road to fair Elfland,

  Where thou and I this night maun gae.

  It is the bonnie road that winds about the fernie brae that draws the disillusioned on, that attracts the man who feels that he has insufficiently explored, tested, or given opportunities to, his innermost nature. It lures on those who at moments wonder, with melancholy or anger, if they have denied a significant part of their own being.

  When I feel myself drawn, ineluctably as it seems, to return to Hastie’s Close, as if in search of some revelation which I both desire and fear, it is the bonnie road that winds about the fernie brae on which I have placed my foot.

  I went there for a third time the other night. I went with self-reproach, even self-contempt, having told myself time and again that I would not; yet I went, and as I advanced towards the dank and sinister place, a lively expectation drove the self-reproach from me. I did not know what I hoped for, had no notion what I expected. Yet even that is not a true statement of my sentiments, for I knew I was opening myself to the opportunity to cease for the moment to be Walter Scott, Bart, of Abbotsford, a celebrated public figure, and become if only briefly quite another Walter Scott, a being who had hitherto been confined and denied; perhaps I hoped to become True Thomas. I do not know.

  I turned off the Cowgate, my step unaccustomedly light, light as a bridegroom, it seems to me, on a long-awaited wedding day. A high wind sent clouds scudding over a thin moon, but it was still as the grave in the Close once I had rounded the corner and half-mounted the steps. Again: that silence as if the inhabitants of the surrounding houses had been stricken by some sleep-inducing fate. Again: that consciousness that in solitude I was not alone, though, as on my second visit, I saw no figures. Again: I pressed my back against the wall, receiving successive waves of heat and cold. And then a voice:

  And were you called to Elfland, cuddy,

  Where the white lilies bloom,

  Or to that mirk, mirk land, cuddy,

  The shades ayont the tomb.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I called and my voice was hoarse. ‘Answer me.’

  But look you now to the west, cuddy,

  And see what I show you there;

  A land o sic sweet delight, cuddy,

  Where the red rose scents the air.

  Come to a garden green, cuddy,

  Where the red apple grows on the tree,

  And there I’ll gie you your wage, cuddy,

  A tongue that can never lee.

  And there in the garden green, cuddy,

  Where the moonlicht fa’s on the flowers,

  There in the garden green, cuddy,

  We’ll pass our pleasant hours . . .

  The voice of an infinite sweetness died away, and I was like the lame boy who followed the Pied Piper and being slow found the door in the mountain barred against him; and I knew that the singer had been the slim girl, barefoot and with her head thrown back, as if laughing, though I had not seen her.

  And then the voice, which likewise I knew to be that of the old woman who had sat smoking a pipe, interrupted my reverie:

  ‘Aye, shirra,

  If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon

  Every nighte and alle,

  Sit thee down and put them on

  And Christe receive thy saule

  If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gavst nane,

  Every nighte and alle,

  The whinnes sail pricke thee to the bare bane

  – And Christe receive thy saule . . .’

  ‘Hosen and shoon he ne’er gave nane,’ said another voice.

  ‘Maybe so, maybe so,’ said the first old woman, ‘but he ance gave me snuff, and forbye for that he may pass the whinnes.’

  ‘Snuff’s nae hosen and shoon, hosen and shoon he ne’er gave nane – sae Christe receive his saule . . .’

  ‘Aye, biddy, but it was by the haund of my grandson that he gave me snuff, and forbye for that he may pass through the whinnes safe till Christe receive his saule . . .’

  Then the two dames cackled, and the fiddler from the shadows struck up a jaunty tune, mocking, sprightly and defiant.

  I called out to the old women to stay and answer the questions that I wished to put to them, but the fiddle drowned my words, and then the music retreated and died away, leaving a note of sadness lingering in the air. I knew that a promise had been offered me, and then withheld; and that it was a promise which I was eager to accept, though well-advised to fear the consequences.

  And the whins pricked me to the bare bone and even to the heart as I came away and turned for my lodging where I could look for no delight, not even for sweet repose, and then I looked back towards the close, and Dante’s line formed itself in the misty air: ‘Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’ entrate’. And yet it seemed that for a moment I had been offered hope – was it then a cheat, a sad delusion?

  12

  Waverley and Other Novels, 1805–28

  These chapters of narrative are a sort of balm, for it is agreeable, but not, I think, reprehensible, to turn from the perplexities of the moment, and recall happier times. Moreover it occurs to me now that the public may derive some interest from some aspects of my personal history, and may be pleased to learn how I came to undertake the writing of novels. Indeed, it may be that it will prove seemly for excerpts from this otherwise gloomy and introspective work to be published separately; and in any case they provide material on which Lockhart may draw. Moreover, young Cadell, in his enthusiasm for the magnum opus – an enthusiasm which, however ill-founded it may prove to be, does something to cheer my wounded spirit – is eager that I should write a General Introduction to his edition; and these notes may serve to enable me to collect my thoughts, to determine what should be included, and what concealed.

  Very well then: I was a story-teller from early youth. It was one of my chief pleasures, shared with an intimate friend of my boyhood (Mr John Irving, now a respected and distinguished Writer to the Signet, who may blush to find these childish follies brought to light). Indeed we were so addicted to the invention of narratives that we came to an agreement that each would prepare a story on alternate days, which he would tell to the other as we walked together. For this purpose we would frequent Arthur’s Seat, the Salisbury Crags, or the Braid Hills, all of which gave us pleasing and Romantic views over our city, and which we deemed therefore to be well-suited to our present purpose. These locations had also the happy effect of separating us from our fellows, for we were conscious that the practice of recounting to each other tales of chivalry, Border warfare, or the supernatural in which the characters were engaged in ‘dark dealings with the fiendish race’, would naturally expose us to mockery, which, both being proud, we would have bitterly resented.

  Then during my long illness in adolescence of which I have already written, I not only elaborated fantastic narratives to myself a
s I lay condemned to silence, but read with a voracity that astonishes me today. My mother procured for me romances and other tales of chivalry from the circulating library, originally established, I believe, by the celebrated poet Allan Ramsay (father of the Court Painter to George III, the delicacy of whose work renders elegant even that sturdy and homely Court). Moreover, at this time, I got my teeth into more substantial fare: memoirs, history, biography and what are called belles-lettres; and in this manner accumulated a store of knowledge, which I might even term ‘treasure’, on which I have drawn ever since.

  The success of a few ballads and longer poems drew me out of the way of life in which I had first set my feet, and won me a certain literary reputation, which pleased me, though I could not think as highly of these works as some of the most generous enthusiasts for them contrived to do. Then, I know not how, the desire to attempt something new in prose fiction grew upon me. I was a great admirer of the novelists of the last century, especially of Henry Fielding, who strove to raise the prose romance to the level of the epic; and I conceived that I had in my native Scotland a subject which merited such treatment.

  I was fortunate to have met in my youth a number of elderly gentlemen who had been ‘out in the Forty-five’ as the saying went, including one who in my childhood was my particular hero, for I saw him often, he being a client of my father. This was Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle, who had great glamour in my eyes, since he had not only fought at Sheriffmuir, and later served the Prince, but had also on one occasion crossed swords with the great bandit-chief, Rob Roy MacGregor himself. Once, greatly daring, I inquired of Mr Stewart whether he had ever been afraid in battle.

  ‘Troth, Walter, my wee darling,’ he replied, ‘the first time I gaed into action, when I saw a’ the redcoats rank afore us, and our people put up their bonnets to say a bit prayer, and then scrug them doon ower their een, and set forrard like bulls driving each ither on and beginning to fire their guns, and draw their broadswords, I would hae gien ony man a thousand merks to insure me I wadna rin awa.’