Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “Mine! oh no! they are the sons of Glengyle — the Laird of Glengyle, he who lives at the upper end of the lake yonder — McGreggor, that is, the McGreggor, the chief of the McGreggor clan.”

  Rob Roy and his wife and children rose up before my imagination. Times have finely changed. It may be a satisfaction to you, and all who admire Rob Roy, to know that his burial-place is in a pretty, peaceful green valley, where none will disturb him; and all will remember him for ages, thanks to Walter Scott, a man he never kenned of, nor any of his second-sighted seers. By the bye, Harriet on our journey read Rob Roy to me, and I liked it ten times better than at the first reading. My eagerness for the story being satisfied, I could stop to admire the beauty of the writing: this happens to many, I believe, on a second perusal of Scott’s works.

  FINISHED AT TYNDRUM.

  Very good inn at Callander, and another at Loch Katrine — both raised by the genius of Scott as surely and almost as quickly as the slave of the lamp raises the palace of Aladdin. We spent one day and part of another at Callander and Loch Katrine, and yesterday went to, and slept at, Killin, along a very beautiful, fine, wild, romantic road. At Killin took a very pretty walk before tea, of about two miles and a half, and back again, to see a waterfall, which fully answered our expectations: you see, I am very strong. I had taken another walk in the morning to see the Bridge of Brackland, another beautiful waterfall, with a six-inch bridge over a chasm of rocks, which looked as if they had been built together to imitate nature.

  We are reading Reginald Dalton, and like it very much, the second volume especially, which will be very useful, I think, and is very interesting. I am sure Mr. Lockhart describes his own wife’s singing when he describes Ellen’s.

  We hope to reach King’s House to-night, and at Inverness we hope to find letters from home. We are all well and happy, and this I am sure is the most agreeable thing I can end with.

  To MISS RUXTON. INVERNESS, BENNET’S HOTEL, July 3, 1823.

  I sent a shabby note to my aunt some days ago, merely to tell her that we had seen Roslin; and Sophy wrote from Fort William of our visit to Fern Tower: good house, fine place; Sir David Baird a fine old soldier, without an arm, but with a heart and a head: warm temper, as eager about every object, great or small, as a boy of fifteen. He swallows me, though an authoress, wonderful well.

  Our Highland tour has afforded me and my companions great pleasure; Sophy has enjoyed it thoroughly. William has had a number of objects in his own line to interest him. From Fort William, which is close to Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain, we went to see a natural or artificial curiosity called the Parallel Roads. On each side of a valley called Glenroy, through which the river Roy runs, there appear several lines of terraces at different heights, corresponding to each other on each side of the valley at the same height. These terrace-roads are not quite horizontal; they slope a little from the mountains. The learned are at this moment fighting, in writing, much about these roads. Some will have it that, in the days of Fingal, the Fingalians made them for hunting-roads, to lie in ambush and shoot the deer from these long lines. Others suppose that the roads were made by the subsiding of a lake, which at different periods sank in this valley, and at last made its way out. The roads, however made, are well worth seeing. We had a most agreeable guide, not a professed guide, but a Highlander of the Macintosh clan, an enthusiast for the beauties of his own country, and, like the Swiss Chamouni guides, quite a well-informed and, moreover, a fine-looking man, with an air of active, graceful independence; of whom it might be said or sung, “He’s clever in his walking.” He spoke English correctly, but as a foreign language, with book choice of expressions; no colloquial or vulgar phrases. He often seemed to take time to translate his thoughts from the Gaelic into English. He knew Scott’s works, Rob Roy especially, and knew all the theories about the Parallel Roads, and explained them sensibly; and gave us accounts of the old family feuds between his own Macintosh clan and the Macdonalds, pointing to places where battles were fought, with a zeal which proved the feudal spirit still lives in its ashes. When he found we were Irish, he turned to me, and all reserve vanishing from his countenance, with brightening eyes he said, as he laid his hand on his breast, “And you are Irish! Now I know that, I would do ten times as much for you if I could than when I thought you were Southerns or English. We think the Irish have, like ourselves, more spirit.” He talked of Ossian, and said the English could not give the force of the original Gaelic. He sang a Gaelic song for us, to a tune like “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning.” He called St. Patrick Phaedrig, by which name I did not recognise him; and our Highlander exclaimed, “Don’t you know your own saint?” Sophy sang the tune for him, with which he was charmed; and when he heard William call her Sophy, he said to himself, “Sophia Western.”

  The next day we took a beautiful walk to the territory and near the residence of Lochiel, through a wood where groups of clansmen and clanswomen were barking trees that had been cut down; and the faggoting and piling the bark was as picturesque as heart could wish.

  This day’s journey was through fine wild Highland scenery, where rocks and fragments of rocks were tumbled upon each other, as if by giants in a passion, and now and then by giants playing at bowls with huge round bowls. These roads — some of them for which we “lift up our eyes and bless Marshal Wade,” and some made by Telford, the vast superiority in the laying out of which William has had the pleasure of pointing out to his sisters — beautifully wind over hill and through valley, by the sides of streams and lakes. We saw the eight locks joining together on the Caledonian Canal, called Neptune’s Stairs; and at another place on the canal William, who had been asleep, instinctively wakened just in time to see a dredging machine at work: we stopped the carriage, and walked down to look at it: took a boat and rowed round the vessel, and went on board and saw the machinery. A steam-engine works an endless chain of buckets round and round upon a platform with rollers. The buckets have steel mouthpieces, some with quite sharp projecting lips, which cut into the sand and gravelly bottom, and scoop up what fills each bucket. At the bottom of each are cullender holes, through which the water drains off as the buckets go on and pass over the platform and empty themselves on an inclined plane, down which the contents fall into a boat, which rows away when full, and deposits the contents wherever wanted. If you ever looked at a book at Edgeworthstown called Machines Approuvés, you would have the image of this machine. It brought my father’s drawings of the Rhone machine before my eyes.

  The whole day’s drive was delightful — mountains behind mountains as far as the eye could reach, in every shade, from darkest to palest Indian-ink cloud colour; an ocean of mountains, with perpetually changing foreground of rocks, sometimes bare as ever they were born, sometimes wooded better than ever the hand of mortal taste clothed a mountain in reality or in picture, with oak, aspen, and the beautiful pendant birch.

  At Fort Augustus the house was painting, and the beds looked wretched; but all was made plausible with the help of fires and fair words, and we slept as well, or better, than kings and queens. As to any real inconvenience at Highland inns, we have met with none; always good fish, good eggs, good butter, and good humour.

  Next day we had another delightful drive: saw the Fall of Foyers: fine scrambling up and down to a rock, and on this rock such huge tumbledown stones, like Druids’ temples, half-fallen, half-suspended. The breath was almost taken away and head dizzy looking at them above and the depth below; one could hardly believe we stood safe. Yet here we are safe and sound at Inverness, the Capital of the North, as Scott calls it. This Bennet’s Hotel, where we are lodged, is as good as any in London or Edinburgh, and cleaner than almost any I ever was in, with a waiter the perfection of intelligence. We are going to see a place called the Dream, the name translated from the Gaelic.

  I forgot to tell you that, when at Edinburgh, we went to see Sir James and Lady Foulis’s friends, the Jardines, who were also friends of Henry’s. They are in a v
ery pretty house, Laverock Bank, a few miles from Edinburgh. We “felicity hunters” have found more felicity than such hunters usually meet with.

  To MISS LUCY EDGEWORTH. KINROSS, July 23, 1823.

  I left off in my yesterday’s letter to my mother just as we were changing horses at Dunkeld, at six o’clock in the evening, to go on to Perth; but I had in that note arrived prematurely at Dunkeld, and had not time to fill up the history of our day. Be pleased, therefore, to go back to Moulinan, and see us eat luncheon; for, in spite of Mr. Grant’s contempt of these bon-vivant details, habit will not allow me to depart from my Swiss, Parisian, and English practice of giving the bill of fare.

  First course, cold: two roast chickens, better never were; a ham, finer never seen, even at my mother’s luncheons; pickled salmon, and cold boiled round.

  Second course, hot: a large dish of little trout from the river; new potatoes, and, as I had professed to be unable to venture on new potatoes, a dish of mashed potatoes for me; fresh greens, with toast over, and poached eggs.

  Then, a custard pudding, a gooseberry tart, and plenty of Highland cream — highly superior to Lowland — and butter, ditto.

  And for all this how much did we pay? Six shillings.

  Our drive in evening sunshine from Moulinan to Dunkeld was delightful, along the banks, no longer of the dear little, sparkling, foaming, fretting Garry, but of the broad, majestic, quiet, dark bottle-green coloured Tay; the road a perfect gravel walk; the bank, all the way down between us and the river, copsewood, with now and then a clump of fine tall larch, or a single ash or oak, with spreading branches showing the water beneath; the mountain side chiefly oak and alder, a tree which I scarcely knew till Sophy mentioned it to me; sometimes the wood broken with glades of fern, heath, and young stubble oaks, all the way up to white rocks on the summit; the young shoots of these stubble oaks tinted with pink, so as to have in the evening sun the appearance of autumn rich tints; and between these oaks and the green fern and broom a giant race of foxglove, which I verily believe, from the root to the spike, would measure four good feet, all rich in bells of brightest crimson, so bright that they crimsoned the whole bank.

  All these ten miles of wooded road run, I understand, through the territory of the Duke of Athol. Now I see his possessions, I am sure I do not wonder the lady left her lack-gold lover in the lurch for “Athol’s duke.” Along the whole road he has raised a footpath, beautifully gravelled. Oh! how I wish our walks had one inch off the surface of this footpath, or that the African magician, or the English equally potent magician of steam, could convey to my mother’s elbow in the Dingle one yard of one bank of the gravel which here wastes its pebbles on the mountain side! How in a trice she would summon round her her choice spirits, Briny Duffy, Micky Mulheeran, and Mackin, and how they would with shovel and loy fall to!

  Through the wood at continual openings we saw glimpses of beautiful paths or gravelled walks, which this munificent duke has made through his woods for the accommodation of the public. I forgive him for being like an over-ripe Orleans plum, and for not saying a word, good or bad, the day we met him at Mr. Morrit’s.

  At Dunkeld, alas! we bade adieu to the dear Highlands. I have not time now to tell you of Killiecrankie and Dundee’s Stone.

  Arrived at Perth at nine o’clock: tea, with silver urn and silver candlesticks, and all luxurious: cold chicken, ham, and marmalade inclusive.

  The drive from Perth this morning to Kinross is beautiful, but in a more civilised and less romantic way than our Highland scenery. We are now within view of Lochleven, Queen Mary’s island.

  During this morning’s drive, Sophy sang “In April, when primroses blow” most charmingly. Her singing was much admired in Edinburgh by Sir Walter Scott, etc., but still more at Mrs. Macpherson’s. One day, she sang several of Moore’s melodies, and some Scotch songs. Mrs. Macpherson, who is excessively fond of music, was so charmed, she told me afterwards she never heard a voice she thought so sweet and clear, and unaffected. She rejoiced to hear it without music, or any accompaniment that could drown it, or spoil its distinct simplicity. She observed what a charm there is in her distinct pronunciation of the words, in her just emphasis, and in her never forgetting the words, or keeping you in any anxiety for her, or requiring to be pressed. “How delightful,” said she, “to have such an accomplishment, such a power to please always with her, without requiring instruments, or music-books, or any preparation.” I was afraid her singing of Scotch might not suit the Scotch, and she never ventured it till we were at Mrs. Macpherson’s, who was quite charmed with it. Indeed, her soft voice is very different from the screeching some songstresses make, with vast execution. I am particularly full of the pleasure of Sophy’s singing at present, because I felt so much delight from it when I was just recovering from my illness. I did not think it was in the nature of my body or soul to feel so much pleasure from singing or music; but the fact is as I tell you. After three nights of pulse at ninety-six and delirium, in which I one night saw the arches of Roslin Chapel, with roses of such brilliant light crowning them that I shut my eyes to avoid the blaze; and another night was haunted with the words “a soldier [Footnote: Miss Edgeworth had been reading Stewart’s History of Highland Regiments the day before she was taken ill with an attack of erysipelas.] of the forty-second has lost his portmanteau,” and continual marching and countermarching, and rummaging of Highland officers and privates in search of it, and an officer laughing at me and saying, “Don’t you know this is a common Highland saying, A soldier of the forty-second has lost his portmanteau? It means” — but he never could or would tell me what it meant, when another officer said, “Madam, there is a Lowland saying to match it”; and this also I could never hear. Another night the words of a song called the “Banks of Aberfeldy” crossed my imagination, and a fat, rubicund man stood before me, continually telling me that he was “John Aberfeldy, the happy.” I cannot tell you how this John Aberfeldy tormented me. After these three horrible nights, when I awoke with my tongue so parched I could not speak till a spoonful of lemon-juice was inserted, I asked Sophy to sing, and she directly sang, “Dear harp of my country.” I never shall forget the sort of pleasure; it soothed, it “rapt my” willing not my “imprisoned soul in elysium,” and I was so happy to feel I could again follow a rational chain of ideas, and comprehend the words of the beautiful poetry, to which music added such a charm and force. She sang, “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,” and “Farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour,” and “Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi’ me?” and “Vive Henri Quatre!” which I love for the sake of Mrs. Henry Hamilton, and for the sake of Lady Longford’s saying to me, with a mother’s pride and joy in her enthusiastic eyes, “My Caroline will sing to me at any time, in any inn, or anywhere.” I am sure I may say the same of my sister Sophy, who will sing for me at an inn by my sick bed, and with more power of voice than all the stimulus of company and flattery can draw from other young ladies. I never wish to hear a fine singer; I always agree with Dr. Johnson in wishing that the difficulties had been impossibilities, with all their falsettos and tortures of affectation to which they put themselves. How I hate them, and all the aimings at true Italian pronunciation and true Italian manner, which after all is, nine times out of ten, quite erroneous, and such as the Italians themselves would laugh at, or most probably no more comprehend than I did De Leuze repeating the “Botanic Garden”: I was just going to ask what language it was, when my mother, good at need, saved me from the irreparable blunder by whispering, “It is English.” The words were, I believe, all right, but the accents were all thrown wrong. As Lady Spencer said, “It is wonderful that foreigners never by accident throw the accents right.” Milton says:

  For eloquence the soul, song moves the sense;

  but if he had heard Moore’s poetry sung by Sophy, he would have acknowledged that song moved not only the sense, but the soul.

  I have dilated upon this to you, my dear Lucy, because you have at times felt
the same about Sophy’s singing. During my illness, day and night, whenever pain and delirium allowed me rational thought, you and your admirable patience recurred to my mind. I said to myself, “How can she bear it so well, and in her young days, the spring-time of life? how admirable is her resignation and cheerfulness! never a cross word, or cross look, or impatient gesture, and for four years; when I, with all my strength of experience and added philosophy from education, moan and groan aloud, and can scarce bear ten days’ illness, with two really angel sisters to nurse me, and watch my ‘asking eye’!” You have at least the reward of my perfect esteem and admiration, after comparison with myself, the only true standard by which I can estimate your worth.

  * * * * *

  Miss Edgeworth and her sisters spent a most happy fortnight with Sir Walter Scott and his family. “Never,” writes his son-in-law, “did I see a brighter day at Abbotsford than that on which Miss Edgeworth first arrived there: never can I forget her look and accent when she was received by him at his archway, and exclaimed: ‘Everything about you is exactly what one ought to have had wit enough to dream!’”

  Sir Walter delighted in Miss Sophy Edgeworth’s singing, especially of Moore’s Irish melodies. “Moore’s the man for songs,” he said. “Campbell can write an ode, and I can make a ballad; but Moore beats us all at a song.” Sir Walter was then at the height of his fame and “in the glory of his prime,” surrounded by his family; both his sons were at home, and his daughter Anne; and he had then staying with him his nephew, “Little Walter.” Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart were living at Chiefswood, but they were continually at Abbotsford, or some of the party were continually at Chiefswood; and Sir Walter’s joyous manner and life of mind, his looks of fond pride in his children, the pleasantness of his easy manners, the gay walks, the evening conversations, and the drives in the sociable, enchanted Miss Edgeworth. In these drives the flow of story, poetry, wit, and wisdom never ceased; Sir Walter sitting with his dog Spicer on his lap, and Lady Scott with her dog Ourisk on her lap.