Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott to Daniel Terry, 12 March 1817
“Edinburgh, 12th March, 1817.
“I am now able to write to you on your own affairs,
though still as weak as water from the operations of the medical faculty, who,
I think, treated me as a recusant to their authority, and having me once at
advantage, were determined I should not have strength to rebel again in a
hurry. After all, I believe it was touch and go; and considering how much I
have to do for my own family and others, my elegy might have been that of the
Auld Man’s Mare—
‘The peats and turf are all to lead, What ail’d the beast to die?’ |
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You don’t mention the nature of your undertaking in your last, and
in your former you spoke both of the Black Dwarf and of Triermain. I have some doubts whether the town will endure a second
time the following up a well-known tale with a dramatic representation—and
there is no vis comica to redeem the
Black Dwarf, as in the case of
Dominie Sampson. I have thought of two
subjects for you, if, like the Archbishop’s homilies, they do not smell
of the apoplexy. The first is a noble and very dra-![]()
| 54 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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matic
tradition preserved in Galloway, which runs briefly thus:—The Barons of Plenton
(the family name, I think, was——by Jupiter, forgot!) boasted of great
antiquity, and formerly of extensive power and wealth, to which the ruins of
their huge castle, situated on an inland loch, still bear witness. In the
middle of the seventeenth century, it is said, these ruins were still inhabited
by the lineal descendant of this powerful family. But the ruinous halls and
towers of his ancestors were all that had descended to him, and he cultivated
the garden of the castle, and sold its fruits for a subsistence. He married in
a line suitable rather to his present situation than the dignity of his
descent, and was quite sunk into the rank of peasantry, excepting that he was
still called—more in mockery, or at least in familiarity, than in respect—the
Baron of Plenton. A causeway connected the castle with the mainland; it was cut
in the middle, and the moat only passable by a drawbridge which yet subsisted,
and which the poor old couple contrived to raise every night by their joint
efforts, the country being very unsettled at the time. It must be observed,
that the old man and his wife occupied only one apartment in the extensive
ruins, a small one adjoining to the drawbridge; the rest was waste and
dilapidated. As they were about to retire one night to rest, they were deterred
by a sudden storm, which, rising in the wildest manner possible, threatened to
bury them under the ruins of the castle. While they listened in terror to the
complicated sounds of thunder, wind, and rain, they were astonished to hear the
clang of hoofs on the causeway, and the voices of people clamouring for
admittance. This was a request not rashly to be granted. The couple looked out,
and dimly discerned through the storm that the causeway was crowded with
riders. ‘How many of you are there?’ demanded John.—‘Not more than the hall will ![]()
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hold,’ was the
answer; ‘but open the gate, lower the bridge, and do not keep the ladies in the rain.’
John’s heart was melted for the ladies, and,
against his wife’s advice, he undid the bolts, sunk the drawbridge, and
bade them enter in the name of God. Having done so, he instantly retired into
his sanctum sanctorum to await the
event, for there was something in the voices and language of his guests that
sounded mysterious and awful. They rushed into the castle, and appeared to know
their way through all its recesses. Grooms were heard hurrying their horses to
the stables—sentinels were heard mounting guard—a thousand lights gleamed from
place to place through the ruins, till at length they seemed all concentrated
in the baronial hall, whose range of broad windows threw a resplendent
illumination on the moss-grown court below. After a short time, a domestic,
clad in a rich but very antique dress, appeared before the old couple, and
commanded them to attend his lord and lady in the great hall. They went with
tottering steps, and to their great terror found themselves in the midst of a
most brilliant and joyous company; but the fearful part of it was, that most of
the guests resembled the ancestors of John’s family,
and were known to him by their resemblance to pictures which mouldered in the
castle, or by traditionary description. At the head, the founder of the race,
dressed like some mighty baron, or rather some Galwegian prince, sat with his
lady. There was a difference of opinion between these ghostly personages
concerning our honest John. The chief was inclined to
receive him graciously; the lady considered him, from his mean marriage, as
utterly unworthy of their name and board. The upshot is, that the chief
discovers to his descendant the means of finding a huge treasure concealed in
the castle; the lady assures him that the discovery shall never avail ![]()
| 56 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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him. In the morning no trace can be discovered of the
singular personages who had occupied the hall. But John sought for and
discovered the vault where the spoils of the Southrons were concealed, rolled
away the covering stone, and feasted his eyes on a range of massy chests of
iron, filled doubtless with treasure. As he deliberated on the best means of
bringing them up, and descending into the vault, he observed it began slowly to
fill with water. Baling and pumping were resorted to, and when he had exhausted
his own and his wife’s strength, they summoned the assistance of the
neighbourhood. But the vengeance of the visionary lady was perfect; the waters
of the lake had forced their way into the vault, and John,
after a year or two spent in draining and so forth, died broken-hearted, the
last baron of Plenton.
“Such is the tale, of which the incidents seem new,
and the interest capable of being rendered striking; the story admits of the
highest degree of decoration, both by poetry, music, and scenery, and I propose
(in behalf of my godson) to take some pains in dramatizing it. As thus you
shall play John, as you can speak a little Scotch; I will
make him what the Baron of Bradwardine
would have been in his circumstances, and he shall be alternately ludicrous
from his family pride and prejudices, contrasted with his poverty, and
respectable from his just and independent tone of feeling and character. I
think Scotland is entitled to have something on the stage to balance Macklin’s two worthies.* You understand
the dialect will be only tinged with the national dialect—not that the baron is
to speak broad Scotch, while all the others talk English. His wife and he shall
have one child, a daughter, suitored unto by the conceited young parson or
schoolmaster of
* Sir Archy
Mac-Sarcasm and Sir Pertinax
MacSycophant. |
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the village, whose addresses are
countenanced by her mother—and by Halbert the
hunter, a youth of unknown descent. Now this youth shall be the
rightful heir and representative of the English owners of the treasure, of
which they had been robbed by the baron’s ancestors, for which unjust act
their spirits still walked the earth. These, with a substantial character or
two, and the ghostly personages, shall mingle as they may—and the discovery of
the youth’s birth shall break the spell of the treasure-chamber. I will
make the ghosts talk as never ghosts talked in the body or out of it; and the
music may be as unearthly as you can get it. The rush of the shadows into the
castle shall be seen through the window of the baron’s apartment in the
flat scene. The ghosts’ banquet, and many other circumstances, may give
great exercise to the scene-painter and dresser. If you like this plan, you had
better suspend any other for the present. In my opinion it has the infinite
merit of being perfectly new in plot and structure, and I will set about the
sketch as soon as my strength is restored in some measure by air and exercise.
I am sure I can finish it in a fortnight then. Ever yours truly,
Charles Macklin (1699 c.-1797)
Irish-born actor and playwright, author of
The Man of the World
(1781).
Daniel Terry (1789-1829)
English actor; after a career in provincial theater made his London debut in 1812. A
close friend of Walter Scott, he performed in theatrical adaptations of Scott's
novels.
