Читать книгу The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 13

CHAPTER IX.

Scott’s apprenticeship lasted from his fourteenth year to his nineteenth. Before it closed, his decision had been made to adopt the profession of advocacy rather than that of an attorney, and even this choice is ascribed by Lockhart to the influence of William Clerk, with which “another influence must have powerfully co-operated”. There is neither evidence nor inherent probability that either of these influences—to the second of which we have still to come—were exerted in such direction, or would have been decisive upon it. It is more reasonable to suppose that the decision came from Scott’s own inclination, and his father’s counsel.

At this time, his younger brother, Tom, had also entered the office. It was a business which might have found occupation for both, apart from which, Walter, as the elder may be said to have had the first claim. But it was not a matter, the Scotts being what they were, which was likely to be settled on such a point. Walter may have seemed to his father, and may have been, the more likely to succeed as a barrister. It had some obvious advantages for the brothers to divide their energies between the two branches of the profession. Tom was anxious to be an attorney, though he was certainly not of the temperament to object to Walter as a senior partner. There was a close and genuine affection between the brothers which would outlast the days of a common prosperity. Would Walter have succeeded as a solicitor? Would he have done better than Tom? It is hard to guess. Neither father nor sons were typical of the successful lawyer. They lacked the narrow cautious selfishness which is the lawyer’s safeguard. In spite of personal probity, and far more than average abilities, they had characteristics which might be more advantageous to their clients than to themselves and which might even threaten possibilities of final disaster in which client and attorney would have suffered together. It is a frequent paradoxical fact that (defaulting solicitors are not the worst of their kind. Not that there was any question of default here. The elder Walter was nearing the time when he could gradually withdraw himself, as his health weakened, from a long record of honourable practice. He had built up a flourishing business. If he had made some bad debts on a large scale, he had yet made good provision for a numerous family; he had lived in a state or increasing comfort, though without ostentation; and he had acquired considerable property.

Incidentally, he had at last brought to a triumphant conclusion certain litigation on behalf of Mr. Stewart of Appin (a brother of Alexander of Invernahyle of whom we know) against certain Maclarens, his insurgent tenants in the neighbourhood of Loch Katrine. There had been a legal process to be served personally by the Courts order upon these defeated litigants. Someone from the office must go. It is easy to imagine that Walter was an eager applicant for this rather perilous enterprise, which his father allowed him to undertake. The Highlands had become comparatively quiet since they were subdued after the ’45, but that the bearer of such a document would have a friendly reception was not a likely thing. Walter rode to Stirling alone, and obtained an escort of a sergeant and six men from the regiment stationed there. He found the sergeant to have a fund of anecdotes in which Rob Roy and himself were about equally prominent, and he picked his brains in the usual way. So, at eighteen, he rode into the Trossachs pass, which he was afterwards to immortalise as the scene of perhaps the best imaginary skirmish that the world’s literature contains, not with a twilight forest of southern spears, but with the glitter of six bayonets behind him to enforce his will.

The ‘other influence’ which Lockhart thinks may have inclined him to adopt the profession of the Bar, was the determination which he formed to marry Williamina Stuart, the daughter of Sir John Stuart Belches of Invermay. Lockhart appears to be impressed by a social gulf which he supposed would be lessened by the adoption of the higher branch of the legal profession. But here prejudice ignores fact. The obstacle (apart from the question of the girl’s own inclination) was not social but financial. Williamina was one of the richest heiresses in Scotland, but, even so, her parents did not oppose the intimacy. His decision involved two further years of unprofitable study, to be followed by the precarious income of those who commence to practice at the Bar. Had he adopted the attorney’s profession, he might have felt in a position to make a formal proposal of marriage two or three years earlier than he actually did, and very many things might have developed and ended differently.

But there is another reason why Lockhart’s suggestion that his desire to win Williamina Stuart influenced his decision on this matter cannot be regarded seriously. It is clear from Scott’s own account that the decision was taken before—and probably a considerable time before—the termination of his apprenticeship. His articles began when he was just over fourteen, and terminated shortly after his nineteenth birthday. Williamina was born in October 1776. She was a full five years younger than Walter, being just fourteen years old when his articles ended. It is certain that they were both young when they met, but it is, at least, improbable that he fell in love with her when she was thirteen. It is more probable that the acquaintance began when he had already commenced his studies for the Bar, and that it was the incentive which (as we shall shortly see) was to drag William Clerk out of bed a good deal earlier than that indolent gentleman had been accustomed to rise.

This probability is increased by Scott’s own statement that he had “three years of dreaming, and two of awakening”. Williamina married Willie Forbes on Jan. 19, 1797, her age then being twenty years and four months. If we conclude that the acquaintance began when Walter returned to Edinburgh after the vacation which followed the completion of his articles in the autumn or winter of 1790-91, everything else falls into line, and only Lockhart’s inherently improbable suggestion that she influenced his choice of a profession has to go to the scrap-heap.

He met her first, as the tale goes, in the porch of the Greyfriars Church. She had no umbrella and was faced by a sudden storm, so he offered his, and they went home together. That may have been the occasion on which they first spoke, but how long he may have desired such an opportunity of acquaintance is another matter. Sir John’s Edinburgh residence was near to George’s Square. They found (they may have known it before) that they went the same way home.... But they are not usually alone. Their two mothers come to church also. The elder ladies recognise each other. Thirty years ago, more or less, they were school friends, though they have not met since. They have common subjects of conversation. The Edinburgh pavements of that time were not adapted for four people to walk abreast. We may guess how the pairing went.

So far, all went well. The mothers did not oppose, and Williamina did not repulse. In fact, she gave a willing friendship at this time, if not more. She was observed to sit out dances with a boy whose lameness withheld him from that diversion. Walter’s father knew nothing of the growing intimacy. We may deduce that he had given up going to Church. He had the excuse of weakening health, though he appears to have been able to attend to his professional work for several subsequent years.

But the time came when Sir John and his family went back to Invermay, and Walter found that a holiday in that neighbourhood had become an urgent necessity. The obstinacy of his selection of the locality intrigued his father’s mind, and explanations followed.

His father did not directly oppose the acquaintance, but he was disturbed by doubts. Did Sir John know what was happening? It appeared that Sir John didn’t. Like Mr. Walter Scott he stands convicted by this ignorance. He also must have given up the habit of going to Church. Well, he must know Without telling his son, who, in fact, was in ignorance of the event until many years afterwards, he wrote to Sir John? telling him what his son’s position and prospects were. It led to nothing, for Sir John declined to interfere. We may conclude that it was the women—the two elder women—who had their way. There came a time when the younger woman had her way also—but that is looking ahead.