Sir Walter Scott | Page 6

and
shells in order laid, The mimic ranks of war display'd; And onward still
the Scottish lion bore, And still the scattered Southron fled before. Still,
with vain fondness, could I trace Anew each kind familiar face That
brighten'd at our evening fire! From the thatch'd mansion's grey-hair'd
sire, Wise without learning, plain and good, And sprung of Scotland's
gentler blood; Whose eye in age, quick, clear, and keen, Show'd what
in youth its glance had been; Whose doom discording neighbours
sought, Content with equity unbought; To him the venerable priest, Our
frequent and familiar guest, Whose life and manners well could paint
Alike the student and the saint; Alas! whose speech too oft I broke
With gambol rude and timeless joke; For I was wayward, bold, and
wild, A self-will'd imp, a grandame's child; But, half a plague and half
a jest, Was still endured, beloved, caress'd."
A picture this of a child of great spirit, though with that spirit was
combined an active and subduing sweetness which could often conquer,
as by a sudden spell, those whom the boy loved. Towards those,
however, whom he did not love he could be vindictive. His relative, the
laird of Raeburn, on one occasion wrung the neck of a pet starling,
which the child had partly tamed. "I flew at his throat like a wild-cat,"
he said, in recalling the circumstance, fifty years later, in his journal on
occasion of the old laird's death; "and was torn from him with no little
difficulty." And, judging from this journal, I doubt whether he had ever
really forgiven the laird of Raeburn. Towards those whom he loved but
had offended, his manner was very different. "I seldom," said one of his

tutors, Mr. Mitchell, "had occasion all the time I was in the family to
find fault with him, even for trifles, and only once to threaten serious
castigation, of which he was no sooner aware, than he suddenly sprang
up, threw his arms about my neck and kissed me." And the quaint old
gentleman adds this commentary:--"By such generous and noble
conduct my displeasure was in a moment converted into esteem and
admiration; my soul melted into tenderness, and I was ready to mingle
my tears with his." This spontaneous and fascinating sweetness of his
childhood was naturally overshadowed to some extent in later life by
Scott's masculine and proud character, but it was always in him. And
there was much of true character in the child behind this sweetness. He
had wonderful self-command, and a peremptory kind of good sense,
even in his infancy. While yet a child under six years of age, hearing
one of the servants beginning to tell a ghost-story to another, and well
knowing that if he listened, it would scare away his night's rest, he
acted for himself with all the promptness of an elder person acting for
him, and, in spite of the fascination of the subject, resolutely muffled
his head in the bed-clothes and refused to hear the tale. His sagacity in
judging of the character of others was shown, too, even as a school-boy;
and once it led him to take an advantage which caused him many
compunctions in after-life, whenever he recalled his skilful puerile
tactics. On one occasion--I tell the story as he himself rehearsed it to
Samuel Rogers, almost at the end of his life, after his attack of
apoplexy, and just before leaving England for Italy in the hopeless
quest of health--he had long desired to get above a schoolfellow in his
class, who defied all his efforts, till Scott noticed that whenever a
question was asked of his rival, the lad's fingers grasped a particular
button on his waistcoat, while his mind went in search of the answer.
Scott accordingly anticipated that if he could remove this button, the
boy would be thrown out, and so it proved. The button was cut off, and
the next time the lad was questioned, his fingers being unable to find
the button, and his eyes going in perplexed search after his fingers, he
stood confounded, and Scott mastered by strategy the place which he
could not gain by mere industry. "Often in after-life," said Scott, in
narrating the manoeuvre to Rogers, "has the sight of him smote me as I
passed by him; and often have I resolved to make him some reparation,
but it ended in good resolutions. Though I never renewed my

acquaintance with him, I often saw him, for he filled some inferior
office in one of the courts of law at Edinburgh. Poor fellow! I believe
he is dead; he took early to drinking."[4]
Scott's school reputation was one of irregular ability; he "glanced like a
meteor from one end of the class to the other," and received more