Monastery

by Sir Walter Scott





INTRODUCTION--(1830.)

It would be difficult to assign any good reason why the author of
Ivanhoe, after using, in that work, all the art he possessed to remove
the personages, action, and manners of the tale, to a distance from
his own country, should choose for the scene of his next attempt the
celebrated ruins of Melrose, in the immediate neighbourhood of his own
residence. But the reason, or caprice, which dictated his change of
system, has entirely escaped his recollection, nor is it worth while
to attempt recalling what must be a matter of very little consequence.

The general plan of the story was, to conjoin two characters in that
bustling and contentious age, who, thrown into situations which gave
them different views on the subject of the Reformation, should, with
the same sincerity and purity of intention, dedicate themselves, the
one to the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the
other to the establishment of the Reformed doctrines. It was
supposed that some interesting subjects for narrative might be
derived from opposing two such enthusiasts to each other in the path
of life, and contrasting the real worth of both with their passions
and prejudices. The localities of Melrose suited well the scenery of
the proposed story; the ruins themselves form a splendid theatre for
any tragic incident which might be brought forward; joined to the
vicinity of the fine river, with all its tributary streams, flowing
through a country which has been the scene of so much fierce
fighting, and is rich with so many recollections of former times,
and lying almost under the immediate eye of the author, by whom they
were to be used in composition.

The situation possessed farther recommendations. On the opposite bank
of the Tweed might be seen the remains of ancient enclosures,
surrounded by sycamores and ash-trees of considerable size. These had
once formed the crofts or arable ground of a village, now reduced to a
single hut, the abode of a fisherman, who also manages a ferry. The
cottages, even the church which once existed there, have sunk into
vestiges hardly to be traced without visiting the spot, the
inhabitants having gradually withdrawn to the more prosperous town of
Galashiels, which has risen into consideration, within two miles of
their neighbourhood. Superstitious eld, however, has tenanted the
deserted groves with aerial beings, to supply the want of the mortal
tenants who have deserted it. The ruined and abandoned churchyard of
Boldside has been long believed to be haunted by the Fairies, and the
deep broad current of the Tweed, wheeling in moonlight round the foot
of the steep bank, with the number of trees originally planted for
shelter round the fields of the cottagers, but now presenting the
effect of scattered and detached groves, fill up the idea which one
would form in imagination for a scene that Oberon and Queen Mab might
love to revel in. There are evenings when the spectator might
believe, with Father Chaucer, that the

--Queen of Faery,
With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
Were dwelling in the place.

Another, and even a more familiar refuge of the elfin race, (if
tradition is to be trusted,) is the glen of the river, or rather
brook, named the Allen, which falls into the Tweed from the northward,
about a quarter of a mile above the present bridge. As the streamlet
finds its way behind Lord Sommerville's hunting-seat, called the
Pavilion, its valley has been popularly termed the Fairy Dean, or
rather the Nameless Dean, because of the supposed ill luck attached by
the popular faith of ancient times, to any one who might name or
allude to the race, whom our fathers distinguished as the Good
Neighbours, and the Highlanders called Daoine Shie, or Men of Peace;
rather by way of compliment, than on account of any particular idea of
friendship or pacific relation which either Highlander or Borderer
entertained towards the irritable beings whom they thus distinguished,
or supposed them to bear to humanity. [Footnote: See Rob Roy, Note,
p. 202.]

In evidence of the actual operations of the fairy people even at this
time, little pieces of calcareous matter are found in the glen after a
flood, which either the labours of those tiny artists, or the eddies
of the brook among the stones, have formed into a fantastic
resemblance of cups, saucers, basins, and the like, in which children
who gather them pretend to discern fairy utensils.

Besides these circumstances of romantic locality, _mea paupera
regna_ (as Captain Dalgetty denominates his territory of
Drumthwacket) are bounded by a small but deep lake, from which eyes
that yet look on the light are said to have seen the waterbull ascend,
and shake the hills with his roar.

Indeed, the country around Melrose, if possessing less of romantic
beauty than some other scenes in Scotland, is connected with so many
associations of a fanciful nature, in which the imagination takes
delight, as might well induce one even less attached to the spot than
the author, to accommodate, after a general manner, the imaginary
scenes he was framing to the localities to which he was partial. But
it would be a misapprehension to suppose, that, because Melrose may in
general pass for Kennaquhair, or because it agrees with scenes of the
Monastery in the circumstances of the drawbridge, the milldam, and
other points of resemblance, that therefore an accurate or perfect
local similitude is to be found in all the particulars of the picture.
It was not the purpose of the author to present a landscape copied
from nature, but a piece of composition, in which a real scene, with
which he is familiar, had afforded him some leading outlines. Thus the
resemblance of the imaginary Glendearg with the real vale of the
Allen, is far from being minute, nor did the author aim at identifying
them. This must appear plain to all who know the actual character of
the Glen of Allen, and have taken the trouble to read the account of
the imaginary Glendearg. The stream in the latter case is described
as wandering down a romantic little valley, shifting itself, after the
fashion of such a brook, from one side to the other, as it can most
easily find its passage, and touching nothing in its progress that
gives token of cultivation. It rises near a solitary tower, the abode
of a supposed church vassal, and the scene of several incidents in the
Romance.

The real Allen, on the contrary, after traversing the romantic ravine
called the Nameless Dean, thrown off from side to side alternately,
like a billiard ball repelled by the sides of the table on which it
has been played, and in that part of its course resembling the stream
which pours down Glendearg, may be traced upwards into a more open
country, where the banks retreat farther from each other, and the vale
exhibits a good deal of dry ground, which has not been neglected by
the active cultivators of the district. It arrives, too, at a sort of
termination, striking in itself, but totally irreconcilable with the
narrative of the Romance. Instead of a single peel-house, or border
tower of defence, such as Dame Glendinning is supposed to have
inhabited, the head of the Allen, about five miles above its junction
with the Tweed, shows three ruins of Border houses, belonging to
different proprietors, and each, from the desire of mutual support so
natural to troublesome times, situated at the extremity of the
property of which it is the principal messuage. One of these is the
ruinous mansion-house of Hillslap, formerly the property of the
Cairncrosses, and now of Mr. Innes of Stow; a second the tower of
Colmslie, an ancient inheritance of the Borthwick family, as is
testified by their crest, the Goat's Head, which exists on the ruin;
[Footnote: It appears that Sir Walter Scott's memory was not quite
accurate on these points. John Borthwick, Esq. in a note to the
publisher, (June I1, 1813.) says that _Colmslie_ belonged to Mr.
Innes of Stow, while _Hillslap_ forms part of the estate of
Crookston. He adds--"In proof that the tower of Hillslap, which I have
taken measures to preserve from injury, was chiefly in his head, as
the tower of _Glendearg,_ when writing the Monastery, I may
mention that, on one of the occasions when I had the honour of being a
visiter at Abbotsford, the stables then being full, I sent a pony to
be put up at our tenant's at Hillslap:--'Well.' said Sir Walter, 'if
you do that, you must trust for its not being _lifted_ before
to-morrow, to the protection of Halbert Glendinning: against Christie
of the Clintshill.' At page 58, vol. iii., the first edition, the
'_winding_ stair' which the monk ascended is described. The
winding stone stair is still to be seen in Hillslap, but not in either
of the other two towers" It is. however, probable, from the
Goat's-Head crest on Colmslie, that that tower also had been of old a
possession of the Borthwicks.] a third, the house of Langshaw, also
ruinous, but near which the proprietor, Mr. Baillie of Jerviswood and
Mellerstain, has built a small shooting box.

All these ruins, so strangely huddled together in a very solitary
spot, have recollections and traditions of their own, but none of them
bear the most distant resemblance to the descriptions in the Romance
of the Monastery; and as the author could hardly have erred so grossly
regarding a spot within a morning's ride of his own house, the
inference is, that no resemblance was intended. Hillslap is remembered
by the humours of the last inhabitants, two or three elderly ladies,
of the class of Miss Raynalds, in the Old Manor House, though less
important by birth and fortune. Colmslie is commemorated in song:--

Colmslie stands on Colmslie hill.
The water it flows round Colmslie mill;
The mill and the kiln gang bonnily.
And it's up with the whippers of Colmslie.

Langshaw, although larger than the other mansions assembled at the
head of the supposed Glendearg, has nothing about it more remarkable
than the inscription of the present proprietor over his shooting
lodge--_Utinam hane eliam viris impleam amicis_--a modest wish,
which I know no one more capable of attaining upon an extended scale,
than the gentleman who has expressed it upon a limited one.

Having thus shown that I could say something of these desolated
towers, which the desire of social intercourse, or the facility of
mutual defence, had drawn together at the head of this Glen, I need
not add any farther reason to show, that there is no resemblance
between them and the solitary habitation of Dame Elspeth Glendinning.
Beyond these dwellings are some remains of natural wood, and a
considerable portion of morass and bog; but I would not advise any who
may be curious in localities, to spend time in looking for the
fountain and holly-tree of the White Lady.

While I am on the subject I may add, that Captain Clutterbuck, the
imaginary editor of the Monastery, has no real prototype in the
village of Melrose or neighbourhood, that ever I saw or heard of. To
give some individuality to this personage, he is described as a
character which sometimes occurs in actual society--a person who,
having spent his life within the necessary duties of a technical
profession, from which he has been at length emancipated, finds
himself without any occupation whatever, and is apt to become the prey
of ennui, until he discerns some petty subject of investigation
commensurate to his talents, the study of which gives him employment
in solitude; while the conscious possession of information peculiar to
himself, adds to his consequence in society. I have often observed,
that the lighter and trivial branches of antiquarian study are
singularly useful in relieving vacuity of such a kind, and have known
them serve many