Part 6

Just as I was driven to despair, I fancied that the next building looked like a school; in I went, and a school it was. I had hopes of a Scotch schoolmaster. He is generally a scholar and a gentleman. The master was just hearing his last class of boys: I advanced to him, and told him that I must take the liberty to rest, for that I was outrageously tired and hungry, and was told that it was three miles to the next inn. He said it was true, but that it was not three hundred yards to his house, and he would have much pleasure in my accompanying him to tea. Never, of all the invitations to tea which I have received in the course of this tea-drinking life, did I ever receive so welcome a one as that! I flung off my knapsack, laid up my legs quite at my ease on a bench, and heard out the class with great satisfaction. Anon, the urchins were dismissed, and Mr. Tait, the master, a tall and somewhat thin young man, with a very intelligent and thoughtful face, declared himself ready to accompany me. I told him I wanted to visit the birthplace and grave of Hogg, and presented my card. "Ha!" exclaimed he, on reading the name, "why, we are not strangers, I find--we are old friends. A hearty welcome, Mr. Howitt, to Ettrick!" Mr. Tait was an old friend of Hogg's, too--the very man of all others that I should have sought out for my purpose. We were soon at a very handsome new cottage, with a capital garden, the upper end full of flowers, and the lower of most flourishing kitchen-garden produce. Tired as I was, I could not avoid staying to admire this garden, which was the master's own work; and was then introduced to his mother and sister. The old lady was in a consternation that, by one of those accidents that sometimes in mountainous districts afflict a whole country, the baker had upset his cart, broken his leg, and by his absence deprived all the vales from Moffat to the very top of Ettrick, namely, Upper Phaup, of wheaten bread. It was a circumstance that did not in the least trouble me, except on account of the lady's housewifery anxiety. An old friend of mine once said that he never knew the want of bread but once in his life, and then he made a good shift with pie-crust, and I made an actual feast on barley cake and tea.

The schoolmaster and I were now soon abroad, and on our way up the valley to Hogg's birthplace. Ettrick-house, where Hogg saw the light, according to the people, though according to his tombstone it was Ettrick-hall, on the opposite side of the valley, is now a new-built farm-house, standing within a square embankment, which is well grown with a row of fine trees. This marks the site of an old house, and no doubt was the site of Ettrick old house. But the house in which Hogg was born, or, if not born, where he lived as a child, was only a sort of hind's house, belonging to the old house. That, too, is now pulled clean down. Hogg, during his lifetime, never liked to hear its demolition proposed. Here he had lived as a child, and here he lived when grown up, and rented the farm, before going to Altrive. He used always to inquire of people from Ettrick, if the house really were yet destroyed. I believe it stood till after his death, but it is now quite gone. The bricklayers? There is no such thing here; all is built of the iron-like, hard whinstone of the hills;--the builders, then, with a sentiment which does honor to them, were reluctant to pull down the birthplace and home of the shepherd-poet; and, when obliged to do so, to mark and commemorate the exact spot, when they built the wall along the front of the ground which they cleared by the highway, built a large blue sort of stone upright in it. The stone is very conspicuous, by its singular hue and position, and on it they have subscribed the poet's initials, J. H. Ettrick-hall, as already said, lying on the opposite side of the valley, was in Hogg's father's hands. Afterward, in Mr. Brydon's, of Crosslee, with whom Hogg was shepherd. This Mr. Brydon, who, Hogg says, was the best friend their family had in the world, died worth £15,000; and, indeed, these sheep-farmers generally do well. There was a Mr. Grieve here, who used to live up the valley, at a house where I saw a vast flock of sheep collected, who was also a most excellent friend of Hogg's. Hogg had lived as a herd-boy at most of the houses in this valley, and from that association he laid the scene of most of his poems and tales here.

Hogg's birthplace and his grave are but a few hundred yards asunder. The kirk-yard of Ettrick is old, but the kirk is recent; 1824 is inscribed over the door. Like most of the country churches of Scotland, it is a plain fabric, plainly fitted up within with seats, and a plain pulpit. Such a thing as "a kist full of o' whitles" the Scotch can not endure. It is a curious fact, that neither in Scotland nor Ireland do you find those richly finished old parish churches that you do in England. This is significant of the ancient state of these countries. Catholic though they all were, neither Scotland nor Ireland could at any age pretend to any thing like the wealth of England. Hence, in those countries, the fine abbeys and cathedrals are rare, the parish churches are very plain; while, in England, spite of all the ravages of Puritanism, the country abounds with the noblest specimens of cathedral and convent architecture, and the very parish churches in obscure villages are often perfect gems of architecture and carving, even of the old Saxon period.

Ettrick kirk lifts its head in this quiet vale with a friendly air. It is built of the native adamantine rock, the whinstone; has a square battlemented tower; and, what looks singular, has, instead of Gothic ones, square doorways, and square, very tall sash windows. Hogg's grave lies in the middle of the kirk-yard. At its head stands a rather handsome headstone, with a harp sculptured on a border at the top, and this inscription beneath it:--"James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who was born at Ettrick Hall, 1770, and died at Altrive Lake, the 21st day of November, 1835."

After a wide space, left for other inscriptions, as of the widow and children, this is added:--"This stone is erected, as a tribute of affection, by his widow, Margaret Hogg."

As Hogg used to boast that he was born on the same day as Burns, and as this assertion was negatived by the parish register, we can not but admire the thoughtful delicacy which induced the widow to omit the day of his birth altogether, though carefully inserting the day of his death.

On the right hand of the poet's headstone stands another, erected by the shepherd himself, as follows: "Here lieth William Laidlaw, the far famed Will o' Phaup, who, for feats of frolic, agility, and strength, had no equal in that day. He was born at Ettrick, A.D. 1691, and died in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Also Margaret, his eldest daughter, spouse to Robert Hogg, and mother of the Ettrick Shepherd, born at Over Phaup in 1730, and died in the eighty-third year of her age. Also Robert Hogg, her husband, late tenant of Ettrick-hall, born at Bowhill, in 1729, and died in the ninety-third year of his age."

There are several curious particulars connected with these stones. Those which I have pointed out--Hogg's birthday being omitted; Ettrick-hall being given as his birthplace, yet the people asserting it to be Ettrick-house; and the much shorter life of the poet than those of his parents and ancestors. His father died at the age of ninety-three, his mother at eighty-three, his grandfather at eighty-four; he died at sixty-three. The poet had lived faster than his kindred. What he lost in duration of life he had more than made up in intensity. They held the quiet tenor of their way in their native vale; he had spread his life over the whole space occupied by the English language, and over generations to come. In his own pleasures, which were of a far higher character than theirs, he had made thousands and tens of thousands partakers. Many of Hogg's family and friends were not pleased at the memorial he thus gives to Will o' Phaup; but it is very characteristic of the Shepherd, who gloried as much himself in the sports, feats, and exploits of the borders, as in poetry.

Hogg, in his younger years, displayed much agility and strength in the border games, and in his matured years was often one of the umpires at them. In Lockhart's Life of Scott are related two especial occasions in which James Hogg figured in such games. One was of a famous football match, played on the classic mead of Carterhaugh, between the men of Selkirk and of Yarrow, when the Duke of Buccleugh, and numbers of other nobles and gentlemen, as well as ladies of rank, were present. When the different parties came to the ground with pipes playing, the Duke of Buccleugh raised his ancient banner, called the banner of Bellenden, which, being given by Lady Ann Scott to young Walter Scott, he rode round the field displaying it; and when Sir Walter led on the men of Selkirk, and the Earl of Home, with James Hogg as his aid-de-camp, led on the men of Yarrow. The other occasion was at the annual festival of St. Ronan's Well, when James Hogg used to preside as captain of the band of border bowmen, in Lincoln Green, with broad blue bonnets; and when, already verging on three score, he used often to join at the exploits of racing, wrestling, or hammer-throwing, and would carry off the prizes, to universal astonishment; afterward presiding, too, at the banquet in the evening, with great éclat, supported by Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Peter Robertson.

Another curious thing is, that he states himself, in his Life, to be one of four sons, and, on the headstone, that his father and _three_ sons lie there. Now he, himself, was living, of course, when he set up the stone, and his brother William still survives. There could, then, be but _two_, if he were one of _four_.

Hogg died at Altrive, but was buried here, as being his native parish; and, indeed, I question whether there be a nearer place where he could be buried, though Altrive is six miles off, and over the hills from one valley to another. His funeral must have been a striking thing in this solitary region--striking, not from the sensation it created, or the attendance of distinguished men, but from the absence of all this. The shepherd-poet went to his grave with little pomp or ceremony. Of all the great and the celebrated with whom he had associated in life, not an individual had troubled himself to go thus far to witness his obsequies, except that true-hearted man, Professor Wilson. An eye-witness says: "No particular solemnity seemed to attend the scene. The day was dull and dismal, windy and cloudy, and every thing looked bleak, the ground being covered with a sprinkling of snow. Almost the whole of the attendants were relatives and near neighbors, and most of them, with solid irreverence, were chatting about the affairs of the day. Professor Wilson remained for some time near the newly-covered grave, after all the rest had departed."

I walked over this road to Altrive, the day after my arrival in Ettrick. But before quitting Ettrick, I must remark, that every part of it presents objects made familiar by the Shepherd. At the lower end are Lord Napier's castle, Thirlstane, a quaint castellated house, with round towers, and standing in pleasant woodlands; and the remains of the old tower of Tushielaw, and its hanging-tree, the robber chief of which strong-hold James VI. surprised, and hanged on his own tree where he had hanged his victims, treating him with as little ceremony as he did Johnny Armstrong, and others of the like profession. All these the hearty and intelligent schoolmaster pointed out to me, walking on to the three-mile distant inn, and seeing me well housed there.

What is called Altrive Lake, the farm on the Yarrow, given for life by the Duke of Buccleugh to Hogg, and where he principally lived after leaving Ettrick, and where he died, stands in a considerable opening between the hills, at the confluence of several valleys, where the Douglas burn falls into the Yarrow. Thus, from some of the windows, you look up and down the vale of Yarrow, but where the vale has no very striking features. The hills are lower than on Ettrick, and at a greater distance, but of the same character, green and round. Shepherds are collecting their flocks; the water goes leaping along stony channels; you see, here and there, a small white farmhouse with its clump of trees, and a circular inclosure of stone wall for the sheep-fold. A solitary crow or gull flies past; there are black stacks of peat on the bogs, and on the hill-tops--for there are bogs there, too, and you perceive your approach to a house by the smell of peat. This is the character of the whole district.

Altrive Lake is, in truth, no lake at all. One had always a pleasant notion of Hogg's house standing on the borders of a cheerful little lake. I looked naturally for this lake in the wide opening between the streams and hills, but could see none. I inquired of the farmer who has succeeded Hogg, for this lake, and he said there never was one. Hogg, he said, had given it that dignified name, because a little stream, that runs close past the house, not Douglas burn, but one still less, is called the Trive Lake. The present farmer, who is an old, weather-beaten Scotchman, eighty-two years of age, but hardy, and pretty active, and well off in the world, expressed himself as quite annoyed with the name, and said it was not Altrive Lake; he would not have it so called. It should be Aldenhope, for it was now joined to his farm, which was the Alden farm. I believe the Altrive farm is but about a hundred acres, including sheep-walk on the hills, and lets for £45 a-year; but old Mr. Scott, the present tenant, has a larger and better farm adjoining; and in his old house, which is just above this, across the highway from Ettrick, but almost hidden in a hollow, he keeps his hinds. Hogg's house is apparently two white cottages, for the roof, in the middle, dips down like it, but it is really but one. It stands on a mound, in a very good and pleasant flower-garden. The garden is inclosed with palisades, and the steep bank down from the house, descending to the level of the garden, is gay with flowers. It has another flower-garden behind, for the tenant has his kitchen-garden at his other house; and around lie green meadows, and at a distance, slope away the green pastoral hills. As you look out at the front door, the Yarrow runs down the valley at the distance of, perhaps, a quarter of a mile on the left hand, with a steep scaur, or precipitous earthy bank, on its farther side, in full view, over the top of which runs the highway from Edinburgh to Galashiels. Down the valley, and on the other side of the water, lies, in full view also, the farm of Mount Benger, which Hogg took of the Duke of Buccleugh after he came to Altrive. It is much more inclosed and cultivated in tillage than Altrive. The house where Hogg lived, however, is now pulled down, all except one ruinous white wall, and a very capital farmhouse is built near it; with a quadrangle of trees, which must have been originally planted to shelter a house long ago gone.

An old farmer and his wife in the neighborhood, who seemed the last people in the world to admire poets or poetry, though very worthy people in their way, blamed Hogg extremely for taking Mount Benger. He was more fitted for books than for farming, said they. "Perhaps," I observed, "he did not find that little farm of Altrive enough to maintain him." "Why should he not?" asked they. "He had nothing to do there but look after his little flock--that was all he had to care for--and that was the proper business of a man that called himself the Ettrick Shepherd--as though there was never a shepherd in Ettrick beside himself. And if he wanted more income, had not he his pen, and was not he very popular with the periodicals? But he was always wanting to take great farms, without any money to stock them. He was hand and glove with great men in Edinburgh, Professor Wilson, and Scott, and the like; he was aye going to Abbotsford and Lord Napier's; and so he thought himself a very great man too, and Mrs. Hogg thought herself a great woman, and looked down on her neighbors. These poets think nothing's good enough for them. Hogg paid the duke no rent, but he caught his fish, and killed his game; he was a desperate fellow for fishing and shooting. If people did not do just what he wanted, he soon let them know his mind, and that without much ceremony. He wrote a very abusive letter to Sir Walter Scott, because he would not give him a poem to print when he asked him, and would not speak to him for months; and when he took Mount Benger he wrote to his generous friend, Mr. Grieve, of Ettrick, and desired him to send him £350 to stock the farm, which Mr. Grieve refused, because he knew that the scheme was a ruinous one; on which he wrote _him_ a very abusive letter, and would not speak to him for years. The upshot was, that he failed, and paid eighteenpence in the pound; and yet the duke, though he got no rent, allows the widow the rental of Altrive."

It is curious to hear the estimation that a man is held in by his neighbors. It is generally the case, that a man who raises himself above those with whom he set out on equal or inferior terms in life, is regarded with a very jealous feeling. I found Grace Darling denied all merit by those of her own class in her own neighborhood. Hogg, who is admired by the more intellectual of his countrymen, is still, in the eyes of the now matter-of-fact sheep farmers of Ettrick and Yarrow, regarded only as an aspiring man, and bad farmer. They can not comprehend why he should be so much more regarded than themselves, who are great at market, great on the hills, and pay every man, and lay up hard cash. Yet these men who pay eighteen pence in the pound, have farms for nothing, and their families after them, and associate with lords and dukes. That is very odd, certainly.

For worldly prudence, I am afraid, we can not boast of Hogg; and he confesses that he did rate Sir Walter soundly for not giving him a poem for his Poetic Mirror, and that he would not speak to him, till Scott heaped coals of fire on his head by sending the doctor to him when he was ill, and by Hogg finding out that Scott had come or sent daily to inquire how he was going on, and had told his friends not to let Hogg want for any thing. Hogg was a creature of the quickest impulse; he resented warmly, and he was as soon melted again by kindness. He had the spirit of a child, sensitive, quick to resent, but forgiving and generous. His imprudence in taking Mount Benger is much lessened, too, when we learn that he expected £1,000 from his wife's father, who, however, proved a bankrupt, and Hogg had already, through the intervention of Scott, obtained possession of the farm, and incurred the debt for the stocking of it before he became aware of the disastrous fact. In truth, he was probably too good a poet to be a good farmer; nor need we wonder at the opinion yet held of him by some of his neighbors, when we find him relating, in his Life, that when leaving Edinburgh once because his literary projects had failed, he found his character for a shepherd as low in Ettrick as it was for poetry in the capital, and that no one would give him any thing to do. Such are the singular fortunes of men of genius!

It is said in his own neighborhood, that his last visit to London hastened his death. That the entertainments given him there, and the excitement he went through, had quite exhausted him. That he never afterward seemed himself again. That he was listless and feeble, and tried to rally, but never did. Probably his breach with Blackwood might prey upon his spirits; for, on Blackwood declining to give a complete edition of his works, he had entered into arrangements with Cochrane and Johnstone of London, who commenced his edition, but failed on the issue of the first volume. By the act of quitting Blackwood, all the old associations of his life, its happiest and most glorious, seemed broken up. After that, his name vanished from the magazine, and was no more seen there, and the new staff on which he leaned proved a broken reed. Truly many are the verifications of the melancholy words of Wordsworth:

"We poets in our youth commence in gladness; But thereof comes in the end, despondency and madness."

I have received the following account of his last days from one of his oldest and most intimate friends:

"Innerleithen, 21st Feb., 1846.