LAIDLAW, WILLIAM,
author of the beautiful ballad of ‘Lucy’s Flitting,’ and the trusted
friend of Sir Walter Scott, was the son of a sheep-farmer at black
House, on the Douglas Burn, Selkirkshire, in the “Braes of Yarrow,”
where he was born in Nov. 1780. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was for
some years a servant of his father. “In my eighteenth year,” he says,
“I hired myself to Mr. Laidlaw of black House, with whom I served as a
shepherd eighteen years. The kindness of this gentleman to me it would
be the utmost ingratitude in me ever to forget; for, indeed, it was
more like that of a father than a master.” It was at black House that
Hogg first became a poet, and there he formed a lasting friendship
with William Laidlaw. He “Was,” he says, “the only person who for many
years ever pretended to discover the least merit in my essays, either
in verse or prose.” In 1810 Laidlaw’s ‘Lucy’s Flitting,’ known to all
who take an interest in Scottish song, was first printed in the
‘forest Minstrel’ of Hogg. He is also the author of the sweet and
simple Scottish songs of ‘Her bonnie black e’e,’ and ‘Alake for the
lassie,’ On setting out in life, Mr. Laidlaw took a farm at Traquair,
and afterwards another at Liberton, near Edinburgh. But in the latter
he was not successful, and early in 1817 he was under the necessity of
giving up the lease of his farm. He was on the look out for one at a
less rent, when he was invited to Abbotsford, in the capacity of
steward, by Mr. afterwards Sir Walter Scott, then sheriff of
Selkirkshire, who had become acquainted with him in 1800. In
Lockhart’s Life of Scott, his name is frequently mentioned in terms of
confidence, affection, and respect by the great novelist. Laidlaw’s
zeal about border ballads, at the time that Scott was collecting for
the ‘Ministrelsy of the Scottish Border,’ was at that period “repaid,”
says Lockhart, “by Scott’s anxious endeavours to get him removed from
a sphere for which, he wrote to him, ‘it is no flattery to say that
you are much too good.’ It was then, and always continued to be, his
opinion, that his friend was particularly qualified for entering with
advantage on the study of the medical profession; but such designs, if
Laidlaw himself ever took them up seriously, were not ultimately
persevered in.” Laidlaw at once accepted the offer to remove to
Abbotsford. He had, says Lockhart, “loved and revered Scott, and
considered the proposal with far greater delight than the most
lucrative appointment on any noble domain could have afforded him.
though possessed of a lively and searching sagacity as to things in
general, he had always been as to his own worldly interests simple as
a child. He surveyed with glistening eyes the humble cottage in which
his friend proposed to lodge him, his wife, and his little ones, and
said to himself that he should write no more sad songs on ‘forest
Flittings.’” This ‘humble cottage’ was named Skaeside, and in the
letter, dated April 5, 1817, which Scott wrote to him, on his offer
being accepted, he says, “Without affectation I consider myself the
obliged party in this matter, or, at any rate, it is a mutual benefit,
and you shall have grass for a cow, and so forth, whatever you want. I
am sure when you are so near I shall find some literary labour for you
that will make ends meet.” Scott found full employment for him. Under
his directions, Laidlaw wrote and compiled the Chronicle department
and Reviews for the Edinburgh annual Register. He also contributed
some articles on Scottish superstitions to the Edinburgh Monthly
Magazine, afterwards Blackwood’s Magazine. In 1819, when Sir Walter
was suffering from illness, he and John Ballantyne acted as his
amanuenses, and to them he dictated the greater portion of the Bride
of Lammermoor, the whole of the Legend of Montrose, and almost the
whole of Ivanhoe. It is thought that Scott’s novel of St. Ronan’s Well
originated in a suggestion of Laidlaw, during a ride that he had with
Sir Walter and Mr. Lockhart in the neighbourhood of Melrose, in the
summer of 1823.
On the
involvement of Scott’s affairs, Laidlaw was removed from Skaeside for
a time, and at Scott’s death, his superintendence ceased over the
estate of Abbotsford. He afterwards became factor on the estate of Sir
Charles Lockhart Ross of Balnagowan, Ross-shire, baronet; but his
health failing, he went to live with his brother, James, a
sheep-farmer at Contin, in the same county, where he died 18th
May 1845, in his 65th year. James Laidlaw survived till 4th
March 1850. At his death he was in his 61st year.
