Famous poet and novelist, Sir Walter Scott passed away on September 21, 1832. This newspaper article appeared in 1904 and retells the story of his burial.
Burial of Sir Walter Scott
It was a bleak and stormy autumn day, with an impenetrable gray sky frowning over a lowering landscape, when the mile long funeral procession set forth from Abbotsford.
With one common voice of woe the coronach of a nation wailed over the hills, the sad gray land being all in keeping with the nodding of black plumes and the slow pace of the horses, says a writer in the Book Lover.
The road traversed on his last long journey had been one of Scott’s favorite drives, and the most pathetic incident of all was the pause of the cortege on the brow of Bemerside Hill. The horses that drew his lifeless body were the carriage horses, and not knowing their master was dead, they stopped of their own accord at the spot where Peter Matheson had always drawn them up, that Sir Walter, from where he sat, might look down and enjoy his favorite view.
Every mourner noticed the unexpected pause and the eyes of the grown men filled with involuntary tears when they learned the reason.
Thus they buried Sir Walter Scott; and Caledonia, stern and wild, received into her arms her marvelous, well loved child.
Source (1904, March 11). Burial of Sir Walter Scott. The Rice Belt Journal, p. 3.
