“Dear Charlotte,—I am probably doing what William ought to have done—anyhow, your grouse arrived this morning, and will be very useful. I have lived on grouse-soup ever since I came to Milton, with the addition of some curds and cream, lots of butter-milk, and now, behold, a kebbock procured from a renowned dairy hard by for my special benefit! I am, in some minor respects, rather better, and persist therefore in riding almost daily for two or three hours, but the feebleness in the limbs, I fear, progresses still. It is with considerable difficulty I get my legs over the saddle, and I never even attempt more than a walk.
“I suppose I must soon think of moving southwards, and that will include a little visit to you, unless you shall have shown yourselves here at any rate; but I don’t mean that I don’t wish and intend to be with you whether you have been here or not. If I feel tolerably up to any visiting, I will, if I can, go to Bob’s wedding,1 but I doubt if I shall be able, and suspect the absence of so ghastly a visage and form may be much more to the hilarifying of Kate (who alone will remember it) than the presence of your most obedient.
“We have the most heavenly weather. Kate and I went with William yesterday to Douglas to show her the monuments, and that he might call
1 The wedding of his brother, Mr. Robert Lockhart. |
| 392 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
“Lord Peter is to be here on Thursday; going on Saturday to the Belhavens, who have just returned from the Rhine. My respects attend all the fair, not excepting M. M.
