“Your letter of the 10th gave me the pleasant assurance that you are well and happy, and attending to your profession. We have been jogging on here in the old fashion, somewhat varied by an unexpected visit, on Friday last, from no less a person than Prince Leopold. I conclude you will have all the particulars of this important event from the other members of the family, so I shall only say that when I mentioned the number of your regiment, the Prince said he had several friends in the 18th, and should now think he had one more, which was very polite. By the way, I hear an excellent character of your officers for regularity and gentlemanlike manners. This report gives me great pleasure, for to live in bad society will deprave the best manners, and to live in good will improve the worst.
“I am trying a sort of bargain with neighbour
Nicol Milne at present. He is very
desirous of parting with his estate of Faldonside, and if he will be contented
with a reasonable price, I am equally desirous to be the purchaser. I conceive
it will come to about L.30,000 at least. I will not agree to give a penny more;
and I think that sum is probably L.2000 and more above its actual marketable
value. But then it lies extremely convenient for us, and would, joined to
Abbotsford, make a very gentlemanlike property, worth at least L.1800 or L.2000
a-year. I can command about L.10,000 of my own, and if I be spared life and
health, I should not fear rubbing off the rest of the price, as
| 304 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I am very sorry to tell you that poor Mrs William Erskine is no more. She was sent by the medical people on a tour to the lakes of Cumberland, and was taken ill at Lowood, on Windermere. Nature, much exhausted by her previous indisposition, sunk under four days’ illness. Her husband was with her and two of her daughters—he is much to be pitied.
“Mr Rees, the
bookseller, told me he had met you in the streets of Cork, and reported well of
the growth of your Schnurr-bart. I hope you know what
that means. Pray write often, as the post comes so slow. I keep all your
letters, and am much pleased with the frankness of the style. No word of your
horses yet? but it is better
| SEPT. 1819. | 305 |
“I must not omit to tell you our old, and, I may add, our kind neighbour Lauchie, has departed, or, as Tom expresses it, has been fairly ftytten out o’ the warld. You know the old quarrel betwixt his brother and him about the wife—in an ill-fated hour Jock the brother came down to Lochbreist with a sister from Edinburgh, who was determined to have her share of the scolding-match; they attacked poor old Lauchie like mad folks, and reviled his wife in all sort of evil language. At length his passion was wrought up to a great pitch, and he answered, with much emotion, that if she were the greatest —— in Edinburgh, it was not their business, and as he uttered this speech, he fell down on his back, and lay a dead man before them. There is little doubt the violence of the agitation had broke a blood-vessel in the heart or brain. A very few days since he was running up and down calling for a coffin, and wishing to God he was in one; to which Swanston,* who was present, answered, he could not apply to a better hand, and he would make him one if he had a mind. He has left a will of his own making, but from some informality I think it will be set aside. His land cannot come into the market until his girl comes of age, which, by the way, makes me more able for the other bargain. His death took place at his own door, and shocking enough it is that an inoffensive creature should have been murdered (for in foro conscientiæ it is little better) in such a way. I went to the funeral. Very few people would take notice of Jock, whom they look on as a second
* John Swanston had then the care of the saw mill at Toftfield; he was one of Scott’s most valued dependants, and in the sequel succeeded Tom Purdie as his henchman. |
| 306 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
