I am honoured with your Buxton letter.... _Anent_ Prince Leopold, I
only heard of his approach at eight o'clock in the morning, and he
was to be at Selkirk by eleven. The magistrates sent to ask me to help
them to receive him. It occurred to me he might be coming to Melrose
to see the Abbey, in which case I could not avoid asking him to
Abbotsford, as he must pass my very door. I mentioned this to Mrs.
Scott, who was lying quietly in bed, and I wish you had heard the
scream she gave on the occasion. 'What have we to offer him?'--'Wine
and cake,' said I, thinking to make all things easy; but she
ejaculated, in a tone of utter despair, 'Cake!! where am I to get
cake?' However, being partly consoled with the recollection that his
visit was a very improbable incident, and curiosity, as usual, proving
too strong for alarm, she set out with me in order not to miss a peep
of the great man. James Skene and his lady were with us, and we gave
our carriages such additional dignity as a pair of leaders could add,
and went to meet him in full puff. The Prince very civilly told me,
that, though he could not see Melrose on this occasion, he wished to
come to Abbotsford for an hour. New despair on the part of Mrs. Scott,
who began to institute a domiciliary search for cold meat through the
whole city of Selkirk, which produced _one shoulder of cold lamb_. In
the meanwhile, his Royal Highness received the civic honours of the
BIRSE[1] very graciously. I had hinted to Bailie Lang, that it ought
only to be licked _symbolically_ on the present occasion; so he
flourished it three times before his mouth, but without touching it
with his lips, and the Prince followed his example as directed. Lang
made an excellent speech, sensible, and feeling, and well delivered.
The Prince seemed much surprised at this great propriety of expression
and behaviour in a magistrate, whose people seemed such a rabble, and
whose whole band of music consisted in a drum and fife. He noticed to
Bailie Anderson, that Selkirk seemed very populous in proportion
to its extent. 'On an occasion like this it seems so,' answered the
Bailie, neatly enough I thought. I question if any magistrates in the
kingdom, lord mayors and aldermen not excepted, could have behaved
with more decent and quiet good-breeding. Prince Leopold repeatedly
alluded to this during the time he was at Abbotsford. I do not know
how Mrs. Scott ultimately managed; but with broiled salmon, and
black-cock, and partridges, she gave him a very decent lunch; and I
chanced to have some very fine old hock, which was mighty germain to
the matter.
The Prince seems melancholy, whether naturally or from habit, I do not
pretend to say; but I do not remember thinking him so at Paris, where
I saw him frequently, then a much poorer man than myself; yet he
showed some humour, for alluding to the crowds that followed him
everywhere, he mentioned some place where he had gone out to shoot,
but was afraid to proceed for fear of 'bagging a boy'. He said
he really thought of getting some shooting-place in Scotland, and
promised me a longer visit on his return. If I had had a day's
notice to have _warned the waters_, we could have met him with a very
respectable number of the gentry; but there was no time for this, and
probably he liked it better as it was. There was only young Clifton
who could have come, and he was shy and cubbish, and would not, though
requested by the Selkirk people. He was perhaps ashamed to march
through Coventry with them. It hung often and sadly on my mind that
_he_ was wanting who could and would have received him like a Prince
indeed; and yet the meeting betwixt them, had they been fated to meet,
would have been a very sad one. I think I have now given your
lordship a very full, true, and particular account of our royal visit,
unmatched even by that of King Charles at the Castle of Tillietudlem.
That we did not speak of it for more than a week after it happened,
and that that emphatic monosyllable, _The Prince_, is not heard
amongst us more than ten times a-day, is, on the whole, to the credit
of my family's understanding. The piper is the only one whose brain he
seems to have endangered; for, as the Prince said he preferred him to
any he had heard in the Highlands--(which, by the way, shows his
Royal Highness knows nothing of the matter),--the fellow seems to have
become incapable of his ordinary occupation as a forester, and has cut
stick and stem without remorse to the tune of _Phail Phranse_, i.e.
the Prince's welcome.
[Footnote 1: Bundle of hog's bristles; symbol of the soutars.]