Nothing would be so valuable to me as the mark of kindness which you
offer, and yet my kennel is so much changed since I had the pleasure
of seeing you, that I must not accept of what I wished so sincerely
to possess. I am the happy owner of two of the noble breed, each of
gigantic size, and the gift of that sort of Highlander whom we call a
High Chief, so I would hardly be justified in parting with them even
to make room for your kind present, and I should have great doubts
whether the mountaineers would receive the Irish stranger with due
hospitality. One of them I had from poor Glengarry, who, with all the
wild and fierce points of his character, had a kind, honest, and
warm heart. The other from a young friend, whom Highlanders call
MacVourigh, and Lowlanders MacPherson of Cluny. He is a fine spirited
boy, fond of his people and kind to them, and the best dancer of a
Highland reel now living. I fear I must not add a third to Nimrod and
Bran, having little use for them except being pleasant companions. As
to labouring in their vocation, we have only one wolf which I know
of, kept in a friend's menagerie near me, and no wild deer. Walter
has some roebucks indeed, but Lochore is far off, and I begin to
feel myself distressed at running down these innocent and beautiful
creatures, perhaps because I cannot gallop so fast after them as to
drown sense of the pain we are inflicting. And yet I suspect I am like
the sick fox; and if my strength and twenty years could come back, I
would become again a copy of my namesake, remembered by the sobriquet
of Walter _ill tae hauld_ (to hold, that is). 'But age has clawed
me in its clutch,' and there is no remedy for increasing disability
except dying, which is an awkward score.
There is some chance of my retiring from my official situation upon
the changes in the Court of Session. They cannot reduce my office,
though they do not wish to fill it up with a new occupant. I shall be
therefore _de trop_; and in these days of economy they will be better
pleased to let me retire on three parts of my salary than to keep me a
Clerk of Session on the whole; and small grief at our parting, as the
old horse said to the broken cart. And yet, though I thought such a
proposal when first made was like a Pisgah peep at Paradise, I cannot
help being a little afraid of changing the habits of a long life all
of a sudden and for ever. You ladies have always your work-basket and
stocking-knitting to wreak an hour of tediousness upon. The routine of
business serves, I suspect, for the same purpose to us male wretches;
it is seldom a burden to the mind, but a something which must be done,
and is done almost mechanically; and though dull judges and duller
clerks, the routine of law proceedings, and law forms, are very unlike
the plumed troops and the tug of war, yet the result is the same.
The occupation's gone. The morning, that the day's news must all be
gathered from other sources--that the jokes which the principal Clerks
of Session have laughed at weekly for a century, and which would not
move a muscle of any other person's face, must be laid up to perish
like those of Sancho in the Sierra Morena--I don't above half like
forgetting all these moderate habits, and yet
Ah, freedom is a noble thing!
as says the old Scottish poet. So I will cease my regrets, or lay them
by to be taken up and used as arguments of comfort, in case I do not
slip my cable after all, which is highly possible. Lockhart and Sophia
have taken up their old residence at Chiefswood. They are very fond of
the place; and I am glad also my grandchildren will be bred near the
heather, for certain qualities which I think are best taught there.