[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _July_ 28, 1886.
MY DEAR FATHER,—We have decided not to come to Scotland, but just to do
as Dobell wished, and take an outing. I believe this is wiser in all
ways; but I own it is a disappointment. I am weary of England; like
Alan, ‘I weary for the heather,’ if not for the deer. Lloyd has gone to
Scilly with Katharine and C., where and with whom he should have a good
time. David seems really to be going to succeed, which is a pleasant
prospect on all sides. I am, I believe, floated financially; a book that
sells will be a pleasant novelty. I enclose another review; mighty
complimentary, and calculated to sell the book too.
Coolin’s tombstone has been got out, honest man! and it is to be
polished, for it has got scratched, and have a touch of gilding in the
letters, and be sunk in the front of the house. Worthy man, he, too,
will maybe weary for the heather, and the bents of Gullane, where (as I
dare say you remember) he gaed clean gyte, and jumped on to his crown
from a gig, in hot and hopeless chase of many thousand rabbits. I can
still hear the little cries of the honest fellow as he disappeared; and
my mother will correct me, but I believe it was two days before he turned
up again at North Berwick: to judge by his belly, he had caught not one
out of these thousands, but he had had some exercise.