“Mr. Fyler says that when people on the Border are not quite right in their heads, they are said to ‘want twopence in the shilling.’ A poor cooper at Cornhill was one of these, and one day he disappeared. The greatest search was made for the missing man, for he was a Johnson, and almost all the village at Cornhill are Johnsons—fishermen. So every one went out to look, and though nothing was found, they came to the conclusion that he had been drowned in the Tweed.
“That evening Mr. Fyler observed that his church windows had not been opened as he desired, and going up to them and looking in, he saw a white figure wrapped in a sheet walking up and down the aisle and flapping its arms. He went back and said, ‘I’ve found the lost man. He is in the church, and two of the strongest men in the place must go with me and get him out.’ But if any one else had looked into the church, they would have thought it was a ghost. As it was, one of the men who came to get him out fainted dead away.”
“Winton Castle, Nov. 14.—Dear Lady Ruthven is stone deaf, almost blind, and her voice like waggon-wheels, but—in her eighty-sixth year—she is as kind and good and as truly witty as ever.
“On Friday we went to Gosford—five in the carriage. It is a dull flat park, redeemed by being so near the sea, and contains two great houses close to each other, of which one—the modern one—has never been inhabited, as sea-sand was mixed with its mortar. We found old Lady Wemyss[144] sitting behind a screen, much like a lady-abbess in appearance. I was most warmly received by two child-friends—little Lady Eva Greville and her brother Sidney—a charming boy with dark eyes and light flowing hair. Then Lady Warwick came in with Lady Jane Dundas, and, with one hand-candle, showed us the pictures, just as Lady Elcho did many years ago.
“Yesterday we went to Ormistoun, an attractive place, to see the Dempsters, the uncle and aunt who brought up the authoress of ‘Vera’—charming old people. He talked much of former times in Scotland, and said that much the most agreeable women in the country were considered to be Lady Ruthven and Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie. He described the attachment of one of Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie’s sisters—a certain very untidy Frances Mackenzie—to Thorwaldsen, but they were not allowed to marry. The last word Thorwaldsen spoke was ‘Francesca.’
“In the garden of Ormistoun is a yew six hundred years old, but with every appearance of being still quite in its prime, growing hard, and likely to do so for another six hundred years. John Knox is said to have preached under it.
“I sat by Lady Ruthven at dinner. She talked of the quaintnesses of her village people. The schoolmaster was very particular about pronunciation. When his wife died, some one came in and said, ‘What a very lamēntable,’ &c.—‘Oh, do say lamentable,’ interrupted the schoolmaster. When the minister was marrying a couple he said, ‘Art thou willing to take this woman,’ &c.?—‘Yes, I am willing,’ replied the bridegroom, ‘but I had rather it had been her sister.’
“To-day Lady Ruthven walked with me to the kirk. She had neither her ‘speaking tubes’ nor her slate, so I could not answer her, but she told me the whole story of Lady Belhaven’s death, how it was ‘all arranged as was best for her, just a gentle passing away, almost unconscious, but perfectly happy;’ yet how, though one glibly said, ‘God’s will be done,’ it was so hard to feel it. In returning, she talked of the trees, how the forester wished her to cut one down where there were two close together, but how she was ‘unwilling to separate friends who had lived together so long.’
“One day Lady Ruthven had a letter asking for the character of her footman, John Smith, who was leaving her—if he was ‘clever, honest, sober, a Christian, a recipient of the Holy Communion,’ &c. She answered, ‘If John Smith could answer to half your demands, I should have married him long ago.’ ”
“Raby Castle, Nov. 20.—A week here with a large party, which I began to think delightful as soon as I could cure myself of the uncomfortable sensation of being so much behind my kind, all the other people knowing each other better, and being more in possession of their tongues and faculties than myself. ‘Be insignificant, and you will make no enemies,’ is, however, a very good piece of advice I once received. Interesting members of the circle have been the Fitzwilliams from Wentworth, and the Quaker family of Pease, of whom the mother is one of the sweetest, most charming people I ever saw, like a lovely picture by Gainsborough, and with the expression of one of Perugino’s angels. But the great feature of the visit has been the Butes, and I have been absorbed by them. I never expected to make much acquaintance, but from the first Lord Bute[145] annexed himself to me, perhaps because he thought I was shy, and because of other people he felt very shy himself. He has great sweetness and gentleness of manner, and a good-looking, refined face.
“Lady Bute[146] says the happiest time in her life was the winter they spent in Majorca, because then she got away, not only from all the fine people, but from all the people who wanted to know what they thought must be the fine people; but that it was such a bore even there bearing a name for which the natives would raise their prices. Next winter they mean to spend at Nazareth, where they will hire the Bishop’s house; ‘no one can get at us there.’ They are supposed to long very anxiously for the birth of a son, for now—
‘That little something unpossess’d
Corrodes and poisons all the rest.’[147]
“I walked with Lord Bute each day. It was like reading ‘Lothair’ in the original, and most interesting at first, but became somewhat monotonous, as he talks incessantly—winding into his subject like a serpent, as Johnson said of Burke—of altars, ritual, liturgical differences; and he often almost loses himself, and certainly quite lost me, in sentences about ‘the Unity of the Kosmos,’ &c.
“He spoke much of Antichrist—the mark 666, the question if it had been Nero, or if Nero was only a type, and the real Antichrist still to come; and of the other theory, that the reason why no ten thousand were sealed of Dan was that Antichrist was to come from that tribe, the dying words of Jacob tending to this belief.
“He talked much of fasting; that he had often fasted for twenty-four hours, and that he preferred fasting as the practice existed ‘before the folly of collations.’ I asked if it did not make him ill. He said ‘no,’ for if the hunger became too great he took a cigar, which allayed it, and that he went out and ‘ate the air’ while taking plenty of exercise; that poor people seldom became thin in Lent, because what they did eat was bread and potatoes. I said I thought it must make him dreadfully ill-tempered to be so hungry, and thus conduce rather to vice than virtue. He said he did not think it made him vicious; but he agreed with me that persons naturally inclined to be ill-tempered had better fast alone.
“From what he said it was evident that he would like to give up all his goods to the poor, and that the Island of Bute stands a chance of becoming a vast monastery. He talked much of the Troitska in Russia, where he had been; that the monks there were too lax, and that the really desirable monastic life was that of those who lived in the cells established some miles off by Philaret, which were subterranean, with a stove, and no other furniture. When mass was celebrated in their chapel, these anchorite monks could faintly discern, down a channel hollowed in the rock, the glitter of the candles on the altar, and occasionally, mingled with this, appeared a ray or two of bluish light, and this was daylight. It was the only time they ever saw it.
“Amongst the young men here is a young Ashburnham, third son of Lord Ashburnham, who reads Greek in his room for his amusement, and is a lawyer, but says he has not yet been able to realise the hymn, ‘Brief life is here our portion.’ He told me that the expression of minding your p’s and q’s came from