‘The people here gather in thousands to the sacraments, as they did in Ettrick in Boston’s time. We set out on Sunday to the communion at Ferrintosh, near Dingwall, to which the people resort from fifty miles’ distance. Macdonald, the minister who attracts this concourse of persons, was the son of a piper in Caithness (but from the Celtic population of the mountains there). He preached the sermon in the church in English, with a command of language and a justness of tone, action, and reasoning—keeping close to the pure metaphysics of Calvin—that I have seldom, if ever, heard surpassed. He had great energy on all points, but it never touched on extravagance. The Highland congregation sat in a cleugh, or dell, of a long, hollow, oval shape, bordered with hazel and birch and wild roses. It seemed to be formed for the purpose. We walked round the outside of the congregated thousands, and looked down on the glen from the upper end, and the scene was really indescribable. Two-thirds of those present were women, dressed mostly in large, high, wide muslin caps, the back part standing up like the head of a paper kite, and ornamented with ribbons. They had wrapped round them bright-coloured plaid shawls, the predominant hue being scarlet.
‘It was a warm, breezy day, one of the most glorious in June. The place will be about half a mile from the Frith on the south side, and at an elevation of five hundred feet. Dingwall was just opposite at the foot of Ben Wyvis, still spotted with wreaths of snow. Over the town, with its modern castle, its church, and Lombardy poplars, we saw up the richly cultivated valley of Strathpeffer. The tufted rocks and woods of Brahan (Mackenzie of Seaforth) were a few miles to the south, and fields of wheat and potatoes, separated with hedgerows of trees, intervened. Further off, the high-peaked mountains that divide the county of Inverness from Ross-shire towered in the distance. I never saw such a scene. We sat down on the brae among the people, the long white communion tables being conspicuous at the bottom. The congregation began singing the psalm to one of the plaintive, wild old tunes that I am told are only sung in the Gaelic service. The people all sing, but in such an extended multitude they could not sing all together. They chanted, as it were, in masses or large groups. I can compare the singing to nothing earthly, except it be imagining what would be the effect of a gigantic and tremendous Æolian harp with hundreds of strings! There was no resisting the impression. After coming a little to myself, I went and paced the length and breadth of the amphitheatre, taking averages, and carefully noting, as well as I could, how the people were sitting together, and I could not, in this way, make them less than 9500, besides those in the church, amounting perhaps to 1500. Most of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with their families, were there. I enjoyed the scene as something perfect in its way, and of rare beauty and excellence—like Melrose Abbey under a fine light, or the back of old Edinburgh during an illumination, or the Loch of the Lowes in a fine calm July evening, five minutes after sunset!’
The following brief and pleasant note, without date, must be referred to 1827, as it was in June of that year that the Life of Napoleon was published:
‘My dear Mr Laidlaw—I would be happy if you would come down at kail-time to-day. Napoleon (6000 copies) is sold for £11,000.—Yours truly,
W. S.
‘Sunday.’
Mr Gibson, W.S., in his Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott (1871), says of the transactions of this period: ‘Of Woodstock, 9850 copies were sold for £9500; and of the Life of Napoleon, 8000 copies were sold for £18,200, and these sums, with some other funds realised, were speedily divided amongst the creditors.’ Under the date of August 1827, Sir Walter writes in the following affectionate strain:
‘Your leaving Kaeside makes a most melancholy blank to us. You, Mrs Laidlaw, and the bairns, were objects we met with so much pleasure, that it is painful to think of strangers being there. But they do not deserve good weather who cannot endure the bad, and so I would “set a stout heart to a stey” [steep] “brae;” yet I think the loss of our walks, plans, discussions, and debates, does not make the least privation that I experience from the loss of world’s gear. But, sursum corda, and we shall have many happy days yet, and spend some of them together. I expect Walter and Jane, and then our long-separated family will be all together in peace and happiness. I hope Mrs Laidlaw and you will come down and spend a few days with us, and revisit your old haunts. I miss you terribly at this moment, being engaged in writing a planting article for the Quarterly, and not having patience to make some necessary calculations.’
Mr Laidlaw has written on the back of the communication: ‘This letter lies in the drawer in which the unfinished manuscript of Waverley was found, amongst fishing-tackle, &c. which yet remain. I got the desk as a present from Sir Walter.’
The death, in the autumn of 1829, of faithful Tom Purdie—forester, henchman, and humble friend—was a heavy blow to Sir Walter, then fast sinking in vigour and alacrity. The proverbial difficulty of obtaining a precisely exact account of any contemporary event, even from parties most closely connected with it, is illustrated in this case. Lockhart reports the death as follows: