About coming up, no, that’s impossible; for I am worse than a bankrupt. I have at the present six shillings and a penny; I have a sounding lot of bills for Christmas; new dress suit, for instance, the old one having gone for Parliament House; and new white shirts to live up to my new profession; I’m as gay and swell and gummy as can be; only all my boots leak; one pair water, and the other two simple black mud; so that my rig is more for the eye, than a very solid comfort to myself. That is my budget. Dismal enough, and no prospect of any coin coming in; at least for months. So that here I am, I almost fear, for the winter; certainly till after Christmas, and then it depends on how my bills ‘turn out’ whether it shall not be till spring. So, meantime, I must whistle in my cage. My cage is better by one thing; I am an Advocate now. If you ask me why that makes it better, I would remind you that in the most distressing circumstances a little consequence goes a long way, and even bereaved relatives stand on precedence round the coffin. I idle finely. I read Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Martin’s History of France, Allan Ramsay, Olivier Bosselin, all sorts of rubbish, àpropos of Burns, Commines, Juvénal des Ursins, etc. I walk about the Parliament House five forenoons a week, in wig and gown; I have either a five or six mile walk, or an hour or two hard skating on the rink, every afternoon, without fail.
I have not written much; but, like the seaman’s parrot in the tale, I have thought a deal. You have never, by the way, returned me either Spring or Béranger, which is certainly a d-d shame. I always comforted myself with that when my conscience pricked me about a letter to you. ‘Thus conscience’—O no, that’s not appropriate in this connection.—Ever yours,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
I say, is there any chance of your coming north this year? Mind you that promise is now more respectable for age than is becoming.
R. L. S.
to Charles Baxter
[Edinburgh, October 1875.]
Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green,
Red are the bonny woods o’ Dean,
An’ here we’re back in Embro, freen’,
To pass the winter.
Whilk noo, wi’ frosts afore, draws in,
An’ snaws ahint her.
I’ve seen’s hae days to fricht us a’,
The Pentlands poothered weel wi’ snaw,
The ways half-smoored wi’ liquid thaw,
An’ half-congealin’,
The snell an’ scowtherin’ norther blaw
Frae blae Brunteelan’.
I’ve seen’s been unco sweir to sally,
And at the door-cheeks daff an’ dally,
Seen’s daidle thus an’ shilly-shally
For near a minute—
Sae cauld the wind blew up the valley,
The deil was in it!—