“Let our watchword be,
“‘Arm the People.’
“Ever faithfully yours,
“H. G. Smith.
“To Peter Mackenzie, Esq., Gazette Office, Glasgow.”[237]
When others were timorous of the Volunteer Movement as a danger to public order, Harry Smith saw in it the possible salvation of the country which he had served valiantly with the sword and could serve now only by words.
His spirit was still high, and it chafed him to live in London without horses and on a diminished income. He had never had the art of saving money, and he now writes (7th March) to Major Payne—
“You would laugh to see me poring over twopences. Hang me if I know how people in England live. I hate London, and I love you, Tom.
“Your friend,
“Harry Smith.”
He says in the same letter that he had taken a cold at the funeral of his old friend Sir William Napier, but when he writes again on 12th June he gives a better report of himself.
“Everybody tells me I look well. I am thin, but as active as ever. I want horses and that stirring exercise. I say nothing, Tom, but I do feel the loss, for the last fifty years having ever had a right good stud. But you can’t eat your cake and have it. London full of the world, a most heartless reunion; it is for the girls a regular Constantinople. Tom, do write often. I don’t care what the subject of your letter may be, so that it is not melancholy. Say it rains or don’t rain; yesterday ’twas fine, to-day pouring with rain again.”