The three friends sought the bield of the low wall old Edinburgh boys remember well, and sometimes miss now, as they struggle with the stout west wind....
The third we all know. What has he not done for every one of us? Who else ever, except Shakespeare, so diverted mankind, entertained and entertains a world so liberally, so wholesomely? We are fain to say not even Shakespeare, for his is something deeper than diversion, something higher than pleasure; and yet who would care to split this hair?
Had any one watched him closely before and after the parting, what a change he would see! The bright, broad laugh, the shrewd, jovial word, the man of the Parliament House and of the world; and next step, moody, the light of his eye withdrawn, as if seeing things that were invisible; his shut mouth like a child's, so impressionable, so innocent, so sad; he was now all within, as before he was all without; hence his brooding look. As the snow blattered in his face, he muttered, "How it raves and drifts! On-ding o' snaw,--ay, that's the word,--on-ding--" He was now at his own door, "Castle Street, No. 39." He opened the door and went straight to his den; that wondrous workshop, where in one year, 1823, when he was fifty-two, he wrote 'Peveril of the Peak,' 'Quentin Durward,' and 'St. Ronan's Well,' besides much else. We once took the foremost of our novelists--the greatest, we would say, since Scott--into this room, and could not but mark the solemnizing effect of sitting where the great magician sat so often and so long, and looking out upon that little shabby bit of sky, and that back green where faithful dog Camp lies.
He sat down in his large green morocco elbow-chair, drew himself close to his table, and glowered and gloomed at his writing apparatus, "a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver, the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before." He took out his paper, then starting up angrily, said, "'Go spin, you jade, go spin.' No, d---- it, it won't do,--
"'My spinnin' wheel is auld and stiff,
The rock o't wunna stand, sir;
To keep the temper-pin in tiff
Employs ower aft my hand, sir.'
I am off the fang. I can make nothing of 'Waverley' to-day; I'll awa' to Marjorie. Come wi' me, Maida, you thief." The great creature rose slowly, and the pair were off, Scott taking a maud (a plaid) with him. "White as a frosted plum-cake, by jingo!" said he, when he got to the street. Maida gamboled and whisked among the snow, and his master strode across to Young Street, and through it to 1 North Charlotte Street, to the house of his dear friend, Mrs. William Keith, of Corstorphine Hill; niece of Mrs. Keith of Ravelston, of whom he said at her death, eight years after, "Much tradition, and that of the best, has died with this excellent old lady, one of the few persons whose spirits, and cleanliness and freshness of mind and body, made old age lovely and desirable."
Sir Walter was in that house almost every day, and had a key, so in he and the hound went, shaking themselves in the lobby. "Marjorie! Marjorie!" shouted her friend, "where are ye, my bonnie wee croodlin' doo?" In a moment a bright, eager child of seven was in his arms, and he was kissing her all over. Out came Mrs. Keith. "Come your ways in, Wattie." "No, not now. I am going to take Marjorie wi' me, and you may come to your tea in Duncan Roy's sedan, and bring the bairn home in your lap." "Tak' Marjorie, and it on-ding o' snaw!" said Mrs. Keith. He said to himself, "On-ding,'--that's odd,--that is the very word. Hoot, awa'! look here," and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made to hold lambs [the true shepherd's plaid, consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end, making a poke or cul-de-sac]. "Tak' your lamb," said she, laughing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up, and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off with his lamb,--Maida gamboling through the snow, and running races in her mirth.
Didn't he face "the angry airt," and make her bield his bosom, and into his own room with her, and lock the door, and out with the warm rosy little wifie, who took it all with great composure! There the two remained for three or more hours, making the house ring with their laughter; you can fancy the big man's and Maidie's laugh. Having made the fire cheery, he set her down in his ample chair, and standing sheepishly before her, began to say his lesson, which happened to be,--"Ziccotty, diccotty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock; the clock struck one, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, diccotty, dock." This done repeatedly till she was pleased, she gave him his new lesson, gravely and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers,--he saying it after her,--
"Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven;
Alibi, crackaby, ten and eleven;
Pin, pan, musky dan;
Tweedle-um, twoddle-um, twenty-wan;
Eerie, orie, ourie,
You, are, out."
He pretended to great difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance, bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite bitter in her displeasure at his ill behavior and stupidness.