The Earl had another eccentricity. He did not patronise London or Edinburgh tailors. After some experience, he had a firm belief that no man could make clothes for him that would thoroughly fit but Thorburn, a tailor at Eddleston, a small village of forty to fifty houses, close to Darnhall, the residence of Lord Elibank. We have never heard how the Earl discovered Thorburn; in all likelihood he heard of him through his factotum, Window Willie, who knew something of everybody. Having tried, he stuck to Thorburn. One thing materially guided this selection. Thorburn was exactly his own shape, body, legs, and arms. That was a great point. The Earl had an invincible hatred of putting on new-made clothes, which required some time to settle down into the required figure, and were at first a little awkward. Thorburn was an accommodating fellow. He volunteered to wear the Earl's new clothes for a day or two, to give them a set. The obliging offer was accepted. When the Earl wanted a new pair of black velvet breeches, Thorburn took care to wear them for a Sunday at church, which gave the legs the appropriately round baggy form, and then they were ready for use. By the agency of Window Willie and his little pony, the garment safely reached Traquair House.
Dear old Earl, and dear good-hearted Window Willie! Both have long since passed away. The beards of the county are said to have been sensibly affected by their decease. Charles, the eighth Earl, had unfortunately none of his father's aptitude for razor-sharpening. As a bachelor and a recluse, he was mainly noted for effecting improvements on his various farm-steadings, which was by no means a bad hobby for a nobleman. Partly perhaps on account of a stammering in his speech, he shrank from general society, and vegetated till the last in the queer antiquated mansion of his forefathers, in the society of his only sister, Lady Louisa Stuart. We had the honour of several interviews with him in relation to railways for the district, and could not help feeling pained with that distressing stammer. A very curious fact afterwards came to our knowledge. The Earl having spent a number of his early years abroad, acquired a proficiency in speaking French, which he ever afterwards retained. When he spoke French, he never stammered! At his decease in 1861, the male line and peerage became extinct; and on the death of Lady Louisa Stuart in 1875, in the hundredth year of her age, all the family had departed, the property devolving by will on a distant relative. Traquair House, which looks like two ancient feudal keeps rolled into one, remains embosomed in trees almost as it was left by the Lord High Treasurer upwards of two hundred years ago, and as it used to be visited of old by Window Willie.
W. C.
[THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.]
CHAPTER XXVI.—PREPARATION.
Great was my relief the next day when, on Lilian and I returning from a ramble in our beloved woods, we heard Robert Wentworth talking to Mrs Tipper in the parlour. But at first sight of him, I shrank back. How altered he looked, how terribly altered since we had last met! The kind little lady's hurried explanation as we entered the room, that illness had kept him away, gave me another blow, and he saw that it did.
'Only a sort of cold,' he cheerfully explained, extending his hand towards me with a smile. 'How do you do, Mary?'
My own hand shook; but he kept it long enough in his own to steady it, giving me a reassuring look before releasing it.
But Lilian could not get over the shock which the first sight of him had given her, involuntarily exclaiming: 'But I fear you have been ill—very ill; and it has made you quite'—— She paused, not liking to go on; but he lightly replied: 'Gray, do you mean? My dear Lilian, the gray season had set in long ago, only you saw me too frequently to notice it.'