[Sidenote:  This was a mistake.]

This is all so far well, but I will not borrow any money on my estate till I see things reasonably safe.  Stocks have risen from ——­ to ——­, a strong proof that confidence is restored.  But I will yield to no delusive hopes, and fall back fall edge, my resolutions hold.

I shall always think the better of Cadell for this, not merely because his feet are beautiful on the mountains who brings good tidings, but because he showed feeling—­deep feeling, poor fellow—­he who I thought had no more than his numeration table, and who, if he had had his whole counting-house full of sensibility, had yet his wife and children to bestow it upon—­I will not forget this if I get through.  I love the virtues of rough and round men; the others are apt to escape in salt rheum, sal-volatile, and a white pocket-handkerchief.  An odd thought strikes me:  when I die will the Journal of these days be taken out of the ebony cabinet at Abbotsford, and read as the transient pout of a man worth L60,000, with wonder that the well-seeming Baronet should ever have experienced such a hitch?  Or will it be found in some obscure lodging-house, where the decayed son of chivalry has hung up his scutcheon for some 20s. a week, and where one or two old friends will look grave and whisper to each other, “Poor gentleman,” “A well-meaning man,” “Nobody’s enemy but his own,” “Thought his parts could never wear out,” “Family poorly left,” “Pity he took that foolish title”?  Who can answer this question?

* * * * *

What a life mine has been!—­half educated, almost wholly neglected or left to myself, stuffing my head with most nonsensical trash, and undervalued in society for a time by most of my companions, getting forward and held a bold and clever fellow, contrary to the opinion of all who thought me a mere dreamer, broken-hearted for two years, my heart handsomely pieced again, but the crack will remain to my dying day.  Rich and poor four or five times, once on the verge of ruin, yet opened new sources of wealth almost overflowing.  Now taken in my pitch of pride, and nearly winged (unless the good news hold), because London chooses to be in an uproar, and in the tumult of bulls and bears, a poor inoffensive lion like myself is pushed to the wall.  And what is to be the end of it?  God knows.  And so ends the catechism.

December 19.—­Ballantyne here before breakfast.  He looks on Cadell’s last night’s news with more confidence than I do; but I must go to work be my thoughts sober or lively.  Constable came in and sat an hour.  The old gentleman is firm as a rock, and scorns the idea of Hurst and Robinson’s stopping.  He talks of going up to London next week and making sales of our interest in W[oodstock] and Boney, which would put a hedge round his finances.  He is a very clever fellow, and will, I think, bear us through.

Dined at Lord Chief-Baron’s.[79] Lord Justice-Clerk; Lord President;[80] Captain Scarlett,[81] a gentlemanlike young man, the son of the great Counsel,[82] and a friend of my son Walter; Lady Charlotte Hope, and other woman-kind; R. Dundas of Arniston, and his pleasant and good-humoured little wife, whose quick intelligent look pleases me more, though her face be plain, than a hundred mechanical beauties.