May 6 and 7.—­Here is a precious job.  I have a formal remonstrance from these critical persons, Ballantyne and Cadell, against the last volume of Count Robert, which is within a sheet of being finished.  I suspect their opinion will be found to coincide with that of the public; at least it is not very different from my own.  The blow is a stunning one I suppose, for I scarcely feel it.  It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as if I had a remedy ready.  Yet God knows, I am at sea in the dark, and the vessel leaky, I think, into the bargain.  I cannot conceive that I should have tied a knot with my tongue which my teeth cannot untie.  We will see.  I am determined to write a political pamphlet coute que coute; ay,—­should it cost me my life.

I will right and left at these unlucky proof-sheets, and alter at least what I cannot mend.

May 8.—­I have suffered terribly, that is the truth, rather in body than in mind, and I often wish I could lie down and sleep without waking.  But I will fight it out if I can.  It would argue too great an attachment of consequence to my literary labours to sink under.  Did I know how to begin, I would begin this very day, although I knew I should sink at the end.  After all, this is but fear and faintness of heart, though of another kind from that which trembleth at a loaded pistol.  My bodily strength is terribly gone; perhaps my mental too?

May 9.—­The weather uncommonly beautiful and I am very eager to get on thinning woods while the peeling season lasts.  We made about L200 off wood last season, and this is a sum worth looking at.

May 10.—­Some repairs on the mill-dam still keep the people employed, and we cannot get to the thinning.  Yet I have been urging them for a month.  It’s a great fault of Scottish servants that they cannot be taught to time their turns.

May 11.—­By old practice I should be going into town to-day, the Court sitting to-morrow.  Am I happier that I am free from this charge?  Perhaps I am; that is certain, time begins to make my literary labour more precious than usual.  Very weak, scarce able to crawl about without the pony—­lifted on and off—­and unable to walk half a mile save with great pain.

May 12.—­Resolved to lay by Robert of Paris, and take it up when I can work.  Thinking on it really makes my head swim, and that is not safe.  Miss Ferrier comes out to us.  This gifted personage, besides having great talents, has conversation the least exigeante of any author, female at least, whom I have ever seen among the long list I have encountered,—­simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee; and all this without the least affectation of the blue stocking.[459]

May 13.—­Mr., or more properly Dr., Macintosh Mackay comes out to see me, a simple learned man, and a Highlander who weighs his own nation justly—­a modest and estimable person.