In spite, however, of banquets (at one of which Crabbe was present) and other constant calls upon his host's time and labour, the southern poet contrived to enjoy himself. He wandered into the oldest parts of Edinburgh, and Scott obtained for him the services of a friendly caddie to accompany him on some of these occasions lest the old parson should come to any harm. Lockhart, who was of the party in Castle Street, was very attentive to Scott's visitor, Crabbe had but few opportunities of seeing Scott alone. "They had," writes Lockhart, "but one quiet walk together, and it was to the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel and Mushat's Cairn, which the deep impression made on Crabbe by _The Heart of Midlothian_ had given him an earnest wish to see. I accompanied them; and the hour so spent--in the course of which the fine old man gave us some most touching anecdotes of his early struggles--was a truly delightful contrast to the bustle and worry of miscellaneous society which consumed so many of his few hours in Scotland. Scott's family were more fortunate than himself in this respect. They had from infancy been taught to reverence Crabbe's genius, and they now saw enough of him to make them think of him ever afterwards with tender affection." Yet one more trait of Scott's interest in his guest should not be omitted. The strain upon Scott's strength of the King's visit was made more severe by the death during that fortnight of Scott's old and dear friend, William Erskine, only a few months before elevated to the bench, with the title of Lord Kinedder. Erskine had been irrecoverably wounded by the circulation of a cruel and unfounded slander upon his moral character. It so preyed on his mind that its effect was, in Scott's words, to "torture to death one of the most soft-hearted and sensitive of God's creatures." On the very day of the King's arrival he died, after high fever and delirium had set in, and his funeral, which Scott attended, followed in due course. "I am not aware," says Lockhart, "that I ever saw Scott in such a state of dejection as he was when I accompanied him and his friend Mr. Thomas Thomson from Edinburgh to Queensferry in attendance upon Lord Kinedder's funeral. Yet that was one of the noisiest days of the royal festival, and he had to plunge into some scene of high gaiety the moment after we returned. As we halted in Castle Street, Mr. Crabbe's mild, thoughtful face appeared at the window, and Scott said, on leaving me, 'Now for what our old friend there puts down as the crowning curse of his poor player in _The Borough_:-- "To hide in rant the heart-ache of the night."'"