Bute spent nearly the whole winter and spring of 1870-1871 at his beautiful Scottish home, to which he was deeply attached. As he came to know his neighbours better--and he took much pains to cultivate friendly relations with them all--the stiffness, which was, perhaps, as much the result of his own shyness and reserve as of their lack of sympathy with his religious opinions, to a great extent wore off, and his simplicity, courtesy, good sense, and kindness of heart won for him little by little the high place in their regard which he ever afterwards maintained. He was from the first on the friendliest terms with the Presbyterian clergy of the island as well as with his own pastor, and had also established very cordial relations with Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Dalrymple, then and for the following fifteen years member for the county, and resident in the island. This cordial acquaintanceship ripened, after the marriages of Bute and of Dalrymple, into a warm {98} friendship between the two families which terminated only with death.[8] Liturgical matters engrossed at this time, as always, a good deal of Bute's attention, and are dealt with in many of his letters. Thus, in March, 1871, he writes very seriously about the "truly scandalous proceedings" at the London pro-cathedral, news of which had reached him in Scotland, and which the context shows to have consisted in the wearing of dalmatics instead of folded chasubles at some Lenten function in the church in question. As will be seen from a later letter, he arranged for the ceremonial of Holy Week and Easter to be carried out as far as possible in his tiny chapel at Mountstuart; and we find him giving minute instructions to his friend Grissell, who was to spend that season as his guest in Bute, as to bringing the requisites for the celebrations, including "18 yellow candles, rather slim and 18 inches long, a paschal candle 3 feet long and 1-½ inches thick, a book on ceremonies, five grains of incense, and a wooden clapper for Maundy Thursday." "We had the rites of the Holy Week," he wrote subsequently to Miss Skene, "performed in my little chapel, for the first time in Bute since the change of religion three centuries ago. They seldom, if ever, take place in Scotland, and our priest here had never (so he told me) officiated in his life before on Good Friday! You may be surprised to hear that, having no choir to execute the liturgical chant, we adopt as far as {99} we can the methodist style of singing emotional hymns during the services." [Sidenote: 1871, Bute as philologist] After Easter Bute stayed for a while in London, and then returned to Cardiff, where he remained in residence for the greater part of the year. He took regular lessons in Welsh at this time from one of the Cardiff clergy, and quickly mastered the language scientifically, though he never learned to speak it fluently.