reared with great care and attention. The heaviest and smoothest acorns should be selected, as one would wish them, sent from such a distance, to succeed, which rarely happens unless they are particularly well ripened. I shall be as much obliged to you as Sancho was to the Duchess, or, to speak more correctly, the Duchess to Sancho, for a similar favor. Our mother keeps her health surprisingly well now, nor do I think there is any difference, unless that her deafness is rather increased. My eldest boy is upwards of six feet high; therefore born, as Sergeant Kite says, to be a great man. I should not like such a rapid growth, but that he carries strength along with it; my youngest boy is a very sharp little fellow--and the girls give us great satisfaction. Ever affectionately yours, Walter SCOTT. [Footnote 83: Thomas Scott had sent his brother the horns and feet of a gigantic stag, shot by him in Canada. The feet were ultimately suspended to bell-cords in the armory at Abbotsford; and the horns mounted as drinking-cups.] {p.201} The following note is without date. It accompanied, no doubt, the last proof sheet of Rob Roy, and was therefore in all probability written about ten days before the 31st of December, 1817--on which day the novel was published. TO MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE, ST. JOHN STREET. DEAR JAMES,-- With great joy I send you Roy. 'T was a tough job, But we're done with Rob. I forget if I mentioned Terry in my list of Friends. Pray send me two or three copies as soon as you can. It were pity to make the Grinder[84] pay carriage. Yours ever, W. S. [Footnote 84: They called Daniel Terry among themselves "The Grinder," in double allusion to the song of _Terry the Grinder_, and to some harsh under-notes of their friend's voice.] The novel had indeed been "a tough job"--for lightly and airily as it reads, the author had struggled almost throughout with the pains of cramp or the lassitude of opium. Calling on him one day to dun him for copy, James Ballantyne found him with a clean pen and a blank sheet before him, and uttered some rather solemn exclamation of surprise. "Ay, ay, Jemmy," said he, "'tis easy for you to bid me get on, but how the deuce can I make Rob Roy's wife speak, with such a _curmurring_ in my guts?" {p.202} CHAPTER XL.