Trapaud’s behaviour, Glengarry writes, is ‘picking,’ and Pickle also spells _pique_ ‘pick.’ The worst of it is that Glengarry ‘is lick to lose the use of his eyes,’ for at the time of this assault in his ‘hutt’ he was exceedingly ill. ‘I am now writting,’ he says to Colonel Lambert (January 6, 1759) ‘in this confus’d stile with only the fowrth part of one eye open, beeing near losing my life with a plague of a distemper, which, when recovered, seised my eyes.’ On January 15, 1759, he tells Captain Forbes that he can hardly see. On February 24, 1759, he expresses a civil surprise at Macleod’s refusal to back his bill for 400_l._ On February 3, he was still ‘hardly able to crall,’ but intended to go south; his sister Bell was going to Edinburgh. Macleod’s persistent refusal probably made the journey to London impossible, where Glengarry expected ‘to be off or on with the Government claim against my estate.’ There are no later drafts in the Letter Book, but Pickle, at all events, had the use of _his_ eyes when he wrote to the Duke of Newcastle on February 19, 1760,[118] offering to raise a regiment. Glengarry, six weeks later, urged the same proposal through the Duke of Atholl. On April 21, 1761, Glengarry made his will. He recommends his sister and sole executrix to seal up his cabinet, which is not to be opened ‘till the friends of the family meet.’ The Macdonnells of Greenfield, Leek, and Cullachy are then ‘to see all the political and useless letters among my papers burnt and destroyed, as the preservation of them can answer no purpose.’ Mr. Fraser Mackintosh, who publishes these extracts, adds, ‘why Glengarry who lived several months after the execution of his will, did not himself destroy the papers above alluded to, can be conjectured by people for themselves—all that need be said here is that their destruction was a pity, and the reason given unsatisfactory.’[119] His affairs ‘were found to be in a deplorable state.’ It may be conjectured that Glengarry clung to his papers, which must have been compromising enough. If his malady again affected his eyes, he might be unable to select the documents which it was wiser to destroy. Nor could he well endure to entrust ‘my sister Bell’ with the task of selection. She must not know her brother’s guilt. That secret must have oozed out, for it has left traces in tradition.[120] Thus closed miserably a singular career. Impoverished, dying in a ‘hutt,’ beside the ruins of his feudal castle, distrusted, not even permitted to see his young nephew and heir, Glengarry reaped the harvest sown by his mysterious attendant, Pickle. XI THE CASE AGAINST GLENGARRY