I hope to sleep better to-night. If I do not I shall get ill, and then I cannot keep my engagements. Is it not odd? I can command my eyes to be awake when toil and weariness sit on my eyelids, but to draw the curtain of oblivion is beyond my power. I remember some of the wild Buccaneers, in their impiety, succeeded pretty well by shutting hatches and burning brimstone and assafœtida in making a tolerable imitation of _hell_--but the pirates' _heaven_ was a wretched affair. It is one of the worst things about this system of ours, that it is a hundred times more easy to inflict pain than to create pleasure. _January_ 27.--Slept better and less bilious, owing doubtless to the fatigue of the preceding night, and the more comfortable news. I drew my salaries of various kinds amounting to £300 and upwards and sent, with John Gibson's consent, £200 to pay off things at Abbotsford which must be paid. Wrote Laidlaw with the money, directing him to make all preparations for reduction.[138] Anne ill of rheumatism: I believe caught cold by vexation and exposing herself to bad weather. The Celtic Society present me with the most splendid broadsword I ever saw; a beautiful piece of art, and a most noble weapon. Honourable Mr. Stuart (second son of the Earl of Moray), General Graham Stirling, and MacDougal, attended as a committee to present it. This was very kind of my friends the Celts, with whom I have had so many merry meetings. It will be a rare legacy to Walter;--for myself, good lack! it is like Lady Dowager Don's prize in a lottery of hardware; she--a venerable lady who always wore a haunch-hoop, silk négligé, and triple ruffles at the elbow--having the luck to gain a pair of silver spurs and a whip to correspond. _January_ 28.--Ballantyne and Cadell wish that Mr. Alex. Cowan should be Constable's Trustee instead of J.B.'s. Gibson is determined to hold by Cowan. I will not interfere, although I think Cowan's services might do us more good as Constable's Trustee than as our own, but I will not begin with thwarting the managers of my affairs, or even exerting strong influence; it is not fair. These last four or five days I have wrought little; to-day I set on the steam and ply my paddles. _January_ 29.--The proofs of vol. i.[139] came so thick in yesterday that much was not done. But I began to be hard at work to-day, and must not _gurnalise_ much. Mr. Jollie, who is to be my trustee, in conjunction with Gibson, came to see me:--a, pleasant and good-humoured man, and has high reputation as a man of business. I told him, and I will keep my word, that he would at least have no trouble by my interfering and thwarting their management, which is the not unfrequent case of trusters and trustees.[140]