Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

EELEASED FROM SERVICE. 253
property is tied up until, inter alia, the encumbrances of
£10,000 on the estate of Abbotsford, £5000 on the Library, are
paid off, to release the Major of these would of course be ad-
vancing the time when the other children may expect to profit
at all by the sale of the works.
Sir W.'s will has an article expressly leaving the direction of
publication to Cadell
!
Many letters passed, arid there was much and con-
stant communication between the younger Blackwoods
and their father's old friend in after-years, which will
be referred to from time to time. But we may take
from these after-days a little note addressed to John
Blackwood, which rounds off this story with an affect-
ing touch of old kindness. It was written at the very
end of Lockhart's life in the year 1853 :
Dear B.,—If you think the enclosed worth a page any time,
they are at the service of * Maga,' from her very old servant,
now released from all service, J. G. L.
That gay and careless yet powerful service had
lasted, with intermissions, for more than thirty-five
years, the length of a generation. The Blackwood of
old was dead, and most of the cheerful companions
the lively, brilliant, restless spirit was broken with
sorrow and trouble. Not very many months after he
was indeed to be wholly relieved from all service. It
is with a tender remembrance of Lockhart that we
thus close the record, by his last affectionate expression
of feeling to the old ' Maga ' of the days that
were no more.
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