Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

MRS HOGG. 359
pastoral house, full of poverty, full of guests, the life
of the farm fluctuating between penury and occasional
profusion—sometimes porridge and sometimes grouse
forming the staple of the entertainment, the whisky
always flowing freely, fun and wrath, and loud re-
crimination and louder jest and laughter going on
continually. While' the goodwife watched behind,
" terrified for the ' Noctes,' " not knowing what out-
bursts of poetical nonsense might be put into the
mouth of Wilson's whimsical creation, who was a
being of fancy for the rest of the world, but to her
the image of her husband, caricatured, as she thought,
or travestied,— yet heart-stricken by the quarrels, the
failure of their grand and almost only resource of
literature, and the loss of the friendship of the publisher,
who had been so patient and so kind. We
are glad to leave Hogg here, in the wistful reflection
from his wife's eyes, and the comfort of the recon-
ciliation which was " a great relief of mind " to
the struggling house.
How this tender-hearted woman sufiered from other
evidences of the breach between her husband and his
best friend is evident from the following letter :
—
Eltrive Lake, Nov. 3.
Mr Hogg is better, after a severe illness, though not quite
stout. When he was about the worst it fell to my lot
to open your letter, and you may judge how much I was as-
tonished at the style of it, [so different] from those of yours I
had seen before. I shall make no comments on the article,
which I am sorry to find has bred so serious a quarrel. As to
literary disputes I have nothing to do with them, yet when
anything appears prejudicial to Mr H. I am not altogether
callous. However, after a visit of a few days at Abbotsford,
I am happy to find all animosity completely laid aside. I grieve