" But after Sir Walter had lost the bodily strength
requisite for riding, and was too melancholy for ordinary
conversation, Tom Purdie's shoulder was his great stay in wandering
through his woods, for with him he felt that he might either speak or
be silent at his pleasure. "What a blessing there is," Scott wrote in
his diary at that time, "in a fellow like Tom, whom no familiarity can
spoil, whom you may scold and praise and joke with, knowing the
quality of the man is unalterable in his love and reverence to his
master." After Scott's failure, Mr. Lockhart writes: "Before I leave
this period, I must note how greatly I admired the manner in which all
his dependents appeared to have met the reverse of his fortunes--a
reverse which inferred very considerable alteration in the
circumstances of every one of them. The butler, instead of being the
easy chief of a large establishment, was now doing half the work of
the house at probably half his former wages. Old Peter, who had been
for five and twenty years a dignified coachman, was now ploughman in
ordinary, only putting his horses to the carriage upon high and rare
occasions; and so on with all the rest that remained of the ancient
train.
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