This mixture of feudal and personal
feeling towards the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch continued during
their lives. Scott was away on a yachting tour to the Shetlands and
Orkneys in July and August, 1814, and it was during this absence that
the Duchess of Buccleuch died. Scott, who was in no anxiety about her,
employed himself in writing an amusing descriptive epistle to the Duke
in rough verse, chronicling his voyage, and containing expressions of
the profoundest reverence for the goodness and charity of the Duchess,
a letter which did not reach its destination till after the Duchess's
death. Scott himself heard of her death by chance when they landed for
a few hours on the coast of Ireland; he was quite overpowered by the
news, and went to bed only to drop into short nightmare sleeps, and to
wake with the dim memory of some heavy weight at his heart. The Duke
himself died five years later, leaving a son only thirteen years of
age (the present Duke), over whose interests, both as regarded his
education and his estates, Scott watched as jealously as if they had
been those of his own son.
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