Saturday, February 16, 1833

1833

February

Saturday 16

9 1/2

11 35/..

Rainy, windy morning and had been so from the time it was light – All the snow gone –

Grubbled a little last night, and touched and handled her this morning –

Downstairs and at breakfast at 10 35/.. – Had just done as Captain Sutherland and Mrs. Sutherland (his mother) arrived at 11 – an hour or 2 before we expected them, but glad they came so, and that we got it so well over – They had breakfast at Leeds, but we had fresh tea made –

Mrs. Sutherland must have been rather handsome – Looks perhaps 60, stout and well – Captain Sutherland good looking, very good Scotch countenance but neither of them highton people. Both of them ma’aming Miss Walker and me almost every word.  Good people, but almost vulgarish? Got on very well together –

Miss W- a good deal out of the room and Mrs. S- went to her room to write – so talk with Captain S-.  Said I thought the complaint chiefly on Miss W-’s mind; but she was perfectly herself on all subjects but that of religious despondency – She had certainly been better since Monday when Miss Rawson left her, and I had been constantly at Lidgate except on Monday night when I came home – She would require very good management – Required a physician accustomed to mental suffering –

Mrs. S- said Dr. MacDonald recommended Dr. Hamilton of Edinburgh, ætatis about 70 but still lecturing there and in great practice – Quite a lady’s physician.  I agreed to this – Sure Miss W-  would not consult two physicians – Would not have both Dr. Abercrombie (who has succeeded to Dr. Gregory’s practice) and Dr. Hamilton –

Talked about Udale – Captain S- very unreserved.  250 acres (of which 150 very good and 100 middling) and 50 or 60 acres of 40-years-old fir wood worth £15 an acre (which he is advised to break up into arable land as fir will be a dry) and the present worth of the wood will pay the expense of turning into land), and 18 acres of 15-years-old oak that he is going to cut over – All this land and wood with farm buildings for £9,000 – he has men at 1/. a day by the long job, and if he wants a man for a day or 2, gives him 1/6 a day – His constant labourers or farming men with house rent free and allowance of corn and coals cost him £20 a year each – has their land in his own hands – and does not spend on living more than two hundred a year besides the produce of the farm. Captain S-’s new house at Udale built for £1300 (very good, comfortable house) including all but papering and painting –

Mr. William Priestley called before 2 and having to wait for Captain S- staid a longish while – Captain S- then went to Halifax and afterwards (at 3) Miss W- and Mrs. S- and I went by the carriage road to Crow Nest – 1 1/2 hour looking over the whole house from cellars to garrets, outbuildings and gardens and shrubbery –

Then called for about 1/2 hour or more at Cliff hill, and returned by the fields and I took my leave on crossing from the public house – Promised Miss W- to dine and stay all night with her tomorrow (much apparently to Mrs. S-’s satisfaction) and home in about 1/2 hour at 6 –

Some time in the little room – Pickels came about 7 – Long while talking to him – Dinner at 7 1/2 – Came to my room at 8 1/4

[In the margin:] Captain S- told me that at Inverness the best mineral timber sells at 2/2 per cubic foot in the log, or at 2/6 to 2/8 per cubic foot if you wanted only a very small quantity – the price of sawing up is 1/8 per hundred lineal feet –

Wrote out the last 2 1/2 lines of Tuesday and the whole of Wednesday, Thursday, yesterday and today, and went downstairs at 9 3/4 – came up again at 10 25/.. –

Rainy, windy, wild morning – Tolerably fair between 12 and 1 and afterwards from about 2 p.m., quite fair for the rest of the day – F 46 1/2 now at 10 1/2 p.m. –

Took two teaspoonfuls of epsom salts having had no proper motion and hardly any at all but two or three dark green little knobs since Tuesday morning.

 

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/16/0017 and SH:7/ML/E/16/0018