gb0551ms-33-120

Transcription

[Page] 120
[continued from page 119]

Roman remains in this country never
faded and to the end he was aquainted
with any research going on During the
Newstead period which, continued over a
number of years, he paid several visits
to Homburg V.D.H. [vor der Höhe] and when there was
a frequent visitor to the reconstructed fort
of the Saalberg, where on one occasion he
was presented to Kaiser Wilhelm II and had a
a conversation with him. Besides
his archaeological interests he had literary
interests. He was a wide reader of good
literature and possessed an excellent
memory. He loved fine books, and beside
his Gotland relics, books were his chief
hobby. He possessed a number of the
issues of the Kelmscott Press, Vols. [Volumes] of the Doves
Press etc including among the former a copy
of the ‘Chaucer’. He, at one time, collected
autograph letters having as a basis for
his collection a number of letters in the
handwriting of Sir Walter Scott, who had
been a client of our grandfather’s. One
of his chief treasures used to be a letter from
Mme de Maintenon, until one day on exhibiting
it proudly to a French savant, the learned


man remarked that neither was it in the hand-
writing of Madame nor was it in any way in
her style! Our grandmother, Lady Anderson,
was reputed to be the wittiest woman of her day
in Glasgow and the sense of humour, which we all
possess, has no doubt been inherited from her, but
on Jim especially descended the Mantle of her wit.
It was no trenchant instrument in his hands that cut
and wounded, but always pleasant & kindly. His
humour found a medium of expression in the
sundry sets of doggerel verses, which from time to
time, he wrote to celebrate some event in the
family life or in the history of the community of
Melrose. Of these Mary possesses a collection.
It was his good fortune for a long number of
years to be served by a devoted friend as steward
on Millmount farm, one Thomas Purves. Thomas
was a fine specimen of a Border Scot. honest
and straightforward as the day, possessed of the
pawky humour of his race, and gifted with an
unusual power of expression. Almost daily, as
his father and grandfather had done before
him, Jim walked to the farm after office hours,
and in the course of talks about crops, hogs,
gimmers etc. gathered up in his memory the
gems that Thomas let drop. I urged him to
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