ABSTRACT
282On the morning of the 13th of September, Mr. Walter Scott called in Lisle-street, to invite Mr. Mathews to an early dinner with him, to meet Lord Byron, at Long’s Hotel. My husband had left home early on business previously to a journey he was about to make, and I told Mr. Scott that he was on the point of setting off that afternoon for Warwickshire, and that his place in the coach was taken. Mr. Scott expressed his vexation on a double account, first, that he could not see Mr. Mathews at dinner; next, that he had not been earlier aware of his intended journey, for that he had long wished to visit Kenilworth, and should have felt additional pleasure in doing so in his company. Mr. Scott asked me whether I thought my husband would forfeit his place in the coach, on condition that he left town 283with him in the evening, to post into Warwickshire. I ventured to promise that he would, and after turning over a portfolio of engravings, and chatting over them for about half an hour, the charming man reminded me of his expectation of seeing my husband at the appointed dinner-hour, which, for some reason I now forget, was, I think, three o’clock. Just as Mr. Scott prepared to take his leave, I observed that it was pouring with rain, and that it was impossible he could go away without a coach. He smiled, and refused my offer of sending for one. I then pressed him to take an umbrella; but he declared he never considered any sort of weather an impediment to his moving about free from encumbrance of any kind. He was dressed oddly enough for London, in a dark green coatee, single-breasted, and fashioned, I thought, something like a Squire’s hunting-jacket. His nether garments were drab-coloured, with continuations down to his shoes. Without further delay he departed, in the midst of what appeared to me little less than a torrent of rain, through which, leaning on a stout stick, he leisurely walked. As I stood at the window gazing after him as he proceeded down Leicester-place, he looked back with one of his fascinating smiles, and with a playful nod of his head, as if to reassure me that he was doing what was agreeable to him. I thought of the “Scotch mist,” and tried to reconcile myself to the complete wetting 284which this pattern-Scott must have received long before he reached Bond-street.
