2110-4-2-3

[ST: From Lady Betty Balfour afterwards Countess Balfour]

Whittingehame Prestonkirk Scotland

Telegrams: Prestonkirk Railway Station: East Linton, N.B.Ry.

Sep: 9: 22.

Dear Mr. Buchan

I must add my crumb of thanks to you for the joyous advent of Huntingtower to the many that must be heaping upon you.

Remembering the pleasure that Thirty Nine Steps & Greenmantle gave me I felt I must get Huntingtower as soon as possible. It did not arrive here with Aunt Alice's Library books so I committed the rare extravagance of buying the book. And now I have been compelled to buy a second copy - one to lend & one to keep by me. If you knew how rare this extravagance was you would know the depth of my enthusiasm.

We thought at first you had re-created

the old ballad of Hunting Tower, & were a little cross to find your Tower had nothing to do with the Lord of Atholl.

I read the first chap: - was not sure if the book was going to be up to standard but suggested reading it aloud in the evenings.

My audience Aunt Alice [ST: Miss Alice Balfour] who you know & who generally slumbers peacefully after dinner - Aunt [ST: Mrs] Nora Sidgwick - elder sister - who generally reads her own book in the evening - and is disinclined always to begin a novel she has not known for at least 30 years - My son Ral who is a peak connaisieur in novels - especially new ones - but prefers reading them to himself - & Alison Milne (niece) who is silent usually as to her views on any sort of book. - Well I began. From the

Whittingehame Prestonkirk Scotland

Telegrams: Prestonkirk. Railway Station: East Linton, N.B.Ry.

1st moment that Dickson McCunn came in to the scene I felt my audience gripped. The reading has lasted us 6 nights. We meant to keep the last two chaps. to cheer us up Sunday evening before & after family prayers - but we could'nt. Aunt Nora who had the most immaculately regular & punctual life, & has trained herself not to express exaggerated emotion about anything on earth, for the last three nights has been leaning eagerly forward in her chair & has 'clamoured' for another chap: when I proposed stopping, and last night it was she who said I must finish the book there & then tho' it was long past the orthodox going to be bed hour. During the

day she would look thoughtful at moments & then discuss some print in the book as if it was of vital importance & first class interest. Aunt Alice has knitted furiously during the readings & has not once closed her eyes, but her mind was so much in the story & so little with the knitting that she had to begin each night by undoing what she had knitted the night before.

Ral [ST: present Earl Balfour] was due to leave us last Friday for a visit in Renshire & looked so gloomy at the thought of not hearing the end of the story that I told him to buy another copy in his journey.

Alison who hates being told a story, and who thought as she had missed the first 2 evenings that she could never catch us up & might as well read to herself & not listen to us - came nearer & nearer - crouched on a stool at the fire corner - & asked Aunt Nora

Whittingehame Prestonkirk Scotland

Telegrams: Prestonkirk. Railway Station: East Linton, N.B.Ry.

to give a short resumé of what she had missed - wh. A[un]t Nora did with admirable brevity. I believe Alison was actually guilty of looking on to the end before we got there but that in Aunt Nora's eyes is such a crime we hushed it up.

We are all thinking privately now how frightfully dull our evenings are going to be. To we elders I think perhaps the chief charm of the book was the revelation of Romance & Adventure in the frame of the the middle aged the respectable, the business like. I believe I and the Aunts all felt that in McCunn we ourselves had been understood & revealed. To the young ones it was of course rapture the way the real initiative & authority & efficiency