2110-5-10-13

GORRINGES, DOWNE, KENT.

25 Feb 1932

Dear Buchan,

I feel as if I ought to begin this letter to you as Mr Micawber did his letter to David Copperfield from Australia

"Though seas between us braid hae roared (Burns)" We have not met for ages but I do want to say how intensely I admire & have enjoyed your Scott. I greedily snatched it to review at Country Life office today two days ago & now, having read it all too quick & written my inadequate review I must begin to read it more slowly over again; also incidentally to read some of the novels again.

I think I cd. play even a Scotsman at Guy Mannering (I'm sorry you don't put it top) and (though this is nothing), I know Ivanhoe well-ish; at least I have never found anyone but myself who could name the six knights challengers at the tournament - not at Ashby which is childs play but at St John-de-Acre. But some of the other great ones have grown shamefully dim

& if I read them again I shall owe it to your - if I may respectfully say so - heavenly book.

And now at the end of this screed I want to ask you a question. You speak (p. 332) of Scott when at Avernus murmuring

Up the craggy mountain

And down the mossy glen

We dawna gang a-milking

For Charlie & his men.

Where do those lines come from? and did (I presume so) Allingham take from them

Up the airy mountain

And down the rushy glen

We daren't go a hunting

For fear of little men.

I expect this is a grossly ignorant literary question but I don't care - I want to know & shd. esteem a post card, if you have time.

Yours sincerely

Bernard Darwin