Page:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf/101

Rh came in and took a number of the folios and gave me $110 in gold for them. I think that was the largest sale I had made. For nearly forty years the kind-hearted Doctor treated me as a son. His reviews came out week after week in the papers, and they were written by a graceful pen. In 1846 I had the privilege of accompanying him and his daughter to England. Before we landed, he said to me: ‘If you will go direct from Liverpool to Edinburgh, I will go with you. I had intended to go to Holland first; but as you are acquainted in Scotland and I am a stranger there, I would like to go with you. To this I gladly assented. We took Melrose, Dryburgh, and Abbotsford on our way, stopped a few hours in my native village, where we took tea with the old minister that had baptized all my father’s eleven children and had received me at the age of fourteen into the church, and who was in my eyes a meet companion for the good Doctor. A little incident occurred which has often come up to me since. On our way from Melrose to Dryburgh, where Sir Walter Scott was buried, we crossed the Tweed in a ferry-boat. The Doctor, rubbing his hands, exclaimed, ‘If this is so beautiful, what must heaven be?’ In Edinburgh we met Dr. Chalmers, with whom we spent two delightful forenoons. We also met Drs. Guthrie, Candlish, Cunningham, and others, and the dear Doctor was in his element. On Sabbath we heard Guthrie, Gordon, and Candlish preach. In the evening the Doctor said to me, ‘What a day this has been! such preaching!’

“When he visited my store, he usually inquired what success this book and that had. He seemed to take a personal interest in them, as if he had been a partner. On one occasion he bought a number of books for a son of Dr. Scudder, who was a student at New