him, and he found
himself thrown entirely on the society of his own family.

But to return. From a romantic wish to give his wife what he imagined
she desired, Dr Burton returned from Lochgoilhead, leaving his family
there, took all the steps for obtaining a lease of Craighouse in their
absence, and on their return presented his wife, as her birthday gift,
with the keys of Craighouse--a huge bunch of antique keys, some of them
with picturesque old handles. Mrs Burton and all her family loved their
beautiful home as much as any home ever was loved. They occupied it for
seventeen years.

During the exceptionally severe winter of 1860-61, the most essential
repairs were executed on the old house, and the family moved into it in
March.

The 5th of March was long kept by them as a festival--the anniversary of
the day on which they drove out to take possession of Craighouse in a
spring snowstorm. They had resolved to get possession before the
snowdrops, with which the beautiful avenue was carpeted, should be over;
and they did--but the snowdrops were buried in snow.

[Illustration: _Craighouse._]

CHAPTER V.

THIRD STAGE OF LITERARY LIFE.

_Craighouse--Birth and marriages--Office and literary work--"Perth
days"--Captain Speke--Library--Athenaeum--Historiographership--Unsociability
and Hospitality--St Albans--Strasburg--London--Stories, jokes, and
nonsense-verses._

At Craighouse a second son was born to Dr Burton; his seventh and
youngest child. There also his eldest and his third daughters married;
the younger, Matilda Lauder, in June 1877, becoming the wife of William
Lennox Cleland, of Adelaide, South Australia; the elder, Isabella
Jessie, that of James Rodger, M.D., of Aberdeen, in April 1878.

The whole of the period at Craighouse was one of active literary as well
as official life. Dr Burton walked daily to the Office of Prisons, no
longer to perform the duty of secretary, but that of manager, at the
same salary he had enjoyed as secretary. The transference of the
principal part of the duty to London altered his position but slightly.
Both before and after this change a monthly visit to the General Prison
at Perth was part of his duty. His wife occasionally accompanied him in
these excursions, and by experience can judge of the fatigue, or rather
the exertion without fatigue, which he underwent in them. At home Dr
Burton was never an early riser, but in travelling he willingly
performed a first stage