Note 312 — TUESDAY, AUGUST 24.
Reading edition
Perhaps the poverty of their host led to this talk. Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:—'Imprudence, or ill-fortune as fatal as the sands of Belhelvie [shifting sands that had swallowed up a whole parish], has swallowed up the estate of Errol, excepting this dreary mansion-house and a farm or two adjoining.' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 187.