Marischal continued,
though rather weary of the business, for about a year more; or till the
King got home,--who delights in companionship, and is willing to let an
old man demit for good.

It was in Summer, 1762 (about three months after the above Letter from
the King), that Rousseau made his celebrated exodus into Neufchatel
Country, and found the old Governor so good to him,--glad to be allowed
to shelter the poor skinless creature. And, mark as curious, it must
have been on two of those mornings, towards the end of the Siege of
Schweidnitz, when things were getting so intolerable, and at times
breaking out into electricity, into "rebuke all round," that Friedrich
received that singular pair of Laconic Notes from Rousseau in
Neufchatel: forwarded, successively, by Lord Marischal; NOTE FIRST, of
date, "Motier-Travers, Neufchatel, September," nobody can guess what
day, "1762:" "I have said much ill of you, and don't repent it. Now
everybody has banished me; and it is on your threshold that I sit down.
Kill me, if you have a mind!" And then (after, not death, but the gift
of 100 crowns), NOTE SECOND, "October, 1762:"... "Take out of my sight
that sword, which dazzles and pains me; IT has only too well done its
duty, while the sceptre is abandoned:" Make Peace, can't you! [_OEuvres
completes de Rousseau_ (a Geneve, 1782-1789), xxxiii. 64, 65.]--What
curious reading for a King in such posture, among the miscellaneous
arrivals overnight! Above six weeks before either of these NOTES,
Friedrich, hearing of him from Lord Marischal, had answered: "An asylum?
Yes, by all means: the unlucky cynic!" It is on September 1st, that he
sends, by the same channel, 100 crowns for his use, with advice to "give
them in NATURA, lest he refuse otherwise;" as Friedrich knows to be
possible. In words, the Rousseau Notes got nothing of Answer. "A GARCON
SINGULIER," says Friedrich: odd fellow, yes indeed, your Majesty;--and
has such a pungency of flattery in him too, presented in the way of
snarl! His Majesty might take him, I suppose, with a kind of relish,
like Queen-Dowager snuff.

There was still another shift of place, shift which proved temporary,
in old Marischal's life: Home to native Aberdeenshire. The two childless
Brothers, Earls of Kintore, had died successively, the last of them
November 22d, 1761: title and heritage, not considerable the latter,
fell duly, by what preparatives we know, to old Marischal; but his Keith
kinsfolk, f