approach, as if he anticipated a cordial and cheering word. I had
occasion to observe this particularly in a visit which we paid to a
quarry, whence several men were cutting stone for the new edifice; who
all paused from their labor to have a pleasant "crack wi' the laird."
One of them was a burgess of Selkirk, with whom Scott had some joke
about-the old song:

"Up with the Souters o' Selkirk,
And down with the Earl of Horne."

Another was precentor at the Kirk, and, besides leading the psalmody on
Sunday, taught the lads and lasses of the neighborhood dancing on week
days, in the winter time, when out-of-door labor was scarce.

Among the rest was a tall, straight old fellow, with a healthful
complexion and silver hair, and a small round-crowned white hat. He had
been about to shoulder a nod, but paused, and stood looking at Scott,
with a slight sparkling of his blue eye, as if waiting his turn; for
the old fellow knew himself to be a favorite.

Scott accosted him in an affable tone, and asked for a pinch of snuff.
The old man drew forth a horn snuff-box. "Hoot, man," said Scott, "not
that old mull: where's the bonnie French one that I brought you from
Paris?" "Troth, your honor," replied the old fellow, "sic a mull as
that is nae for week-days."

On leaving the quarry, Scott informed me that when absent at Paris, he
had purchased several trifling articles as presents for his dependents,
and among others the gay snuff-box in question, which was so carefully
reserved for Sundays, by the veteran. "It was not so much the value of