dirk, and, with one blow, drove it through an oaken table:--"Yes,"
replied he, "and tell your friends that a man from the Lowlands drove
it where the devil himself cannot draw it out again." All persons were
delighted with the feat, and the words that accompanied it. They drank
with Park to a better acquaintance, and were staunch friends ever
afterwards.

After dinner we adjourned to the drawing-room, which served also for
study and library. Against the wall on one side was a long writing-
table, with drawers; surmounted by a small cabinet of polished wood,
with folding doors richly studded with brass ornaments, within which
Scott kept his most valuable papers. Above the cabinet, in a kind of
niche, was a complete corslet of glittering steel, with a closed
helmet, and flanked by gauntlets and battle-axes. Around were hung
trophies and relics of various kinds: a cimeter of Tippoo Saib; a
Highland broadsword from Flodden Field; a pair of Rippon spurs from
Bannockburn; and above all, a gun which had belonged to Rob Roy, and
bore his initials, R.M.G., an object of peculiar interest to me at the
time, as it was understood Scott was actually engaged in printing a
novel founded on the story of that famous outlaw.

On each side of the cabinet were book-cases, well stored with works of
romantic fiction in various languages, many of them rare and
antiquated. This, however, was merely his cottage library, the
principal part of his books being at Edinburgh.

From this little cabinet of curiosities Scott drew forth a manuscript
picked up on the field of Waterloo, containing copies of several songs
popular at the time in France. The paper was dabbled with blood--"the
very life-blood, very possibly," said Scott, "of some gay young