Before dismissing the theme of the relics from the Abbey, I will
mention another, illustrative of Scott's varied humors. This was a
human skull, which had probably belonged of yore to one of those jovial
friars, so honorably mentioned in the old border ballad:

"O the monks of Melrose made gude kale
On Fridays, when they fasted;
They wanted neither beef nor ale,
As long as their neighbors lasted."

This skull he had caused to be cleaned and varnished, and placed it on
a chest of drawers in his chamber, immediately opposite his bed; where
I have seen it, grinning most dismally. It was an object of great awe
and horror to the superstitious housemaids; and Scott used to amuse
himself with their apprehensions. Sometimes, in changing his dress, he
would leave his neck-cloth coiled round it like a turban, and none of
the "lasses" dared to remove it. It was a matter of great wonder and
speculation among them that the laird should have such an "awsome fancy
for an auld girning skull."

At breakfast that morning Scott gave an amusing account of a little
Highlander called Campbell of the North, who had a lawsuit of many
years' standing with a nobleman in his neighborhood about the
boundaries of their estates. It was the leading object of the little
man's life; the running theme of all his conversations; he used to
detail all the circumstances at full length to everybody he met, and,
to aid him in his description of the premises, and make his story "mair
preceese," he had a great map made of his estate, a huge roll several
feet long, which he used to carry about on his shoulder. Campbell was a
long-bodied, but short and bandy-legged little man, always clad in the