eral.] which is the name given to
a room where the laird lies when he comes to a tenant's house. Steele
suddenly opening the door, fired a blunderbuss down at the two dragoons,
as they were coming up the stairs; but the bullets grazing against the
side of the turnpike, only wounded, and did not kill them. Then Steele
violently threw himself down the stairs among them, and made towards the
door to save his life, but lost it upon the spot; for the dragoons who
guarded the house dispatched him with their broadswords. I was not with
the party when he was killed, being at that time employed in searching
one of the other houses, but I soon found what had happened, by hearing
the noise of the shot made with the blunderbuss; from whence I returned
straight to Lanark, and immediately sent one of the dragoons express
to General Drummond at Edinburgh."--SWIFT'S WORKS, VOL.XII. (MEMOIRS OF
CAPTAIN JOHN CREICHTON), pages 57-59, Edit. Edinb. 1824.

Woodrow gives a different account of this exploit:--"In December this
year, (1686), David Steil, in the parish of Lismahagow, was surprised in
the fields by Lieutenant Creichton, and after his surrender of himself
on quarters, he was in a very little time most barbarously shot, and
lies buried in the churchyard there."

Note 3.--IRON RASP.

The ingenious Mr. R. CHAMBERS'S Traditions of Edinburgh give the
following account of the forgotten rasp or risp:--

"This house had a PIN or RISP at the door, instead of the more modern
convenience--a knocker. The pin, rendered interesting by the figure
which it makes in Scottish song, was formed of a small rod of iron,
twisted or notched, which was placed perpendicularly, starting out a
little from the door, and bore a small ring of the same metal, which an
applicant for admittance drew rapidly up and down the NICKS, so as to
produce a grating sound. Sometimes the rod was simply stretched across
the VIZZYING hole, a convenient aperture through which the porter could
take cognisance of the person applying; in which case it acted also as
a stanchion. These were almost all disused about sixty years ago, when
knockers were generally substituted as more genteel. But knockers at
that time did not long remain in repute, though they have never been
altogether superseded, even by bells, in the Old Town. The comparative
merit of knockers and pins was for a long time a subject of doubt,
and many knockers got their heads twisted off in the course of the
dis