; for the old fellow knew he was 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 the gifts,' said he, 'that pleased
them, as the idea that the laird should think of them when
so far away.'"

One more incident of this return--it was told to me by himself, some
years afterwards, with gravity, and even sadness. "The last of my
chargers," he said, "was a high-spirited and very handsome one, by
name Daisy, all over white, without a speck, and with such a mane as
Rubens delighted to paint. He had, among other good qualities, one
always particularly valuable in my case, that of standing like a rock
to be mounted. When he was brought to the door, after I came home from
the Continent, instead of signifying, by the usual tokens, that he was
pleased to see his master, he looked askant at me like a devil; and
when I put my foot in the stirrup, he reared bolt upright, and I fell
to the ground rather awkwardly. The experiment was repeated twice or
thrice, always with the same result. It occurred to me that he might
have taken some capricious dislike to my dress; and Tom Purdie, who
always falls heir to the white hat and green jacket, and so forth,
when Mrs. Scott has made me discard a set of garments, was sent for,
to try whether these habiliments would produce him a similar reception
from his old friend Daisy: but Daisy {p.069} allowed Tom to back him
with all manner of gentleness. The thing was inexplicable--but he had
certainly taken some part of my conduct in high dudgeon and disgust;
and after trying him again, at the interval of a week, I was obliged
to part with Daisy--and wars and rumors of wars being over, I resolved
thenceforth to have done with such dainty blood. I now stick to a good
sober cob." Somebody suggested that Daisy might have considered
himself as ill-used, by being left at home when _the laird_ wen