forth, all neatly done up with red tape. . . .
His own writing apparatus was a very handsome
old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet,
and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, &c., in
silver, The room had no space for pictures, except
one, an original portrait of Claverhouse, which
SIR WALTER SCOTT?S HOUSE, CASTLE STREET.
the upper leaves before opening it. I think I have
mentioned all the furniture of the room, except a
sort of ladder, low, broad, and well carpeted, and
strongly guarded with oaken rails, by which he
helped himself to books from his higher shelves.
On the top step of this convenience, Hinse, a
hung over the chimney-piece, with a Highland
target on either side, and broadswords and dirks
(each having its own story) disposed star-fashion
round them. A few green tin boxes, such as
solicitors keep their deeds in, wee piled over each
other on one side of the window, and on the top of
these lay a fox?s tail, mounted on an antique silver
handle, wherewith, as often as he had occasion to
take down a book, he gently brushed the dust off
venerable tom-cat, fat and sleek, and no longer
very locomotive, usually lay, watching the proceedings
of his master and Maida with an au cif
dignified equanimity.?
Scott?s professional practice at the bar was never
anything to speak of; but in 1812 his salary and
fees as a Principal Clerk of Session were commuted
into a fixed salary of ;Gr,6oo annually, an income
he enjoyed for upwards of twenty-five years. His
