bs in the Scotch capital at that time, and Scott was a
member of several. Some time was spent in argument, but more in telling
stories and in singing songs.

Here the young lawyer ruled supreme. No other man could tell such tales
as he, and none knew so many and such curious songs. The stories were
not all his own; frequently he retold old ones that he had heard,
dressing them up to suit his taste. Once a friend complained that he had
changed a story told him the day before.

"Why," said Scott, with twinkling eyes, "I don't change stories. I only
put a cocked hat on their heads, and stick a cane into their hands--to
make them fit for going into company."

Fifteen years passed and all England was reading eagerly the wonderful
historical poems and romances written by a man who called himself the
"Wizard of the North."

Scotland had always been a desolate barren country in the eyes of the
rest of the world, its history unknown, its people cold and uninviting.
Suddenly all that was changed: Scotland sprang into being as a land of
romance, filled with poetry, a country full of glorious scenery, a
people descended from a line of kings. Even the narrow streets of
Edinburgh and the old Canongate itself became historic ground under the
Wizard's spell. The Wizard was Walter Scott, and now he found the whole
world as eager to hear the stories and poems he had to tell about his
country as his boy friends had been years before. He had not changed
much as he grew up. At the height of his fame Walter Scott was still in
spirit the eager boy of the old city, finding romance everywhere about
him because he looked for it with the eyes of youth.

XVI

James Fenimore Cooper

The Boy of Otsego Hall: 1789-1851

The finest house in central New York State in 1801 was Otsego Hall. The
owner of the house, a Mr. Cooper, fond of old English customs, lived
much like a lord of the manor of the old country, and kept open house
for his neighbors of the region. On a Saturday afternoon in September of
that year he was giving a great party, and all roads in the neighborhood
of Cooperstown, which had been named in honor of this popular gentleman,
led to Otsego Hall.

A gay stream flowed up to the great stone posts that flanked the
entrance driveway. There were men in bright-hued, tight-fitting trousers
with high shining top-boots, brilliant plum and claret colored coats and
fawn or scarlet waistcoats, with lace stocks at their throats, t