et
I was more foolish to be provoked by such as he. Your father blames me
not, Catharine, and cannot you forgive me?"

"I have no power to forgive," answered Catharine, "what I have no title
to resent. If my father chooses to have his house made the scene of
night brawls, I must witness them--I cannot help myself. Perhaps it was
wrong in me to faint and interrupt, it may be, the farther progress of a
fair fray. My apology is, that I cannot bear the sight of blood."

"And is this the manner," said her father, "in which you receive my
friend after his long absence? My friend, did I say? Nay, my son. He
escapes being murdered by a fellow whom I will tomorrow clear this house
of, and you treat him as if he had done wrong in dashing from him the
snake which was about to sting him!"

"It is not my part, father," returned the Maid of Perth, "to decide who
had the right or wrong in the present brawl, nor did I see what happened
distinctly enough to say which was assailant, or which defender. But
sure our friend, Master Henry, will not deny that he lives in a perfect
atmosphere of strife, blood, and quarrels. He hears of no swordsman but
he envies his reputation, and must needs put his valour to the proof. He
sees no brawl but he must strike into the midst of it. Has he friends,
he fights with them for love and honour; has he enemies, he fights with
them for hatred and revenge. And those men who are neither his friends
nor foes, he fights with them because they are on this or that side of
a river. His days are days of battle, and, doubtless, he acts them over
again in his dreams."

"Daughter," said Simon, "your tongue wags too freely. Quarrels and
fights are men's business, not women's, and it is not maidenly to think
or speak of them."

"But if they are so rudely enacted in our presence," said Catharine, "it
is a little hard to expect us to think or speak of anything else. I will
grant you, my father, that this valiant burgess of Perth is one of the
best hearted men that draws breath within its walls: that he would walk
a hundred yards out of the way rather than step upon a worm; that
he would be as loth, in wantonness, to kill a spider as if he were a
kinsman to King Robert, of happy memory; that in the last quarrel before
his departure he fought with four butchers, to prevent their killing a
poor mastiff that had misbehaved in the bull ring, and narrowly escaped
the fate of the cur that he was protecting. I will grant yo