he hides. But as I was saying, there are certain
considerations why I am willing to oblige the father of this young man,
by keeping him here. And he is but half a Highlander neither, and wants
a thought of the dour spirit of a 'glune amie' after all, I have seldom
seen him so fierce as he showed himself but now."

"You could not, unless he had killed his man," replied the smith, in the
same dry tone.

"Nevertheless, if you wish it, Harry, I'll set all other respects aside,
and send the landlouper to seek other quarters tomorrow morning."

"Nay, father," said the smith, "you cannot suppose that Harry Gow cares
the value of a smithy dander for such a cub as yonder cat-a-mountain?
I care little, I promise you, though all his clan were coming down the
Shoegate with slogan crying and pipes playing: I would find fifty blades
and bucklers would send them back faster than they came. But, to speak
truth, though it is a fool's speech too, I care not to see the fellow so
much with Catharine. Remember, father Glover, your trade keeps your eyes
and hands close employed, and must have your heedful care, even if this
lazy lurdane wrought at it, which you know yourself he seldom does."

"And that is true," said Simon: "he cuts all his gloves out for the
right hand, and never could finish a pair in his life."

"No doubt, his notions of skin cutting are rather different," said
Henry. "But with your leave, father, I would only say that, work he or
be he idle, he has no bleared eyes, no hands seared with the hot iron,
and welked by the use of the fore hammer, no hair rusted in the smoke,
and singed in the furnace, like the hide of a badger, rather than what
is fit to be covered with a Christian bonnet. Now, let Catharine be
as good a wench as ever lived, and I will uphold her to be the best in
Perth, yet she must see and know that these things make a difference
betwixt man and man, and that the difference is not in my favour."

"Here is to thee, with all my heart, son Harry," said the old man,
filling a brimmer to his companion and another to himself; "I see that,
good smith as thou art, thou ken'st not the mettle that women are made
of. Thou must be bold, Henry; and bear thyself not as if thou wert going
to the gallows lee, but like a gay young fellow, who knows his own worth
and will not be slighted by the best grandchild Eve ever had. Catharine
is a woman like her mother, and thou thinkest foolishly to suppose they
are all set on w