And I marvel that you, being a sensible man,
father Glover, will keep this Highland young fellow--a likely
one, I promise you--so nigh to Catharine, as if there were no
other than your daughter to serve him for a schoolmistress."
"Fie, my son--fie; now you are jealous," said Simon, "of a poor
young fellow who, to tell you the truth, resides here because he
may not so well live on the other side of the hill."
"Ay--ay, father Simon," retorted the smith, who had all the narrow
minded feelings of the burghers of his time, "an it were not for
fear of offence, I would say that you have even too much packing
and peiling with yonder loons out of burgh."
"I must get my deer hides, buckskins, kidskins, and so forth
somewhere, my good Harry, and Highlandmen give good bargains."
"They can afford them," replied Henry, drily, "for they sell nothing
but stolen gear."
"Well--well, be that as it may, it is not my business where they
get the bestial, so I get the 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.
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