h all the rest
of my story Alan was Mr. Thomson; which amused me the more, as it was a
piece of policy after his own heart. James Stewart, in like manner, was
mentioned under the style of Mr. Thomson's kinsman; Colin Campbell
passed as a Mr. Glen; and to Cluny, when I came to that part of my tale,
I gave the name of "Mr. Jameson, a Highland chief." It was truly the
most open farce, and I wondered that the lawyer should care to keep it
up; but, after all, it was quite in the taste of that age, when there
were two parties in the State, and quiet persons, with no very high
opinions of their own, sought out every cranny to avoid offence to
either.

"Well, well," said the lawyer, when I had quite done, "this is a great
epic, a great Odyssey of yours. You must tell it, sir, in a sound
Latinity when your scholarship is riper; or in English if you please,
though for my part I prefer the stronger tongue. You have rolled much;
_quae regio in terris_--what parish in Scotland (to make a homely
translation) has not been filled with your wanderings? You have shown,
besides, a singular aptitude for getting into false positions; and, yes,
upon the whole, for behaving well in them. This Mr. Thomson seems to me
a gentleman of some choice qualities, though perhaps a trifle
bloody-minded. It would please me none the worse, if (with all his
merits) he were soused in the North Sea, for the man, Mr. David, is a
sore embarrassment. But you are doubtless quite right to adhere to him;
indubitably he adhered to you. _It comes_--we may say--he was your true
companion; nor less _paribus curis vestigia figit_, for I daresay you
would both take an orra thought upon the gallows. Well, well, these days
are fortunately by; and I think (speaking humanly) that you are near the
end of your troubles."

As he thus moralised on my adventures, he looked upon me with so much
humour and benignity that I could scarce contain my satisfaction. I had
been so long wandering with lawless people, and making my bed upon the
hills and under the bare sky, that to sit once more in a clean, covered
house, and to talk amicably with a gentleman in broadcloth, seemed
mighty elevations. Even as I thought so, my eye fell on my unseemly
tatters, and I was once more plunged in confusion. But the lawyer saw
and understood me. He rose, called over the stair to lay another plate,
for Mr. Balfour would stay to dinner, and led me into a bedroom in the
upper part of the house. Here he