oo, if I
thought it. But I'll never trust ye so near the French, you that's so
Frenchifeed."

"You do me injustice there, sir," said Archie. "I am loyal; I will not
boast; but any interest I may have ever felt in the French--"

"Have ye been so loyal to me?" interrupted his father.

There came no reply.

"I think not," continued Hermiston. "And I would send no man to be a
servant to the King, God bless him! that has proved such a shauchling
son to his own faither. You can splairge here on Edinburgh street, and
where's the hairm? It doesna play buff on me! And if there were twenty
thousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a Duncan Jopp would hang the
fewer. But there's no splairging possible in a camp; and if you were to
go to it, you would find out for yourself whether Lord Well'n'ton
approves of caapital punishment or not. You a sodger!" he cried, with a
sudden burst of scorn. "Ye auld wife, the sodgers would bray at ye like
cuddies!"

As at the drawing of a curtain, Archie was aware of some illogicality in
his position, and stood abashed. He had a strong impression, besides, of
the essential valour of the old gentleman before him, how conveyed it
would be hard to say.

"Well, have ye no other proposeetion?" said my lord again.

"You have taken this so calmly, sir, that I cannot but stand ashamed,"
began Archie.

"I'm nearer voamiting, though, than you would fancy," said my lord.

The blood rose to Archie's brow.

"I beg your pardon, I should have said that you had accepted my
affront.... I admit it was an affront; I did not think to apologise, but
I do, I ask your pardon; it will not be so again, I pass you my word of
honour.... I should have said that I admired your magnanimity
with--this--offender," Archie concluded with a gulp.

"I have no other son, ye see," said Hermiston. "A bonny one I have
gotten! But I must just do the best I can wi' him, and what am I to do?
If ye had been younger, I would have wheepit ye for this rideeculous
exhibeetion. The way it is, I have just to grin and bear. But one thing
is to be clearly understood. As a faither, I must grin and bear it; but
if I had been the Lord Advocate instead of the Lord Justice-Clerk, son
or no son, Mr. Erchibald Weir would have been in a jyle the night."

Archie was now dominated. Lord Hermiston was coarse and cruel; and yet
the son was aware of a bloomless nobility, an ungracious abnegation of
the man's self in the man's office. At every word, th