flight, wouldst have sent home supperless, because he was like Solon or
Belisarius. But you forget that the affront descended like a benediction
into the pouch of the old gaberlunzie, who overflowed in blessings upon
the generous donor--long ere he would have thanked thee, Darsie, for
thy barren veneration of his beard and his bearing. Then you laugh at
my good father's retreat from Falkirk, just as if it were not time for a
man to trudge when three or four mountain knaves, with naked claymores,
and heels as light as their fingers, were scampering after him, crying
FURINISH. You remember what he said himself when the Laird of Bucklivat
told him that FURINISH signified 'stay a while'. 'What the devil,'
he said, surprised out of his Presbyterian correctness by the
unreasonableness of such a request under the circumstances, 'would the
scoundrels have had me stop to have my head cut off?'

Imagine such a train at your own heels, Darsie, and ask yourself whether
you would not exert your legs as fast as you did in flying from the
Solway tide. And yet you impeach my father's courage. I tell you he has
courage enough to do what is right, and to spurn what is wrong--courage
enough to defend a righteous cause with hand and purse, and to take
the part of the poor man against his oppressor, without fear of the
consequences to himself. This is civil courage, Darsie; and it is of
little consequence to most men in this age and country whether they ever
possess military courage or no.

Do not think I am angry with you, though I thus attempt to rectify your
opinions on my father's account. I am well aware that, upon the whole,
he is scarce regarded with more respect by me than by thee. And, while
I am in a serious humour, which it is difficult to preserve with one who
is perpetually tempting me to laugh at him, pray, dearest Darsie, let
not thy ardour for adventure carry thee into more such scrapes as that
of the Solway Sands. The rest of the story is a mere imagination; but
that stormy evening might have proved, as the clown says to Lear, 'a
naughty night to swim in.'

As for the rest, if you can work mysterious and romantic heroes out of
old cross-grained fishermen, why, I for one will reap some amusement by
the metamorphosis. Yet hold! even there, there is some need of caution.
This same female chaplain--thou sayest so little of her, and so much of
every one else, that it excites some doubt in my mind. VERY PRETTY she
is, it seems