ough, I know, of a Saturday night; but he thinks me but idle company
for any other day of the week. And here, I suspect, lies your real
objection to taking a ramble with me through the southern counties in
this delicious weather. I know the good gentleman has hard thoughts
of me for being so unsettled as to leave Edinburgh before the Session
rises; perhaps, too, he quarrels a little--I will not say with my want
of ancestry, but with my want of connexions. He reckons me a lone thing
in this world, Alan, and so, in good truth, I am; and it seems a reason
to him why you should not attach yourself to me, that I can claim no
interest in the general herd.

Do not suppose I forget what I owe him, for permitting me to shelter for
four years under his roof: My obligations to him are not the less, but
the greater, if he never heartily loved me. He is angry, too, that I
will not, or cannot, be a lawyer, and, with reference to you, considers
my disinclination that way as PESSIMI EXEMPLI, as he might say.

But he need not be afraid that a lad of your steadiness will be
influenced by such a reed shaken by the winds as I am. You will go on
doubting with Dirleton, and resolving those doubts with Stewart,
['Sir John Nisbett of Dirleton's DOUBTS AND QUESTIONS UPON THE LAW,
ESPECIALLLY OF SCOTLAND;' and 'Sir James Stewart's DIRLETON'S DOUBTS AND
QUESTIONS ON THE LAW OF SCOTLAND RESOLVED AND ANSWERED,' are works
of authority in Scottish jurisprudence. As is generally the case, the
doubts are held more in respect than the solution.] until the cramp
speech [Till of late years, every advocate who catered at the Scottish
bar made a Latin address to the Court, faculty, and audience, in set
terms, and said a few words upon a text of the civil law, to show his
Latinity and jurisprudence. He also wore his hat for a minute, in order
to vindicate his right of being covered before the Court, which is said
to have originated from the celebrated lawyer, Sir Thomas Hope, having
two sons on the bench while he himself remained at the bar. Of late this
ceremony has been dispensed with, as occupying the time of the Court
unnecessarily. The entrant lawyer merely takes the oaths to government,
and swears to maintain the rules and privileges of his order.] has
been spoken more SOLITO from the corner of the bench, and with covered
head--until you have sworn to defend the liberties and privileges of the
College of Justice--until the black gown is hung on your sh