--and
to throw your books behind you for so many hours?--Had it been a turn in
the meadows, or even a game at golf--but Noble House, sir!'

'I went so far with Darsie Latimer, sir, to see him begin his journey.'

'Darsie Latimer?' he replied in a softened tone--'Humph!--Well, I do not
blame you for being kind to Darsie Latimer; but it would have done as
much good if you had walked with him as far as the toll-bar, and then
made your farewells--it would have saved horse-hire--and your reckoning,
too, at dinner.'

'Latimer paid that, sir,' I replied, thinking to soften the matter; but
I had much better have left it unspoken.

'The reckoning, sir!' replied my father. 'And did you sponge upon any
man for a reckoning? Sir, no man should enter the door of a public-house
without paying his lawing.'

'I admit the general rule, sir,' I replied; 'but this was a parting-cup
between Darsie and me; and I should conceive it fell under the exception
of DOCH AN DORROCH.'

'You think yourself a wit,' said my father, with as near an approach to
a smile as ever he permits to gild the solemnity of his features; 'but
I reckon you did not eat your dinner standing, like the Jews at their
Passover? and it was decided in a case before the town-bailies of
Cupar-Angus, when Luckie Simpson's cow had drunk up Luckie Jamieson's
browst of ale while it stood in the door to cool, that there was no
damage to pay, because the crummie drank without sitting down; such
being the very circumstance constituting DOCH AN DORROCH, which is a
standing drink, for which no reckoning is paid. Ha, sir! what says your
advocateship (FIERI) to that? EXEPTIO FIRMAT REGULAM--But come, fill
your glass, Alan; I am not sorry ye have shown this attention to Darsie
Latimer, who is a good lad, as times go; and having now lived under my
roof since he left the school, why, there is really no great matter in
coming under this small obligation to him.'

As I saw my father's scruples were much softened by the consciousness of
his superiority in the legal argument, I took care to accept my pardon
as a matter of grace, rather than of justice; and only replied, we
should feel ourselves duller of an evening, now that you were absent. I
will give you my father's exact words in reply, Darsie. You know him so
well, that they will not offend you; and you are also aware, that there
mingles with the good man's preciseness and formality, a fund of shrewd
observation and practical good s