g it, I swallow it as I would do medicine from a friendly doctor,
although I believed in my heart he had mistaken my complaint.

This offensive insinuation disposed of, I thank thee, Alan, for the rest
of thy epistle. I thought I heard your good father pronouncing the word
Noble House, with a mixture of contempt and displeasure, as if the very
name of the poor little hamlet were odious to him, or as if you had
selected, out of all Scotland, the very place at which you had no call
to dine. But if he had had any particular aversion to that blameless
village and very sorry inn, is it not his own fault that I did not
accept the invitation of the Laird of Glengallacher, to shoot a buck
in what he emphatically calls 'his country'? Truth is, I had a strong
desire to have complied with his lairdship's invitation. To shoot a
buck! Think how magnificent an idea to one who never shot anything but
hedge-sparrows, and that with a horse-pistol purchased at a broker's
stand in the Cowgate! You, who stand upon your courage, may remember
that I took the risk of firing the said pistol for the first time, while
you stood at twenty yards' distance; and that, when you were persuaded
it would go off without bursting, forgetting all law but that of the
biggest and strongest, you possessed yourself of it exclusively for the
rest of the holidays. Such a day's sport was no complete introduction to
the noble art of deer-stalking, as it is practised in the Highlands; but
I should not have scrupled to accept honest Glengallacher's invitation,
at the risk of firing a rifle for the first time, had it not been for
the outcry which your father made at my proposal, in the full ardour of
his zeal for King George, the Hanover succession, and the Presbyterian
faith. I wish I had stood out, since I have gained so little upon
his good opinion by submission. All his impressions concerning the
Highlanders are taken from the recollections of the Forty-five, when he
retreated from the West Port with his brother volunteers, each to
the fortalice of his own separate dwelling, so soon as they heard the
Adventurer was arrived with his clans as near them as Kirkliston. The
flight of Falkirk--PARMA NON BENE SELECTA--in which I think your sire
had his share with the undaunted western regiment, does not seem to have
improved his taste for the company of the Highlanders; (quaere,
Alan, dost thou derive the courage thou makest such boast of from an
hereditary source?) and