Confounded old cheating son
of a porpus! It was doing the world a good turn, and Glenwarlock a
better to--Look you! what are you listening there for!--Ha! ha! ha!
I say, now--would you hang a man, laird--I mean, when you could get
no good out of it--not a ha'p'orth for yourself or your family?"
"I've never had occasion to consider the question," answered the
laird.
"Ho! ho! haven't you? Let me tell you it's quite time you
considered it. It's no joke when a man has to decide without time
to think. He's pretty sure to decide wrong."
"That depends, I should think, my lord, on the way in which he has
been in the habit of deciding."
"Come now! none of your Scotch sermons to me! You Scotch always
were a set a down-brown hypocrites! Confound the whole nation!"
"To judge by your last speech, my lord,--"
"Oh, by my last speech, eh? By my dying declaration? Then I tell
you 'tis fairer to judge a man by anything sooner than his speech.
That only serves to hide what he's thinking. I wish I might be
judged by mine, though, and not by my deeds. I've done a good many
things in my time I would rather forget, now age has clawed me in
his clutch. So have you; so has everybody. I don't see why I should
fare worse than the rest."
Here Cosmo returned with the brandy-flask, which he had found in
his greatcoat. His lordship stretched out both hands to it, more
eagerly even than when he welcomed the cob-webbed magnum of
claret--hands trembling with feebleness and hunger for strength.
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