upon more than one occasion in his checkered career. He now drove an arm
like a bar of iron between two broadcloth coats, sent the wearers thereof
to right and left, and found himself one of an inner ring and facing
Mistress Truelove Taberer, who stood at bay against the silversmith's long
table. One arm was around the boy who had rowed her to the Fair View store
a week agone; with the other she was defending her face from the attack of
a beribboned gallant desirous of a kiss. The boy, a slender, delicate lad
of fourteen, struggled to free himself from his sister's restraining arm,
his face white with passion and his breath coming in gasps. "Let me go,
Truelove!" he commanded. "If I am a Friend, I am a man as well! Thou
fellow with the shoulder knots, thee shall pay dearly for thy insolence!"

Truelove tightened her hold. "Ephraim, Ephraim! If a man compel thee to go
with him a mile, thee is to go with him twain; if he take thy cloak, thee
is to give him thy coat also; if he--Ah!" She buried her profaned cheek in
her arm and began to cry, but very softly.

Her tormentors, flushed with wine and sworn to obtain each one a kiss,
laughed more loudly, and one young rake, with wig and ruffles awry,
lurched forward to take the place of the coxcomb who had scored. Ephraim
wrenched himself free, and making for this gentleman might have given or
received bodily injury, had not a heavy hand falling upon his shoulder
stopped him in mid-career.

"Stand aside, boy," said MacLean, "This quarrel's mine by virtue of my
making it so. Mistress Truelove, you shall have no further annoyance. Now,
you Lowland cowards that cannot see a flower bloom but you wish to trample
it in the mire, come taste the ground yourself, and be taught that the
flower is out of reach!"