his face, as if desirous that his emotion should not be read upon
his countenance.

"Nay, hang me if I bid you farewell, man," said Simon, striking the
flat of his hand against that which the armourer expanded towards
him. "I will shake no hands with you for an hour to come at least.
Tarry but a moment, man, and I will explain all this; and surely
a few drops of blood from a scratch, and a few silly words from a
foolish wench's lips, are not to part father and son when they have
been so long without meeting? Stay, then, man, if ever you would
wish for a father's blessing and St. Valentine's, whose blessed
eve this chances to be."

The glover was soon heard loudly summoning Dorothy, and, after some
clanking of keys and trampling up and down stairs, Dorothy appeared
bearing three large rummer cups of green glass, which were then
esteemed a great and precious curiosity, and the glover followed with
a huge bottle, equal at least to three quarts of these degenerate
days.

"Here is a cup of wine, Henry, older by half than I am myself; my
father had it in a gift from stout old Crabbe, the Flemish engineer,
who defended Perth so stoutly in the minority of David the Second.
We glovers could always do something in war, though our connexion
with it was less than yours who work in steel and iron. And my
father had pleased old Crabbe, some other day I will tell you how,
and also how long these bottles were concealed under ground, to
save them from the reiving Southron. So I will empty a cup to the
soul's health of my honoured father--May his sins be forgiven
him! Dorothy, thou shalt drink this pledge, and then be gone to