I would find fifty blades and bucklers would send them back faster
than they came. But, to speak truth, though it is a fool's speech
too, I care not to see the fellow so much with Catharine. Remember,
father Glover, your trade keeps your eyes and hands close employed,
and must have your heedful care, even if this lazy lurdane wrought
at it, which you know yourself he seldom does."

"And that is true," said Simon: "he cuts all his gloves out for
the right hand, and never could finish a pair in his life."

"No doubt, his notions of skin cutting are rather different," said
Henry. "But with your leave, father, I would only say that, work
he or be he idle, he has no bleared eyes, no hands seared with the
hot iron, and welked by the use of the fore hammer, no hair rusted
in the smoke, and singed in the furnace, like the hide of a badger,
rather than what is fit to be covered with a Christian bonnet. Now,
let Catharine be as good a wench as ever lived, and I will uphold
her to be the best in Perth, yet she must see and know that these
things make a difference betwixt man and man, and that the difference
is not in my favour."

"Here is to thee, with all my heart, son Harry," said the old man,
filling a brimmer to his companion and another to himself; "I see
that, good smith as thou art, thou ken'st not the mettle that women
are made of. Thou must be bold, Henry; and bear thyself not as if
thou wert going to the gallows lee, but like a gay young fellow, who
knows his own worth and will not be slighted by the best grandchild
Eve ever had. Catharine is a woman like her mother, and thou thinkest
foolishly to suppose they are all set on what pleases the eye.
Their ear must be pleased too, man: they must know that he whom