''
``Both too well settled, I hope, in the minds of
the subject,'' said I, ``to be affected by old remembrances,
on which we look back as on the portraits
of our ancestors, without recollecting, while we
gaze on them, any of the feuds by which the originals
were animated while alive. But most happy
should I be to light upon any topic to supply the
Place of the Highlands, Mr Fairscribe. I have been
just reflecting that the theme is becoming a little
exhausted, and your experience may perhaps supply---''
``Ha, ha, ha---my experience supply!'' interrupted
Mr Fairscribe, with a laugh of derision.
``Why, you might as well ask my son James's experience
to supply a case about thirlage. No, no,
my good friend, I have lived by the law, and in the
law, all my life, and when you seek the impulses
that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants
and corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English
graziers, to prove themselves men of fiery passions,
it is not to a man like me you should come. I
could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps,
and a queer story or two of estates that have
been lost and recovered. But, to tell you the truth,
I think you might do with your Muse of Fiction,
as you call her, as many an honest man does with
his own sons in flesh and blood.
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