Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series - 1819.djvu/181

Rh of fortune and a soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming veracity, it is necessary I should myself have resolved, to whilk of the present divisions of the kingdom I shall ultimately adhere, being a matter whereon my mind is not as yet preceesely ascertained."

"I should have thought," answered the gentleman, "that, when loyalty and religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour could be long in chusing his party."

"Truly, sir," replied the trooper, "if ye speak this in the way of vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I would blythely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel with my single person against you three. But if you speak it in the way of logical ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my youth at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove to ye logicé, that my resolution to defer, for a certain season, the taking upon me either of these quarrels, not only be-