“Well,” said Jaacob, with a softening glance, “it’s no’ an ill sentiment that, I’ll allow, so far as the auld castle gangs; but ony man that thinks he’s of better flesh and bluid than me, no’ to say intellect and spirit, on the strength of four old wa’s, or the old rascals that thieved in them--I’ll tell ye, Cosmo, my lad, I think he’s a fool, and that’s just the short and the long o’ the affair.” “Better flesh and blood, or better intellect and spirit!” said the boy, with a half-meditative, half-mirthful smile. “Homer was a beggar, and so was Belisarius, and so was Blind Harry, of Wallace’s time.” This highly characteristic, school-boyish, and national confusion of heroes, moved the blacksmith-philosopher with no sensation of the absurd. Homer and Blind Harry were by no means unfit companions in the patriotic conception of bowed Jaacob, who, nevertheless, knew Pope’s Homer very tolerably, and was by no means ignorant of the pretensions of the “blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle.” “A feesical disqualification, Cosmo, is quite a different matter,” said Jaacob; “nae man could make greater allowance for the like of that than me, that might have been supposed at one time to be on the verge of it mysel’.” And as he spoke, his one bright eye twinkled in Jaacob’s head with positive scintillations, as if Nature had endowed it with double power to make up for its solitude. “The like of Homer and Blind Harry, however, belong to a primitive age,” said Jaacob; “the minstrel crew were aye vagrants--no’ to say it was little better than a kind of a servile occupation at the best, praises of the great. But the world’s wiser by this time. I would not say I would make the Bill final, mysel’, but let’s aince get it, laddie, and ye’ll see a change. We’ll hae nae mair o’ your lordlings in the high places--we’ll hae naething but _men_.” “Did you ever hear any thing, Jacob,” said Cosmo, somewhat abruptly--for the romantic story of his kinswoman was more attractive to the boy’s mind than politics--“of where the young lady of Me’mar went to, or who it was she married? I suppose not, since she was searched for so long.” “No man ever speered at me before, so far as I can mind,” said Jaacob, with a little bitterness; “your father behoved to manage the haill business himsel’, and he was na great hand. I’m no’ fond of writers when folk can do without them, but they’re of a certain use, nae doubt, like a’ other vermin; a sharp ane o’ them would have found Mary Huntley, ye may take my word for that. I was aince in France mysel’.” “In France?” cried Cosmo, with, undeniable respect and excitement. “Ay, just that,” said Jaacob, dryly; “it’s nae such great thing, though folk make a speech about it. I wasna far inower. I was at a bit seaport place on the coast; Dieppe they ca’ it, and deep it was to an innocent lad like what I was at the time--though I could haud my ain with maist men, both then and at this day.”