324 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



author of a volume of prose rhyme, would seriously 

 injure my pride. You have now my secret. It is based 

 on a weakness in my disposition, which I would not 

 much like to unveil to everybody; but I know with 

 whom I have to deal, one too intimate with human 

 nature, and too conversant with its better feelings, to be 

 severe on what is wayward in the character of, honoured 

 and dear madam/ &c. 



Miss D unbar is not disposed to put up with this 

 excuse for refusing to visit her, and has expostulated on 

 the subject. Miller now offers to go. His half comic, 

 half savage remarks on the Cromarty Radicals, are 

 characteristic. The pamphlet mentioned I take to have 

 been that on the Chapel Case, of which we have heard. 



' I have been a very great blockhead ; not so much 

 for raising the curtain, as for having anything behind it 

 which were better concealed than seen. Instead, how- 

 ever, of apologizing in the ordinary way, I shall just 

 raise it a little higher, and give you a full view of what 

 you are yet only acquainted with in part. In a case 

 like the present it is policy to be candid. Is it not 

 partial views and half glimpses that convert bushes and 

 stones into ghosts and witches ? 



' In the first place, then, it was no fear of being made 

 a lion of that kept me on this side the frith. I know you 

 better than to fear that. I may indeed belong to the 

 class felis in both your opinion and my own ; but then 

 so does the common cat ; besides, at the very best I 

 am but what the schoolmen would term a possible lion, 

 and it has long since been decided by the Angelical 

 Doctor that an existent fly is better than even a possible 

 angel. But though I had no fear on this head, I am a 

 most foolish fellow, and there is a feeling a morbid one, 

 I suspect that continually hangs about me that pro- 



