The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

ROB ROY. 107
" Well, well, lad; even so be it; I ask no questions - no man is bound
to tell on himsell-that's fair play, or the devil's in't."
Rashleigh here came to my assistance; but I could not help thinking
that his arguments were calculated rather as hints to his fither to put
on a show of acquiescence in my declaration of innocence, than fully to
establish it.
"In your own house, my dear sir-and your own nephew —you will not
surely persist in hurting his feelings by seeming to discredit what he is so
strongly interested in affirming. No doubt, you are fully deserving of all
his confidence, and I am sure, were there anything you could do to assist
him in this strange affair, he would have recourse to your goodness. But
my cousin Frank has been dismissed as an innocent man, and no one is
entitled to suppose'him otherwise. For my part, I have not the least doubt
of his innocence; and our family honour, I conceive, requires that we
should maintain it with tongue and sword against the whole country."
" Rashleigh," said his father, looking fixedly at him, " thou art a sly loon
— thou hast ever been too cunning for me, and to6 cunning for most'folks.
Have a care thou provena too cunning for thysell — two faces under one
hood is no true heraldry. And since we talk of heraldry, I'll go and read
Gwillym."
This resolution he intimated with a yawn, resistless as that of the Goddess in the Dunciad, which was responsively echoed by his giant sons, as
they dispersed in quest of the pastimes to which their minds severally
inclined them - Percie to discuss a pot of March beer with the steward in
the buttery,- Thorncliff to cut a pair of cudgels, and fix them in their
wicker hilts, -John to dress May-flies, - Dickon to play at pitch and toss
by himself, his right hand against his left,-and Wilfred to bite his thumbs
and humrhimself into a slumber which should last till dinner-time, if possible. Miss Vernon had retired to the library.
Rashleigh and I were left alone in the old hall, firom which the servants,
with their usual bustle and awkwardness, had at length contrived to hurry
the remains of our substantial breakfast. I took the opportunity to upbraid
him with the manner in which he had spoken of my affair to his father,
which I frankly stated was highly offensive to me, as it seemed rather to
exhort Sir IHildebrand to conceal his suspicions, than to root them out.
" Why, what can I do, my dear friend?'" replied Rashleigh: " my father's
disposition is so tenacious of suspicions of all kinds, when once they take
root (which, to do him justice, does not easily happen,) that I have always
found it the best way to silence him upon such subjects, instead of arguing
with him. Thus I get the better of the weeds which I cannot eradicate, by
cutting them over as often as they appear, until at length they die away of
themselves. There is neither wisdom nor profit in disputing with such a
mind as Sir Hildebrand's, which hardens itself against conviction, and
believes in its own inspirations as firmly as we good'Catholics do in those
of the Holy Father of Rome."'" It is very hard, though, that I should live in the house of a man, and
he a near relation, too, who will persist in believing me guilty of a highway
robbery."
" My father's foolish opinion, if one may give that epithet to any opinion
of a father's, does not affect your real innocence; and as to the disgrace of
the fact, depend on it, that, considered in all its bearings, political as well
as moral, Sir Hildebrand regards it as a meritorious action - a weakening
of the enemy-a spoiling of the Amalekites; and you will stand the higher
in his regard for your supposed accession to it."
"I desire no man's regard, Mr. Rashleigh, on such terms as must sink
me in my own; and I think these injurious suspicions will afford a very
good reason for quitting Osbaldistone-Hall, which I shall do whenever I
can communicate on the subject with my father."