"There is to be a meeting--a great hunting--" Here he stopped.
"And when are you to return from this blessed hunting ?" said the master; "that is, if I may make so bold as to ask." "I cannot exactly answer," replied the apprentice.

"Perhaps never, if such be my father's pleasure," continued Conachar, with assumed indifference.
"I thought," said Simon Glover, rather seriously, "that all this was to be laid aside, when at earnest intercession I took you under my roof.

I thought that when I undertook, being very loth to do so, to teach you an honest trade, we were to hear no more of hunting, or hosting, or clan gatherings, or any matters of the kind ?" "I was not consulted when I was sent hither," said the lad, haughtily.
"I cannot tell what the terms were." "But I can tell you, sir Conachar," said the glover, angrily, "that there is no fashion of honesty in binding yourself to an honest craftsman, and spoiling more hides than your own is worth; and now, when you are of age to be of some service, in taking up the disposal of your time at your pleasure, as if it were your own property, not your master's." "Reckon with my father about that," answered Conachar; "he will pay you gallantly--a French mutton for every hide I have spoiled, and a fat cow or bullock for each day I have been absent." "Close with him, friend Glover--close with him," said the armourer, drily.

"Thou wilt be paid gallantly at least, if not honestly.

Methinks I would like to know how many purses have been emptied to fill the goat skin sporran that is to be so free to you of its gold, and whose pastures the bullocks have been calved in that are to be sent down to you from the Grampian passes." "You remind me, friend," said the Highland youth, turning haughtily towards the smith, "that I have also a reckoning to hold with you." "Keep at arm's length, then," said Henry, extending his brawny arm: "I will have no more close hugs--no more bodkin work, like last night.