A man greets a friend with his open hand; he spurns a dog, or one whom he holds as mean as a dog, with his advanced foot.

A glove on the point of a spear is a sign and pledge of faith all the wide world over, as a gauntlet flung down is a gage of knightly battle; while I know no other emblem belonging to an old shoe, except that some crones will fling them after a man by way of good luck, in which practice I avow myself to entertain no confidence." "Nay," said the smith, amused with his friend's eloquent pleading for the dignity of the art he practised, "I am not the man, I promise you, to disparage the glover's mystery.

Bethink you, I am myself a maker of gauntlets.

But the dignity of your ancient craft removes not my wonder, that the father of this Conachar suffered his son to learn a trade of any kind from a Lowland craftsman, holding us, as they do, altogether beneath their magnificent degree, and a race of contemptible drudges, unworthy of any other fate than to be ill used and plundered, as often as these bare breeched dunnie wassals see safety and convenience for doing so." "Ay," answered the glover, "but there were powerful reasons for--for--" he withheld something which seemed upon his lips, and went on: "for Conachar's father acting as he did.

Well, I have played fair with him, and I do not doubt but he will act honourably by me.