But the villain, who is a follower of some Lord of the Marches, and wears a winged spur for his cognizance, fled from our neighbour like fire from flint." The senior bailie of Perth listened with surprise to the legend which it had pleased Gow to circulate; for, though not much caring for the matter, he had always doubted the bonnet maker's romancing account of his own exploits, which hereafter he must hold as in some degree orthodox.
The shrewd old glover looked closer into the matter.

"You will drive the poor bonnet maker mad," he whispered to Henry, "and set him a-ringing his clapper as if he were a town bell on a rejoicing day, when for order and decency it were better he were silent." "Oh, by Our Lady, father," replied the smith, "I love the poor little braggadocio, and could not think of his sitting rueful and silent in the provost's hall, while all the rest of them, and in especial that venomous pottingar, were telling their mind." "Thou art even too good natured a fellow, Henry," answered Simon.

"But mark the difference betwixt these two men.

The harmless little bonnet maker assumes the airs of a dragon, to disguise his natural cowardice; while the pottingar wilfully desires to show himself timid, poor spirited, and humble, to conceal the danger of his temper.

The adder is not the less deadly that he creeps under a stone.