"What cares the
lass though her father brings up Jack Paterson? It doesna make a
bawbee's difference in Thora's liking for Jack's lass. Ah there's
good in Thora. She's a right good girl, my lad, and I warrant she
would do anything for them that are good wi' her."
As we sat there Captain Gordon joined us sooner than I expected,
and I asked him how they had settled the case.
"Oh!" said he, "the trial hasn't begun yet; the humbug of a sheriff
clerk has sent us away till three o'clock."
"What like a man is the sheriff's clerk, sir?" asked Lothian.
"I can't tell you that, my man, for we never saw him," replied the
skipper. "He has a clerk, who has also a clerk, and this last one
is the only one we saw. Why, the Governor of Jamaica has not so
many functionaries."
Until three o'clock Captain Gordon went about the town with me--to
the cathedral, where he examined the old Norman arches, the dim old
epitaphs, and other relics of antiquity contained within these
ancient temple walls. There were many other sights of curious
interest to the captain about Kirkwall; for here were the decayed
palaces of earls, the halls of old sea kings, and thick-walled
mansions of the lordly times--many of them degraded into hostelries
and shops, but all of them showing something of the glories of old
Orcadia.
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