“A merchant’s nerves are delicate things,” he said, as he fingered his cravat.  “I would have said ‘like a woman’s,’ had I not seen this very day Miss Elspeth’s horsemanship.”  And he bowed to her very neatly.

Now I was never fond of being quizzed, and in that company I could not endure it.

“We have a saying, sir,” I said, “that the farmyard fowl does not fear the eagle.  The men who look grave just now are not those who live snugly in coast manors, but the outland folk who have to keep their doors with their own hands.”

It was a rude speech, and my hard voice and common clothes made it ruder.  The gentleman fired in a second, and with blazing eyes asked me if I intended an insult.  I was about to say that he could take what meaning he pleased, when an older man broke in with, “Tush, Charles, let the fellow alone.  You cannot quarrel with a shopman.”

“I thank you, George, for a timely reminder,” said my gentleman, and he turned away his head with a motion of sovereign contempt.

“Come, come, sirs,” Colonel Beverley cried, “remember the sacred law of hospitality.  You are all my guests, and you have a lady here, whose bright eyes should be a balm for controversies.”

The Governor had sat with his lips closed and his eyes roving the table.  He dearly loved a quarrel, and was minded to use me to bait those whom he liked little.

“What is all this talk about gentility?” he said.  “A man is as good as his brains and his right arm, and no better.  I am of the creed of the Levellers, who would have a man stand stark before his Maker.”

He could not have spoken words better calculated to set the company against me.  My host looked glum and disapproving, and all the silken gentlemen murmured.  The Virginian cavalier had as pretty a notion of the worth of descent as any Highland land-louper.  Indeed, to be honest, I would have controverted the Governor myself, for I have ever held that good blood is a mighty advantage to its possessor.

Suddenly the grave man who sat by Miss Elspeth’s side spoke up.  By this time I had remembered that he was Doctor James Blair, the lately come commissary of the diocese of London, who represented all that Virginia had in the way of a bishop.  He had a shrewd, kind face, like a Scots dominie, and a mouth that shut as tight as the Governor’s.

“Your tongue proclaims you my countryman, sir,” he said.  “Did I hear right that your name was Garvald?”

“Of Auchencairn?” he asked, when I had assented.

“Of Auchencairn, or what is left of it,” I said.

“Then, gentlemen,” he said, addressing the company, “I can settle the dispute on the facts, without questioning his Excellency’s dogma.  Mr. Garvald is of as good blood as any in Scotland.  And that,” said he firmly, “means that in the matter of birth he can hold up his head in any company in any Christian land.”

I do not think this speech made any man there look on me with greater favour, but it enormously increased my own comfort.  I have never felt such a glow of gratitude as then filled my heart to the staid cleric.  That he was of near kin to Miss Elspeth made it tenfold sweeter.  I forgot my old clothes and my uncouth looks; I forgot, too, my irritation with the brocaded gentleman.  If her kin thought me worthy, I cared not a bodle for the rest of mankind.