I have a voice and precedent of peace,
To keep my name ungored."
Hamlet, Act. v. Sc. 2.
"'Sir,' said he, 'it is very fortunate for you that your face is so strong a letter of recommendation. Here am I, a tough old practitioner, mixing myself up with your very distressing business . . . and here is this lad . . . all, I take it, on the strength of your appearance. I wish I could imagine how it would impress a jury,' said he."
Stevenson, St. Ives.
"But, Sir, for the care and love I have for you, whilst I can bear a sword in my hand I will venture for you."
Thomas Burton to Thomas Coke, June 5, 1703.
(1)
The owls were hooting round the little manoir at dusk almost loudly enough to disturb M. Nicolas de Fresne, as he sat at his monthly accounts, once more the country gentleman. Only a sword that was not his own, wrapped away in a press, and a certain very haunting memory, which some times followed him even into sleep, remained to mark his lieutenancy of the now extinct Eperviers. But Mademoiselle Berthe, the old lame sister who kept house for him, thought that he had aged during the last two months of inactivity.
She came halting in now with a lamp, and set it down by him on the table.