Cries, 'Boatman, do not tarry,
And I'll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o'er the ferry.'
Now, for long I felt that it was too great a strain upon our credulity to ask us to accept the statement that a Scotsman would offer a ferryman a pound for a job of the market value of a bawbee; but all at once the truth flashed upon me: the pound was a pound Scots, or one shilling and eightpence of our money. You see?”
“Yes, I see,” said Dorothy; “but still it sounds extravagant. A Highland Chief—one and eight-pence! The ferryman never would have got it.”
I fancied that we had exhausted some of the most vital questions bearing upon the questionable poetry of the present and the unquestionable poetry of the past; but I was mistaken; for after dinner I had a visit from Mr. Gilbert.
But I must give Mr. Gilbert a little chapter to himself.