If facts, as Quinctilian says, are the bones of conversation, opinions are certainly its sinews; and we might add, that whisky toddy is its nervous fluid. These youths, though unwilling to acquire solid information, could wrangle even to quarrelling; but such were their affinities, that they adhered again in a short time, and were as firm friends as ever. They had raised a subject—no other than the question whether highwaymen are necessarily or generally possessed of true courage. Very absurd, no doubt, but as good for a wrangle as any other that can be divided into affirmative and negative by the refracting medium of feeling or prejudice. S——th declared them all to be cowards.
"What say you to Cartouche?" said S——k; "was he a coward?"
"Not sure but he was," said S——th; "he kept a band of blackguards and received their pay, but he was seldom seen in the wild mélee himself. He was fond of the name of terror he bore; but then, as he listened to the wonderful things the Parisian blanchisseuses and chiffonniers and gamins said of him, he knew he was not recognisable, for the very reason that he kept out of sight."
"Oh yes," said W——pe, who joined S——k; "and so he was like Wallace, who kept out of the sight of the English, and yet delighted in Dundee to hear himself spoken of by the crowds who collected in these troublesome times to discuss public affairs. S——th, you know Wallace was a coward, don't you?"
"A thorough poltroon," cried S——th, laughing; "ay, and all the people in Scotland are wrong about him. Didn't he run off, after stabbing the governor's son? and he was always skulking about the Cartland Crags. Then, didn't he flee at the battle of Falkirk; and was he not a robber when Scotland belonged to Longshanks? No doubt the fellow had a big body, strong bones, and good thews; but that he had the real pluck that nerved the little bodies of such men as Nelson, or Suwarrow, ay, or of Napoleon, I deny." Then he began a ludicrous singing, see-saw recitation of the English doggrel—
"The noble wight,
The Wallace dight,
Who slew the knight
On Beltane night,
And ran for fright
Of English might,
And English fight,
And English right;"
and so on in drunken ribaldry.
"All very well for you who are a Shamite, Shmite, Shmith, Smith," said W——pe. "We happen to be Japhetites. Then what say you to Rob Roy?"
"That, in the first place," replied S——th, "he was a Shemite; for Gathelus, the first Scottish monarch, was a grandson of Nimrod, and, what is worse, he married Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian queen, so there was a spice of Ham in Rob; and as all the Hamites were robbers, Rob was a robber too;—as to whose cowardice there is no doubt whatever; for a man who steals another man's cattle in the dark must be a coward. Did you ever hear one single example of Rob attacking when in good daylight, and fighting for them in the sun?"
"Ingenious, S——th, at any rate," roared S——k; "but I don't agree with you. A robber on the highway, must, in the general case, have courage. He braves public opinion, he laughs at the gallows, and he throws himself right against a man in bold competition, without knowing often whether he is a giant or a dwarf."