“Then,” said M’Intyre, “this is the answer of Ossian:
Dare you compare your psalms,
You son of a—”
“Son of a what?” exclaimed Oldbuck.
“It means, I think,” said the young soldier, with some reluctance, “son of a female dog:
Do you compare your psalms,
To the tales of the bare-arm’d Fenians”
“Are you sure you are translating that last epithet correctly, Hector?”
“Quite sure, sir,” answered Hector, doggedly.
“Because I should have thought the nudity might have been quoted as existing in a different part of the body.”
Disdaining to reply to this insinuation, Hector proceeded in his recitation:
“I shall think it no great harm
To wring your bald head from your shoulders—