You must know, that your free-booting
acquaintance, Donald of the Cave, has at length fallen into the hands of
the Philistines. He was driving off the cattle of a certain proprietor,
called Killan--something or other--'
'Killancureit?'
'The same. Now the gentleman being, it seems, a great farmer, and having
a special value for his breed of cattle, being, moreover, rather of a
timid disposition, had got a party of soldiers to protect his property.
So Donald ran his head unawares into the lion's mouth, and was defeated
and made prisoner. Being ordered for execution, his conscience was
assailed on the one hand by a Catholic priest, on the other by your
friend Morton. He repulsed the Catholic chiefly on account of the
doctrine of extreme unction, which this economical gentleman considered
as an excessive waste of oil. So his conversion from a state of
impenitence fell to Mr. Morton's share, who, I daresay, acquitted himself
excellently, though I suppose Donald made but a queer kind of Christian
after all. He confessed, however, before a magistrate, one Major
Melville, who seems to have been a correct, friendly sort of person, his
full intrigue with Houghton, explaining particularly how it was carried
on, and fully acquitting you of the least accession to it.
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