Therefore, and for the credit of my own
household, I am determined to retain thee in my train, until I can
honourably dispose of thee elsewhere, with a fair prospect of thy
going through the world with credit to the house that brought thee
up."
If there was something in Sir Halbert Glendinning's speech which
flattered Roland's pride, there was also much that, according to his
mode of thinking, was an alloy to the compliment. And yet his
conscience instantly told him that he ought to accept, with grateful
deference, the offer which was made him by the husband of his kind
protectress; and his prudence, however slender, could not but admit he
should enter the world under very different auspices as a retainer of
Sir Halbert Glendinning, so famed for wisdom, courage, and influence,
from those under which he might partake the wanderings, and become an
agent in the visionary schemes, for such they appeared to him, of
Magdalen, his relative. Still, a strong reluctance to re-enter a
service from which he had been dismissed with contempt, almost
counterbalanced these considerations.
Sir Halbert looked on the youth with surprise, and resumed--"You seem
to hesitate, young man. Are your own prospects so inviting, that you
should pause ere you accept those which I should offer to you? or,
must I remind you that, although you have offended your benefactress,
even to the point of her dismissing you, yet I am convinced, the
knowledge that you have gone unguided on your own wild way, into a
world so disturbed as ours of Scotland, cannot, in the upshot, but
give her sorrow and pain; from which it is, in gratitude, your duty to
preserve her, no less than it is in common wisdom your duty to accept
my offered protection, for your own sake, where body and soul are
alike endangered, should you refuse it.
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