In the older days of the American West, a working man might depend on either his life or his sanity for the character of a partner who might share hard work, a sudden fight, a lonely winter in a remote range cabin, or a life-threatening emergency, all as a matter of course. A good pardner like that was said to be a good man *To ride the river with.*
Not having met Mark personally but having traded some e.mail with him, my suspicion is that he would have been just that, in either those times or these. Should trouble come my way some night, I'll have to face it without the backup of his skilled presence with one of his fighting shotguns, but I'll still have the knowledge and experience he shared with me and others, and that will have to do. And I'll be carrying on his research to find that defensive scattergun that can do the job of a rifle out to most of a football field's length away.
Mark Penman, laissezfirearm: a pard who'd do to ride the river with.
But the third sister, who is also the youngest! Hush! Whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybele, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops not, and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance. But, being what they are, they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil of crepe which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins nor for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She is the defier of God. She is also the mother of lunacies and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power, but narrow is the nation she rules. For she can approach only those in whom a profound nature has been unheaved by central convulsions, in whom the heart trembles and the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and stealthily. But this youngest sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and with a tiger's leaps; She carries no key, for though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all.
-- Thomas de Quincey (who was doubtless tasting opium at the time), from Suspiria de Profundis [as quoted by Mark Penman, laissezfirearm, pronounced always by me as lazy-assed fireman
Up the spout!