horse was lying, for it was never like to rise up again any more than the bit rider, that was thrown over its head like an arrow out of a bow; but on helping him to his feet, save and except the fright, two wide screeds across his trowser-knees, and a scratch along the brig of his nose, nothing visible was to be perceived. It was different, however, with the limping horse. Misfortunate brute! one of its fore-legs had folded below it, and snapped through at the fetlock joint. There was it lying with a sad sorrowful look, as if it longed for death to come quick and end its miseries; the blood, all the while, gush-gushing out at the gaping wound. To all it was as plain as the A, B, C, that the bones would never knit; and that, considering the case it was in, it would be an act of Christian charity to put the beast out of pain. The maister gloomed, stroked his chin, and looked down, knowing, weel-a-wat, that he had lost his bread-winner, then gave his head a nod, nod-thrusting both his hands down to the bottom lining of the pockets of his long square-tailed jockey coat. He was a wauf, hallanshaker-looking chield, with an old broad-snouted japanned beaver hat pulled over his brow -one that seemed by his phisog to hold the good word of the world as nothing—and that had, in the course of circumstances, been reduced to a kind of wild desperation, either by chancemisfortunes, cares and trials, or, what is more likely, by his own sinful, regardless way of life.

"It canna be helpit," he said, giving his head a bit shake; “it canna be helpit, friends. Ay, Jess, ye were a gude ane in yere day, lass,—mony a penny and pound have I made out of ye. Which o' ye can lend me a hand, lads? Rin away for a gun

some o' ye."

Here Thomas Clod interfered with a small bit of advice—a thing that Thomas was good at, being a Cameronian elder, and accustomed to giving a word. "Wad ye no think it better," said Thomas," to stick her with a long gully-knife, or a sharp shoemaker's parer? It wad be an easier way, I'm thinking."

Dog on it! I could scarcely keep from shuddering when I heard them speaking in this wild, heathenish, bloody sort of

a manner.

"'Deed no," quo' Saunders Tram, at whose side I was stand

ing, “far better send away for the smith's forehammer, and hit her a smack or twa betwixt the een; so ye wad settle her in half a second."

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“No, no;” cried Tammie Dobbie, lending in his word, a better plan than a' that, wad be to make a strong kinch of ropes, and hang her."

Lovey ding! such ways of showing how to be merciful!! But the old Jockey himself interfered. “Haud yere tongues, fules," was his speech; "yonder's the man coming wi' a gun. We'll shune put an end to her. She would have won for a hunder pounds, if she hadna broken her leg.-Wha'll wager me that she wadna hae won? But she's the last of my stable, puir beast; and I havena ae plack to rub against anither, now that I have lost her. Gi'e me the gun and the penny candle. Is she loaded?" speired he at the man that carried the piece.

“Troth is she,” was the answer, “ double charged.” “Then stand back, lads," quod the old round-shouthered horse-couper, and ramming down the candle he lifted up the piece, cocking it as he went four or five yards in front of the poor bleeding brute, that seemed, though she could not rise, to know what he was about with the weapon of destruction; casting her black eye up at him, and looking pitifully in his face.

When I saw him taking his aim, and preparing to draw the trigger, I turned round my back, not being able to stand it, and brizzed the flats of my hands with all my pith against the opening of my ears; nevertheless, I heard a faint boom; so, heeling round, I observed the miserable bleeding creature lift her head, and pulling up her legs, give them a plunge down again on the divots: after which she lay still, and we all saw, to our satisfaction, that death had come to her relief.

We are not commanded to be the judges of our fellow-creatures, but to think charitably of all men, hoping every thing for the best; and, though the horse-couper was a thought suspicious, both in look, speech, dress, and outward behaviour, still, ever and anon, we were bound by the ten commandments to consider him only in the light of a fellow-mortal in distress of mind and poverty of pocket; so we made a superscription for the poor man; and, though he did not look much like one that deserved

our charity, nevertheless and howsoever, maybe he was a bad halfpenny, and maybe not; yet one thing was visibly certain, that he was as poor as Job-misery being written in big-hand letters on his brow. So it behoved each one to open his purse as he could afford it; and, though I say not what I put into the hat, proud am I to tell that he collected two or three shillings to help him home.

This job being over to his mind as well as mine, and the money safely stowed into his big hinder coat-pocket-would ye believe it? ere yet the beast was scarcely cold, just as we were decamping from the place, and buttoning up our breechespockets, we saw him casting his coat, and had the curiosity to stand still for a jiffy, to observe what he was after, in case, in the middle of his misfortunes, he was bent on some act of desperation; when, lo and behold! he out with a gully knife, and began skinning his old servant, as if he had been only peeling the bark off a fallen tree!

One cannot sit at their ingle-cheek and expect, without casting their eyes about them, to grow experienced in the ways of men, or the on-goings of the world. This spectacle gave me, I can assure you, much and no little insight; and so dowie was I with the thoughts of what I had witnessed of the selfishness, the sinfulness, and perversity of man, that I grew more and more home-sick, thinking never so much in my life before of my quiet hearthstone and cheerful ingle; and though Thomas Clod insisted greatly on my staying to their head-meeting dinner, and taking a reel with the lassies in the barn; and Tammie Dobbie, the bit body, had got so much into the spirit of the thing, that little persuasion would have made him stay all night and reel till the dawing-yet I was determined to make the best of my way home; more-be-token, as Benjie might take skaith from the night air, and our jaunt therefrom might, instead of contributing to his welfare, do him more harm than good. So, after getting some cheese and bread, to say nothing of a glass or two of strong beer and a dram at Luckie Barm's, we waited in her parlour, which was hung round with most beautiful pictures of Joseph and his Brethren, besides two stucco parrots on the chimney-piece, amusing ourselves with looking at them, as a

pastime like, till Benjie wakened; on the which I made Tammie yoke his beast, and rowing the bit callant in his mother's shawl, took him into my arms in the cart, and, after shaking hands with all and sundry twice or thrice over, we bade them a good night," and drove away.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE RETURN.

That sweet home is their delight,
And thither they repair

Communion with their own to hold!
Peaceful as, at the fall of night,
Two little lambkins gliding white
Return unto the gentle air,

That sleeps within the fold.

Or like two birds to their lonely nest,
Or wearied waves to their bay of rest,
Or fleecy clouds when their race is run,
That hang in their own beauty blest,
'Mid the calm that sanctifies the west
Around the setting sun.

WILSON.

I MAY Confess, without thinking shame, that I was glad when I found our nebs turned homeward; and, when we got over the turn of the brae at the old quarry-holes, to see the blue smoke of our own Dalkeith, hanging like a thin cloud over the tops of the green trees, through which I perceived the glittering weathercock on the old kirk steeple. Tammie, poor creature, I observed, was a whit ree with the good cheer; and, as he sat on the fore-tram, with his whip-hand thrown over the beast's haunches, he sang, half to himself and half-aloud, a great many old Scotch songs, such as "the Gaberlunzie," "Aiken Drum," "Tak' yere Auld Cloak about ye," and "the Deuks dang ower my Daddie;" besides "The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre," and "Ca' the Ewes to the Knowes," and so on; but, do what I liked, I could not keep my spirits up, thinking of the woful end

of the poor old horse, and of the ne'er-do-weel loon its master. Many an excellent instruction of Mr Wiggie's came to my mind, of how we misguided the good things that were lent us for our use here, by a gracious Provider, who would, however, bid us render a final account to him of our conduct and conversation. I thought of how many were aye complaining and complaining, myself whiles among the rest, of the hardships, the miseries, and the misfortunes of their lot; putting all down to the score of fate, and never once thinking of the plantations of sorrow, reared up from the seeds of our own sinfulness; or how any thing, save punishment, could come of the breaking of the ten commandments delivered to the patriarch Moses. Perhaps, reckoned I with myself, perhaps in this, even I myself may have in this day's transactions erred. Here am I wandering about in a cart; exposing myself to the defilement of the world, to the fear of robbers, and to the night air, in the search of health for a dwining laddie; as if the hand that dealt that blessing out was not as powerful at home as it is abroad. Had I remained at my own lapbroad, the profits of my day's work would have been over and above for the maintenance of my family, outside and inside: instead of which, I have been at the expense of a cart-hire and a horse's up-putting, let alone Tammie's debosh and my own, besides the trifle of threepence to the round-shouldered old horsecouper with the slouched japan beaver hat. The story was too true a one; but, alack-a-day, it was now over late to repent!

As I was thus musing, the bright red sun of summer sank down behind the top of the Pentland Hills, and all looked bluish, dowie, and dreary, as if the heart of the world had been seized with a sudden dwalm, and the face of nature had at once withered from blooming youth into the hoariness of old age. Now and then the birds gave a bit chitter; and whiles a cow mooed from the fields; and the dew was falling like the little tears of the fairies out of the blue lift, where the gloaming-star soon began to glow and glitter bonnily.

What I had seen and witnessed made my thoughts heavy and my heart sad; I could not get the better of it. I looked round and round me, as we jogged along over the height, down on the far distant country, that spread out as if it had been