served 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 breeches-pockets, 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 daw