e her apology--'Troth, I was sae weel pleased to see
the gudeman, that--but, gude gracious! what's the matter wi' ye baith?'
for they were now in her little parlour, and the candle showed the
streaks of blood which Dinmont's wounded head had plentifully imparted to
the clothes of his companion as well as to his own. 'Ye've been fighting
again, Dandie, wi' some o' the Bewcastle horse-coupers! Wow, man, a
married man, wi' a bonny family like yours, should ken better what a
father's life's worth in the warld'; the tears stood in the good woman's
eyes as she spoke.

'Whisht! whisht! gudewife,' said her husband, with a smack that had much
more affection than ceremony in it; 'never mind, never mind; there's a
gentleman that will tell you that, just when I had ga'en up to Lourie
Lowther's, and had bidden the drinking of twa cheerers, and gotten just
in again upon the moss, and was whigging cannily awa hame, twa
landloupers jumpit out of a peat-hag on me or I was thinking, and got me
down, and knevelled me sair aneuch, or I could gar my whip walk about
their lugs; and troth, gudewife, if this honest gentleman hadna come up,
I would have gotten mair licks than I like, and lost mair siller than I
could weel spare; so ye maun be thankful to him for it, under God.' With
that he drew from his side-pocket a large greasy leather pocket-book, and
bade the gudewife lock it up in her kist.

'God bless the gentleman, and e'en God bless him wi' a' my heart; but
what can we do for him, but to gie him the meat and quarters we wadna
refuse to the poorest body on earth--unless (her eye directed to the
pocketbook, but with a feeling of natural propriety which made the
inference the most delicate possible), unless there was ony other way--'
Brown saw, and estimated at its due rate, the mixture of simplicity and
grateful generosity which took the downright way of expressing itself,
yet qualified with so much delicacy; he was aware his own appearance,
plain at best, and now torn and spattered with blood, made him an object
of pity at least, and perhaps of charity. He hastened to say his name was
Brown, a captain in the----regiment of cavalry, travelling for pleasure,
and on foot, both from motives of independence and economy; and he begged
his kind landlady would look at her husband's wounds, the state of which
he had refused to permit him to examine. Mrs. Dinmont was used to her
husband's broken heads more than to the presence of a captain of
dr