“ Amongst those whose ears Mr Darsy's want of a pair of horses reached, was a certain dealer in horse-flesh, of the name of William Craig, as great a rascal as Scotland perhaps ever had the honour of producing; but he was withal a pleasant knave, and always cheated with the greatest good-humour imaginable. The smile was never off his countenance, excepting when he saw it for his interest to look grave, and then he could put on a face of sympathy and sentiment that it would break your heart to look at. ”

“ So happy was she, and so full of the joyous and soul-cheering fire of a woman's humour, that the six youths sat and looked at her with mute expressions of sons whose filial eyes saw, in the Flower of Yarrow, more beauties of mind and person than even exuberant nature had bestowed; and old Wat himself smiled as he gazed upon her, and finally relinquished his malice prepense, which had been urging him forward to ask her for an explanation of what she had said on the previous evening—that Gilmanscleugh would suffice for a portion to the two sons of proud Harden. ”

“ So entirely were the fiery youths led away by the impulse of the new feeling, that they had all remounted their garrons, clanging their drawn swords, and uttering their deep-mouthed cries, without reflecting for a moment that the body of the dead youth had to be disposed of, and that all their party was not able to take Gilmanscleugh Tower, and put its inmates to the sword.
"Hold! ho! my brave sons!" cried the father, as the fire of his revenge beamed through his tears. "Why this hurry? A hundred years would not cool our fire, and a sudden revenge lacketh the fulness of satisfaction. ”

“ If the ingenium perfervidum, of a roving life carried the husband from the arms of the wife, perhaps to be brought home a corpse, she seldom witnessed in him the victim of any of the thousand civilised crimes which render the common thief, the fraudulent bankrupt, the swindler, the gambler, the disloyal-spouse, the drunkard, worse than dead to her. If a well-directed revenge might deprive the inmates of the turret of a rude home, the strength was, at least, free from the inroads of the messenger or poinder, whose warrant has a crueller edge than the falchion of an enemy. ”

“ As she looked on the face of the corpse, she heard the impatient murmurings of her sons, who, burning to get forth to satisfy the yearnings of their hearts, demanded of her, through a small opening in the door, what was the intention of their father in thus keeping them from so just and necessary an object as the vindication of the honour of Harden, and the taking of blood for blood.
"We shall not be balked of our revenge, mother," cried the youngest. "The Forester's blood cries more loudly than the voice of our father. ”

“ Why may not a horse-jockey understand and appreciate Pope as well as any other man? There is nothing to hinder him.'
"'Oh, certainly not,' replied Miss Darsy; 'but oh! if he was dosed with Pope as I am—if he had Pope! Pope! ringing in his ears night and day, in all situations and on all occasions, as I have—he would grow sick, sick, at the very name.'
"'Ah, Sarah, Sarah!' replied her brother, smiling—
'Believe me—good as well as ill—
Woman's at best——
"'Pope again!' screamed Miss Darsy, putting her fingers in her ears, and rushing distractedly away from her Pope-mad brother. ”

“ Returning to the apartment where the dead body lay, she found there a duty which would occupy the time till her husband returned—in watching the corpse of her beloved Forester, and tracing in his rigid, pallid features the traces of those expressions of his beautiful face which used to extend so much influence over the hearts of his father and mother, and bring love to him from all sides on the rapid wings of sympathetic attraction. ”

“ And, turning his eyes fiercely upon Soulis—'Destroy me fiend,' he added, 'but harm not her.'
"'Think on it, maiden,' cried the sorcerer, raising his sword; 'the life of thy bonny bridegroom hangs upon thy word. But ye shall have until midnight to reflect on it. Be mine, then, and harm shall not come upon him or thee; but a man shall be thy husband, and not the boy whom he hath brought to thee in bonds.'
"'Beshrew thee, vile sorcerer!' rejoined Walter. ”

“ Springing off, and nerved with the force of despair, he flung himself on the wrestling dogs, and laying hold of the throat of Harden's, he clutched it with such strength that the animal opened his jaws, gasping for breath, and turning up his eyeballs beneath the lids, fell on his side; but his revengeful opponent, no sooner free from the gripe which had bound him, seized Grim in his turn; and Gilmanscleugh saw before him an alternation of a process of choking that would consume more than his hurrying moments. ”

“ The act was followed by a similar movement on the part of the Forester—in another moment they were engaged in fight, and the period of a minute did not pass away before the young and beautiful son of Harden lay upon the ground, a bleeding corpse!
"Ho, for Gilmanscleugh!" cried the victor, as he sheathed his bloody sword, and saw all the danger of his situation. "Ho, for Gilmanscleugh! and that without blast o' horn; for every tree o' Harden woods will rise up to avenge the death o' the Flower o' Yarrow's favourite son!" ”

“ I'm plain Tom Telford still; but you've got a handle to your name now, Mr Dalzell.'
"My messmates laughed heartily, and Tom was desired to come down to the berth, where he shook me heartily by the hand, and wished me all manner of success, and then tossed off a tumbler of strong grog in the most approved fashion: nose invisible—eyes raised heavenward—out-stretched little finger—gurgling noise in the throat, ending with a suffocating gasp of enjoyment, and a sweeping over his mouth with the cuff of his jacket. ”

“ Must I, before my time, go down to my grave dishonoured and disgraced? Oh, sir, if it had pleased Heaven to visit me with a deadly sickness, I would have left the world without one sigh except for my mother! But to be degraded as a felon—to be branded as a murderer—it is too—too much!" He became so agitated that grief choked his utterance.
The stranger, obviously affected, took his hand. "Tom, have you firmness? There is a way, perhaps."
"How?" exclaimed the lad, eagerly. ”

“ Betsy and I did not remain long with the gang after this. Long Ned and his mother were our implacable enemies, and neither of us were safe from their revenge—not that I cared a straw for them openly, but I knew their character too well to be at ease. Betsy and I left them, have lived well and comfortably since, and could save money, only there is no occasion for it. We, like all the men of superior minds in the world, live by our wits; there is no occasion for working when we can live without. I never want money and a good diet. ”

“ Weep not—strive not. Hear ye not, I love thee—love thee fiercely, madly, maiden, as a she-wolf doth its cubs. As a river seeketh the sea, so have I sought thee, Marion, and now, thou art mine—fate hath given thee unto me, and thy fair cheek shall rest upon a manlier bosom than that of Branxholm's beardless heir.' Thus saying, and still grasping her before him, he again plunged his spurs into his horse's sides, and he and his followers rode furiously towards Hermitage Castle. ”

“ Tom treasured every word in his heart—not one syllable escaped his lips, that might induce the most suspicious person to imagine he contemplated flight. He spoke sensibly of his case; inducing his mother, and one or two persons whom curiosity had prompted to visit him, to suppose that he was very sanguine of acquittal; and, as the fame of Andrew Crosbie extended over Scotland as a shrewd man and an able lawyer, this result was not thought by any means chimerical. ”

“ A dark cloud is on the face of the sun, that will long, long remain, though none but your mother's eye will see it; a blight, that she alone can perceive, is on the lovely woods of Ardmoran; and, pure though the waters of the fountain may appear to others, to her, Duncan, they will henceforth seem soiled and discoloured. ”

“ Gilmanscleugh heard the affray, and returned to save his favourite hound from the jaws of Harden's, which was so famous throughout the forest, that no animal of its species, or indeed of any other in the wood, could stand before it. Coming up, he struck the fierce animal of his chief; and young Harden, coming from behind, upbraided him for assaulting his dog, in such terms of galling abuse that the insulted man turned and laid his hand on his sword. ”

“ If Betsy was pleased, he cared not whether Long Ned or I had her. When I told her the result of my conference with her father, she was as well pleased as myself.
"'Bill,' she said, 'you will not win me from Long Ned with both ease and honour. He is no contemptible rival. He will be at you as soon as he comes to the camp, for his mother will tell him. Now, be a man, and do not yield while you can stand to him, for, much as I love you—and you know I love you dearly—I could not marry you if you are beat. ”

“ I replied.
"Jack, that will never do," said she, "I will send for the constable, you impostor;" and she turned, smiling, from me, with all the airs of a fine lady; then, turning round, and assuming the attitude of a beggar, "Bless your pretty face," she said, "sweet lady, spare a halfpenny to a poor tar, who lost his precious limb in defending the beauties of Old England."
"I have no coppers."
"Oh, bless you, beautiful lady," she continued, "I would die of want, were it not for angels like you;" and she whined along the floor, as if she had followed some one. ”

“ For there is something in the majesty of virtue, and the holiness of innocence, as they flash from the eyes of an injured woman, which deprives guilt of its strength, and defeats its purpose, as though Heaven lent its electricity to defend the weak.
"But, wearied with importunity, and finding his threats of no effect, on the third night that she had been within his castle, he clutched her in his arms, and, while his vassals slept, he bore her to the haunted dungeon, that the spirit might throw its spell over her, and compel her to love him. He unlocked the massy door. ”

“ This is a cold, cruel, and ignorant prophecy; it has sent foreboding and unhappiness into the bosom of many a fond mother; but, in this case, it needed not the gift of a seer to foretell the gloomy tidings. Consumption lurked amidst the beauty that glowed on every cheek; and seven of the fair family had fallen victims to the progress of the insidious destroyer, till Henry alone was left. ”

“ Dalzell, pale and agitated, alternately kissing her cheek and hugging her to his bosom; my wife crying; Tom Telford whirling round and round, waving his hat over his head, and flourishing his empty sleeve in the air; and I, the most sensible person in the group, standing staring in delighted astonishment at this pleasing and unexpected denouement. After the first excitement occasioned by this unlooked-for meeting was over, we all returned to the house, eager to hear Grace Douglas's account of her adventures. ”

“ I looked inquiringly at Betsy.
"Oh, that is the poet," said she; "a gentle beggar by nature and profession, he has no shift but his verses, and a poor shift it makes for him. He bothers the gentry with his rhymes; sometimes gets kicked out, sometimes a six-pence. Hand him, when done, a glass Bill; he has been more fortunate than usual, if he has one of his own. He had better attended to teaching his scholars than song-writing. ”

“ He was arrayed in melancholy and gloom: but the agony of the lowest pit was gone, and he stood on a dangerous middle place, between a temporary fulfilment of his resolutions and a relapse. With a patient of this sort I never continue a system of argumentation and disputation. I am satisfied it does injury; for it reaches the moral sore only to irritate it, and an argument surmounted, or sworn resolution vanquished, is a triumph and a pabulum to the spirit of the foe greater than years of domination. ”

“ On coming up to the place where his favourite lay extended dead on the ground, with his face upturned to heaven, and, though partly covered by his bonnet's plume that had fallen down in the flight, displaying too evidently the rigid muscles of death, his father and his brothers uttered a loud cry of astonishment and grief, and ran to satisfy themselves of the terrible truth, that the beautiful youth was indeed dead. ”

“ He was a man of great stature, and his person was exceeding powerful. He had also royal blood in his veins, and laid claim to the crown of Scotland, in opposition to the Bruce. But two things troubled him: and the one was, to place the crown of Scotland on his head; the other, to possess the hand of a fair and rich, maiden, named Marion, who was about to wed with Walter, the young heir of Branxholm, the stoutest and the boldest youth on all the wide Borders. Soulis was a man who was not only of a cruel heart, but it was filled with forbidden thoughts ”

“ What would you think, then, Mr M'Arthur, of my daughter here as a make-weight on this occasion?"
M'Arthur looked confused and incredulous.
"Nay, I'm in earnest, Mr M'Arthur," continued Mr M'Donald. "You have won her, and have the best right to wear her; and, to tell you both a truth, I've long thought, and not with much displeasure, that you were not indifferent to each other; and therefore I anticipate no very serious objections on this occasion on either side. What say you, Flora? Have you any objection to take Mr M'Arthur for your husband? Come now, be honest, be candid." ”

“ A shiver comes over us, when we read of the son killed in a feud, carried in to his mother a corpse; of the father of a family, and the laird of many broad acres, laid before his weeping wife and children, the dead victim of a strife with his next neighbour; of families rendered houseless and homeless, often by a marauding kinsman; of the never-ceasing turmoil, strife, cruelty, and revenge, of the whole inhabitants of that distracted part of our country. ”

“ If you're so fond of your grog, you had better get on with your story as fast as you can, for not a drop more shall you taste till you have finished."
"But, bless your heart, sir, how am I to begin? I'm like a marine adrift on a grating, or an ass in a hay-field. I've got lots o' yarns to tell, but I don't know which way to turn myself among them."
"Well," said Dalzell, "I'll go and take a walk, and leave you to your own devices;" and he left the room.
"Now, your honour," said Tom, addressing me, "I'll tell you a famous trick our captain sarved the Johnny Croppös. ”