RAB AND HIS FRIENDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 132, 18 April 1862, Page 6

RAB AND HIS FRIENDS.

By John Brown, M.D., Ediugburgh.

Four-and-thirfcy years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were coming up Infirmary-street from the High School, our heads together, and our arms intertwisted, as only lovers and boys know how, or why.

When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, we espied a crowd at the Tron Church. "A dog fight!" shouted Bob, and was off; and so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over before we got up ! And is not this-boy -nature 1 and human nature too ? and don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it ? ' . Dogs like fighting ; old Isaac says they " delight" in it, and for the best of all reasons ; and boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or man—courage, endurance; and skill—in intense action. This is very' differen* from a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A boy —be he ever, so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would, have run off with Bob and me fast enough : it is a natural, and a not wicked interest, that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in action. Does any curious and finely-ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's eye at a glance announced a dogfight to his brain 1 He did not, he could not see the dogs fighting ;it was a flash of an inference, a rapid induction. The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting, is a crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman, fluttering wildly round the outside, and using her tongue and her Lands freely upon the men, as so many " brutes ;" it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile! a crowd centripetal, baying its eyes and its heads all bent downwards and inwards, to one common focus. Well, Bob and I are up, and find it. is not over: a small thoroughbred, white bull-terrier is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed- to war, but not to be trifled with. They avo hard at it; the scietific little fellow doiDg his work in great style, lu3 pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and- a great courage. Science and breeding, however, soon had their own ; the game chicken, as the premature Bob called him, working his way up, took his final "rip of poor Yarrow's threat,-and lie lay gaspiiiganddonefor His uir-ster, a brown, handsome, big .young shepherd :rom Tweedsnimr, would have liked to have knocked down any man, would " drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile," for that part, if he had a chance: it was no use kicking-the. little dog; that, would only make him hold the closer. Many were the means shouted out in niouthfuls, of the best possible ways of endiim it. "Water!'' but there was none near, and many cried for.it who might have got it from the well at Dlackfriars Wynd. "Bite the tail!" and a largo, vague, benevolent, middle-aged man, more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the bushy end of Yarrow's tail into his ample mouth, and bit it" with all his might. This was more than enough for the much prespiring shepherd, who, with gleam ot joy.over his broad visiige, delivered a terrific facer upon pur large, vague, benevolent, middleaged friend,--who went down like a shot. Still the chicken holds; death not'far off. "Snuff! a pinch ot snuff!" observed a calm, highly-dressed young buck, with an eye glass-in.his c3re. "Snuff, indeed!" growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. "Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" again observes the buck, but ..with more urgency; whereon were produced several open boxes, and from a mull which may have been at Culloden, he took a pinch, knelt down, and presented it to the nose of the chicken. The laws of physiology and of snnff take their course : the chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free ! The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yarrow in his arms, —comforting him .. But the bult.terrier's blood is up, and his soid unsatisfied ; he grips the first. dog lie meets, and discovering she is not a dog, in Homeric phrase, he makes a brief sort of mnendi, and is off. The boys with Bob and me at their head, are after him : down Niddry-streethe goes, bent on mischief; up the Cowgate like an arrow,—Bob and J, and our small men, panting behind. There, under the single arch of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets: he is old, grey, brindled, as big as a Highland bull, and has the Shaksperian dewlaps shaking as he goe3. The chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat. To our astonishment, the great creature does nothing but stand still, hold himself up, and roar —yes, roar; a long, serious, remonstrative roar. How is this 1 Bob and I are up to them. He is muzzled! Tl;« bailies had proclaimed a general muzzling, abd his master, studying strength and. economy mainly, had encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, constructed out of the leather of some ancient brecchin. His mouth was open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage—a sort of terrible grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; his strap across his mouth tense as a bowstring; his whole frame stiff with indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all round, " Did you ever see the like of this V He looked a statue of anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite.

We soon had a crowd: the chicken held on. " A knife !" .cried Bob, and a cobbler gave him his knife —you know the kind of knife, worn away obliquely to a point, and always keen. 1 put its edge to the tense leather; it ran before it; and then!—one sudden jerk of that enormous head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth—no noise—and the bright aud fierce little fellow is dropped, limp and dead. A solemn pause—this was more than any of us had bargained^ for. I turned the little fellow over, and saw lie was quite dead? the mastiff had taken him by the small of the back like a rat, and broken it.

He looked down at his victim, appeased, ashamed, and amazed; snuffed him all over, stared at him, and, taking a sudden thought, turned round and trotted.off. Bob took the dead dog up, and-said, "John, we'll bury him after tea.'" "les."' said I, and was off after the mastiff. He made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forcotten some engagement. He turned up the Candlemaker Kow, and stopped at the Harrow Inn. There .was a _ earner's cart ready to start, and a. keen, 'thin,* impatient, blaek-a-vised little man, his hand at his grey horse's he/id, looking about angrily for something. #, "Rab, ye thief!" said, he, aiming a kick at nay great friend, who drew cringing up and avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed trader the cart,—his ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too.

What a man this must be—thought I—to whom my tremendous hero turns tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly toid him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone were worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, "Rab, ma man, puir Rabbie,"—whereupon the stump of a tail rose up,' the ears were cocked, the eyes filled; and were comforted ; the two friends were reconciled. " Aupp !'* and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess; and off went the three. Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a tea) in the back-green of his house, in Melville-street, No. 17, with cojisiderable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad, and, like all boys,, Trojans, we called him Hector of course.

Six years huve.passed—a long time for a boy and a dog: Bob Ainslie is off to the wars ; I am a medical student, and clerk at Minto House Hospital. Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday : and we had much pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching of his huge head, aud an. occasional bone. When I did not notice him lie would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up with his head a little to one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John,", but was laconic as any Spartan. —. , One fine. October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital, when I saw the large gate . open, and in walked Rab, with.that great and easy saunter of his. He looked as if taking general possession of the place; like the Duke of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart: and in it a woman carefully wrapped up,—the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and lookirg back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque " boo," and said, " Maister John, this is the mistress : she"s got a trouble in her breast—some kind o' an income we're thinkin." 'Ik

•By this time I taw the woman's face : she waf sitting on a sack filled with straw, her husband's plaiO round her, and his big coat, with its large white metal buttons, over her feet. ; I never saw a more unforgetable face—pale, serious, lonely, delicate, sweet, without being at all what the> call line. . She looked : sixty, and had on a mutch. white as snow, with its black ribbon : her.silver? smooth hair setting off her dark grey eyes—-eyes such as one sees only twice or thrice in n lifetime, full olj suffering, full also of the overcoming of it: her eye-1 brows .black and dclrea'te, and her-mouth firm, patient and contented, which few mouths ever are..

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or Oiie more subdued to settled quiet. "Ailie," says James, "this.is Maister John, th' young doctor; Rab's'friend,-you ken. AYe often spealc abopt you, doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing : and prepared' to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Hati Solomaii in all his glory, bsen handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate, he could not havt done it more daintily, more tenderly, mort like a gentleman, than did James, the Howaatt carrier, when he lifted down Ailie his wife. -.The contrast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen, worldly face to hers—pale, subdued and beautiful— was something wonderful. Rab looked on concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything that might turn up,—were it to strangle the nurse, the porter or even me. Ailie and he seemed great friends. ; "As I was savin' she's got a kind o' trouble in hei breest, Doctor; wull you take a look at it ?" We walked into the consulting-room, all four ! Rab grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential ii cause could be shown, willing also to bo the reverse, on the same terms. Ailie sat down, undid her open ijown and her lawn handkerchief round her neck, am! without a word, showed me her right breast. 1 looked at and examined it carefully—she and James watching me, and Rab eyeing all tliree. What could I say ? there it was, that hail once been so soft, so shapely, so white, so gracious and bountiful, so " full of all blessed conditions," —hard as a stone, a centre of horrid pain, makiug that pale face, with its grey, lucid, reasonable eyes, and its sweet resolved month, express the full measure of sufferiny overcome. Why was that gentle, .modest, sweet woman,. clean and loveable, condemned by God to bear such a burden ?

I got her away to bed. " May llab and me bide V said James. "You may ; and Rab, if he will behave himself." " I'se warrant he's do that, doctor :'■ and in slunk the faithful beast.. I wish you could have seen him. There are no such dogs now. He belonged to a lost tribe. As I have said, ho,was brindled, and grsy like llubislaw granite;. his hair, short, hard, and close, like a .lions; his body thick set like a little bull — a sort of compressed Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety pounds'weight, at the least; he had a large blunt head; his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker than any night, a tooth or two —being all he had— gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His head wa^ scarred with the records of old wounds, a sort oi scries of fields of battle all over it: one eye out, one ear cropped as closie as was Archbishop Leighton's father's ; the remaining eye had the power of two : and above it, and in constant communication with it, was a tattered rag of an ear, which was for ever unfurling itself, like im old flag; and then that bud of a. tail, about one inch long, if it could in any sense_ be said to be long, being as broad as long—the mobility, the instantaneousness of that bud were very funny and surprising, and its expressive twinklings anil winkings, the intercommunications between the eye, the ear and it, were of the oddest and swiftest.

Kab had the dignity and simplicity of great size ; and having fought his way all along the road to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty in his own line,a* Julius, Csesar or the Duke of Wellington, audhad the gravity of all great fighters. , • .•■■•-.

You must have often observed the likeness of. certain men to, certain animals, and of certain dogs tc men. Now, I never looked at Rab without tbinkinp of the griat Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller. The same large, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest countenance, the same deep inevitable eye_, the same look,—as of thunder asleep, but ready—neither a dog nor a man to be trifled with. •

.Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. There was no doubt it must kill her, and soon. Ii could be removed—it might never return—it would give her speedy relief—she should have it done. She curtsied, looked.at James, and said, " When ?"■ " Tomorrow," said the kind surgeon—a man of few words. She and James and Rab and I retired. I noticed that he. and she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each other. The following day, at noon, the students came in, hurrying up the great stair. At the first landing-place, on a small.-well-known black board, was a bit of paper fastened by, wafers, and. many remains of old wafers beside it.On the paper were the words, —"An operation today, J. B. Clerk:' .•■■;.

Up ran the youths, eager to secure good-places; in they crowded, full of interest and talk. " ■What's the case?" " Which side is it?".. .

Don't think them heartless; they are neither better nor.worse.than you or.L;.they: get over their professional horrors, and into their proper work; and in them pity, as an emotion, ending in itself, or at best! in tears and a long-drawn. breath, lessens, while pity1 as a motive, is quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human nature that, it is so. The.operating theatre is crowded ; miich talk and fun, and all the cordiality and stir of youth. -■ The surgeon with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Aiiie : one look, at her quiets and abates the eager students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them ; they sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power- of her presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste ; dressed in her uiutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black. b'onibazeen, petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet-shoes. Behind her was James with Rab. James sat down in the distance, and took that hugeaud noble.head between Ids knees, llab looked perplexed aud dangerous; for ever cocking his ear and dropping it as fast. Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table, as her friend-the surgeon told her; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at James, shut her eyes, rested herself on mo, and took my hand. The operation was at once begun ; it was necessarily slow ; and chloroform —one of (Jod's best gifts to his suffering children —was then unknown. The surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Kab's soul was working within him ;he saw that something strange was going on,—blood flowing from his mistress, and she suffering; his ragged ear was up, and importunate ; lie growled and gave now and then a'sharp impatient yelp ; he would have liked to have done something to that man. But James had him firm, and gave him a qloiorr from time to time, and an intimation of a possible kick ;—- ---nil the better for James, it kept his eye and his mind loir Ailie. . . ". . - .

It is over: she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the table, looks for James ; then, turning to the surgeon and the students, she curtsies, —and in a low, clear voice, begs their pardon if she has behaved ill. The students —all of us—wept like children ; the surgeon happed her up carefully,—and, resting on James and me, Ailie went to her room. Rab following. We put her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes, crammed with tai<kets, heel-capt anil too-capt, and put them carefully under the table, saying, "Maister John, I'm for iiane o' yer strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on my stockin' soles as canny, as pussy." And so he did ; ami handy and clever, and swift and tender as any woman, was that horny-handed, snell, peremptory littlo man. Everything she got lie gave her :he seldom slept; aad often I saw his small shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her. As before, they spoke little.

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he could be, and occasionally in hie sleep, letting us know that he was demolishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day, generally to the Candlem.iker-row ; but he. was sombre and mild ; declined doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sundry indignities; and was always very ready to turn, and came faster back, and trotted up the stair with much Jightness, and went straight to that door. Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weatherworn cart, to llowgate, and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and confusions, ou the absence of her master and Rab, and her unnatural freedom from the road and her cart.

For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed " by the first intention;" for as James said, " oor AiJie's skin 'sower clean to beil." The students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She said she liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short kind way, pitying her through his eyes, Rab and James outside the circle, Rab being now reconciled, and- even cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet nobody required worrying, but, as you may suppose, semper j)uratus. So far well : but, four days after the operation, my patient had a sudden and long shivering, a "groosin,'1 as she called it. I saw her soon after; her eyes were too bright,-her cheek coloured ; she was restless, and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost; mischief had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret:. her pulse was rapid, her breathing'anxious and quick, she wasn't herself, as she said, and was vexed at- her restlessness. We tiied what we could. James did everything,:wa.v .everywhere; never in the way, never out of it : Rab subsided under the table into a dark place, ivnd was 'notionless, -all but his eye, which followed bvery one. Ailie got worse; began to wander in her mind, gently; more demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid in her questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, " She was never hat way afore; no, never." For a time she knew

her Lead was wrong, and was. always asking our parlon—the dear, gentle old woman : then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, and: then came that terrible spectacle, ■ . .:

"The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding 011 its dim and perilous way." =bo sang bits of old songs and psalms, stopping sud.lenly, mingling the Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and lord, with liouiely odds and amis and scraps of ballads! Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch voice—the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and perilous eye ; some wild words, some household cares, something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in a "frerayt" voice, and he starting up surprised, and slinking off as if he were to blame-■somehow, ■or had baen dreaming he heard. Many eager questions and beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink back un-under-stood. It was very sad, but .better than many thing's that are not called Bad. James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as.ever; read to her, when there was a lull, short bits from the psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great knowledge of, the flt words, bearing up like a man, and doating over her as his "am Ailie." "Ailie, ma woman?' " Ma am bonnie wee dawtie !",

The end was drawing on—the golden bowl was breaking j the silver cord was fast being loosed—that aniniula, Mandula, vagula, hospea, comesque, was about to flee. The body and the soul —companions for sixty years—were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking, alone, through the valley of that shadow into which one day we must all enter, and yet r-he was not alone, for we know whose rod and staff were comforting her. One .night she had fallen , quiet, and as we hoped, asleep ;. her eyes were shut. We put down the gns. and-sat watching her. Suddenly sue sat up i.-i bed a and taking a bedgown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it eagerly to her breast, —to the right side. ' We could sse her eyes bright with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening out her night-gown _ impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding over, it, and murmui'iug foolish.little words, as over one whom his mother cqmforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her wasted dying look, keen, and yet. vague—her immense' love.. . \ ■ ' "Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked back and forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her infinite fondness. " Wae's me, doctor ; I declare she's thinkin'it's that bairn." " What bairn !" "The only bairn we ever had ; our wee Mysie, and she's in the Kingdom, forty years and mair." It was plainly true ; the pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined brain, was misread and, mistaken ; it suggested to her the tmeasineis of a .breast full of milk, and then the child ; and so again once more tliey were together, arid she had her am wee Mysie in her bosom., ...

xbia was the close. . She sank rapidly; the delirium left her;" but, as she \yhispered, she was " clean silly :" it was the lightening before the final darkness, After, having for some lain still—her eyes shut, she said "James !" lie cape close to her, and lifting up her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for link but could not see him, then turned to her husband again, as if she would never leave oft" looking, shut her eyes, and .composed herself. She lay for sometime breathing quick, and passed away so gently, that when we thought she ■ was- gone, James, in his old fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long1 pause, one small spot of dimness was breathed out; it vanished away, and never returned, leaving the blank clear darkness of the mirror without a stain. " What is our life l it is even a vapour, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanislieth away." / ' ' . Rah all this time had been full awake and motionless : hecame forward beside us ; Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hunting down ; it was soaked with his teai-s; Rab licked it all over carefnlly, looked at her, and returned to his place under the table, James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time, I—saying1 —saying nothing : he started up abruptly, and 'with some noise went to the table, and putting his right fore and middle fingers each into a shoe, pulled them out, and put them : on, 1 breaking one of the leather latehets, and muttering in anger, "I never did the like o'that afore !" ,;

I bdieve he never did ; nor after either. "Rab !' he said roughly, and pointing with/his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab lept up, and settled himself; his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John, yell wait for me," 'said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness, thundering down stairs in his lieavy shoes. .1 ran to a front window : there he was, already round the house, and out. at the gate, fleeing like a shadow. • I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid ; so I sat down beside Rab, and being wearied fell asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise outside. It was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was in stntu quo ; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but never moved. I looked out; and there, at the gate, in the dim morning—for the gun was not up, was Jets and the cart, —a cloud of steam rising from the old mare. I did nob see James; he was aliaady at the door, and came up the stairs, and met me. tt was less than .three -hours since he left, and he must' have posted out—who kuows how ? —to Howgate, full nine miles off; yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He had an armful of blankets, and v. as streaming with perspiration. He nodded to me, spread out on the floor two pairs of clean old blanb:ts having at their corners, "A. Gr., 1794," in large letters in i'ed worsted. These were the initials of Alison Grseme, and James may havelooked in at her from without-—himself unseen but not unthought Or—-when he was "wat, wat, and weary," and after iiavin,; walked many a mile over the hills,- may have seen her sitting, while "a' the lave were sleepin' j" and by the firelight working her name on the blankets, for her airi" James's bedl1 ■ ■

He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife in his arms, laid her in the blankets, and happed her eareiiiid firmly up, leaving the face uncovered; and then lifting- her, he nodded again sharply to me, and with a resolved but utterly miserable face, strode along the passage,' and down stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light; but he. didn't need it. 1 went out, holding stupidly the candle in my hand in the calm 'frosty air; we were soon at the gate. I could liaye* helped liim, but I saw he was not to be meddled with, and he was'strong, arid did not need it. He laid ftw^down as tenderly, as safely,- as he had lifted her out ten days before—as tenderly as when'he had her first iii liiTaruis when she.was only "A. G.," —sorted her, leaving-that beautiful sealed face' open to the heavens; and then taking Jess by the head,'lie moved away. He did not notice me, neither did Rab, who presided behind the cart.

I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College, and turned up Nicholson street. I heard the solitary cart sound through the streets, and die away and come again; and I returned, thinking of that company going' up the Libberton Bran, then along Roslin Muir, the morning light touching the Pentlnnds and making them like on-looking ghosts ; then down the hill through Auchindinny woods; past "haunted Woodhouselee;" ami as daybreak came] sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs, and fell on his own door, the company would stop, and James would take fhe key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her on her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would return with limb and shut the door

James buried his wife, with his neighbors mourning, Hal.) inspecting' the 'solemnity from a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged hole would look strange in the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of whilel James looked after everything ; then -rather suddenly fell ill; and took to bed: was insensible when the doctor came, and soon died. A sort of low-fever was prevailing' in the village, and his want of sleep, his exhaustion, and his misery, made him apt to take it. The grave was not difficult to ve-open. Afresh fall of snow had again made all things white and smooth; llab once more ooked on, and slunk home j to the stable. • |

And what of Rab ? I asked of him next week at the new earner's who got the goodwill of James's business, and %vas now master of Jess and her cart. "How's Rab?" He put me off, and said rather rudely, " What's your business wi' the dowg 1" I was not to be so put off. " Were's Bab?' He, actting confused and red, and intermeddling with liia haii1, sai<l, " 'Deed, sir, Rab's deid/' " Dead ! what did he die of?" " Weel, sir," said he, getting redder, '• he didna exactly dee; lie was killed. I had to brain him wi' a rack-pin; there was nae doin' wi' him. He lay in thetreviss wi' the mear, and wadna comeoot. Itempit him wi'kail and meat, but he wad talc naethiiig, and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur gurrin', and grup gruppin': inebythe legs, I was" laitlr to make 'awn wi' the uuld dowg, buthis like wasna atween this and Thornhill—bnt 'deed, sir, 'I could no naething else." I believed him. Fit end for Rab —quick and complete, lis teeth and his friends gone, why should he keep the peace and be civil ? ■