He had been bousing about the countryside somehow--maybe harrying out of house and hald some puir bodies that hadna the wherewith to pay their rents; so, in riding hame fou--it was pitmirk, and the rain pouring down in bucketfu's--he became dumfoundered wi' the darkness and the dramming thegither; and, losing his way, wandered about the fields, hauling his mare after him by the bridle.

In the morning the beast was found nibbling away at the grass owre by yonder, wi' the saddle upon its back, and a broken bridle hinging down about its fore-legs, by the which the folks round were putten upon the scent; for, on making search down yon pit, he was fund at the bottom, wi' his brains smashed about him, and his legs and arms broken to chitters!" "Save us!" said I, "it makes a' my flesh grue." "Weel it may," answered Tammie, "or the story's lost in the telling; for the collyers that fand him shook as if they had been seized wi' the ague.
The dumb animal, ye observe, had far mair sense than him; for, when his fitting gaed way, instead of following it had plunged back; and the bit o' the bridle, that had broken, was still in his grup, when they spied him wi' their lanterns." "It was an awful like way to leave the world," said I.
"'Deed it was, and nae less," answered Tammie, "to gang to his lang account in the middle of his mad thochtlessness, without a moment's warning.

But see, yonder's Cousland lying right forrit to the east hand." At this very nick of time Benjie was seized with a severe kink; so Tammie stopped his cart, and I held his head over the side of it till the cough went by.

I thought his inside would have jumped out; but he fell sound asleep in two or three minutes; and we jogged on till we came to the yill- house door, where, after louping out, we got a pickle pease-strae to Tammie's horse..