"Haud yere tongues, fules," was his speech; "yonder's the man coming wi' a gun.

We'll shune put an end to her.

She would have won for a hunder pounds, if she hadna broken her leg .-- Wha'll wager me that she wadna hae won?
But she's the last of my stable, puir beast; and I havena ae plack to rub against anither, now that I have lost her.

Gi'e me the gun and the penny candle.

Is she loaded ?" speired he at the man that carried the piece.
"Troth is she," was the answer, "double charged." "Then stand back, lads," quod the old round-shouthered horse-couper, and ramming down the candle he lifted up the piece, cocking it as he went four or five yards in front of the poor bleeding brute, that seemed, though she could not rise, to know what he was about with the weapon of destruction; casting her black eye up at him, and looking pitifully in his face.
When I saw him taking his aim, and preparing to draw the trigger, I turned round my back, not being able to stand it, and brizzed the flats of my hands with all my pith against the opening of my ears; nevertheless, I heard a faint boom; so, heeling round, I observed 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.