Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 1).djvu/197



at what he deemed the coldness of his friends, in a cause which interested him so nearly, Hobbie had shaken himself free of their company, and was now upon his solitary road homeward. "The fiend founder thee!" he said, as he spurred impatiently his over-fatigued and stumbling horse; "thou art like a' the rest of them. Hae I not fed thee, and bred thee, and dressed thee wi' mine own hand, and wouldst thou snapper now and break my neck at my utmost need? But thou'rt e'en like the laive—the farthest off o' them a' is my cousin ten times removed;