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 be got out o' him, but what ye take out o' his banes. He hasna a four-footed creature but the vicious blood thing he rides on, and that's sair trash'd wi' his night-wark. We are ruined stoop and roop."

Hobbie cast a mournful glance on Grace Armstrong, who returned it with a downcast look and a gentle sigh.

"Dinna be cast down, bairns," said the grandmother, "we hae gude friends that winna forsake us in adversity. There's Sir Thomas Kittleloof is my third cousin by the mother's side, and he has come by a hantle siller, and been made a knight baronet into the bargain, for being ane o' the commissioners at the Union."

"He wadna gi'e a boddle to save us frae famishing," said Hobbie;" and, if he did, the bread that I bought wi't would stick in my throat when I thought it was part of the price of puir auld Scotland's crown and independence."

"There's the Laird of Dunder, ane of the auldest families in Tiviotdale."