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 never ony thing dune wi' hand but I learned gay readily, 'septing reading, writing, and cyphering; but there's no the like o' me at the fit-ba', and I can play wi' the broadsword as weel as Corporal Inglis there. I hae broken his head or now, for as massy as he's riding ahint us.—And then ye'll no be gaun to stay in his country?"—said he, stopping and interrupting himself.

"Probably not," replied Morton.

"I Weel, I care na a boddle. Ye see I wad get my mither bestowed wi' her auld graning tittie, auntie Meg, in the Gallowgate o' Glasgow, and then I trust they wad neither burn her for a witch, or let her fail for fau't o' food, or hang her up for an auld whig wife; for the provost, they say, is very regardful o' sic puir bodies. And then you and I wad gang and pouss our fortunes, like the folk i' the daft auld tales about Jock the Giant killer and Valentine and Orson; and we wad come back to merry Scotland, as the sang says, and I wad tak to the stilts again, and turn