Page:The Family Legend.pdf/97

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Regard thee: thieves and cowards be not all Who from the Lowlands come.

No; no, in sooth! I knew a Lowlander, Some years gone by, who was as true and honest— Ay, and I do believe well nigh as brave, As though, with brogued feet, he never else Had all his days than muir or mountain trode.

Thanks for your gentle thoughts!—It has indeed Been my misluck to draw my earliest breath Where meadows flower, and corn fields wave i' th' sun. But let us still be friends! heaven gives us not To choose our birth-place, else these wilds, no doubt, Would be more thickly peopled.

Ay, true it is indeed.

And hard it were To quarrel with him too for his misfortune. (Noise heard without.)