Advocate Langtale has brought folk through waur snappers than a' this, and there's no a cleverer agent than Nichil Novit e'er drew a bill of suspension.

Hanged or unhanged, they are weel aff has sic an agent and counsel; ane's sure o' fair play.

Ye are a bonny lass, too, an ye wad busk up your cockernony a bit; and a bonny lass will find favour wi' judge and jury, when they would strap up a grewsome carle like me for the fifteenth part of a flea's hide and tallow, d--n them." To this homely strain of consolation the mourners returned no answer; indeed, they were so much lost in their own sorrows as to have become insensible of Ratcliffe's presence.

"O Effie," said her elder sister, "how could you conceal your situation from me?
O woman, had I deserved this at your hand ?--had ye spoke but ae word--sorry we might hae been, and shamed we might hae been, but this awfu' dispensation had never come ower us." "And what gude wad that hae dune ?" answered the prisoner.

"Na, na, Jeanie, a' was ower when ance I forgot what I promised when I faulded down the leaf of my Bible.