Ailie turned to make her apology--'Troth, I was sae weel pleased to see the gudeman, that--but, gude gracious! what's the matter wi' ye baith?' for they were now in her little parlour, and the candle showed the streaks of blood which Dinmont's wounded head had plentifully imparted to the clothes of his companion as well as to his own. 'Ye've been fighting again, Dandie, wi' some o' the Bewcastle horse-coupers! Wow, man, a married man, wi' a bonny family like yours, should ken better what a father's life's worth in the warld'; the tears stood in the good woman's eyes as she spoke. 'Whisht! whisht! gudewife,' said her husband, with a smack that had much more affection than ceremony in it; 'never mind, never mind; there's a gentleman that will tell you that, just when I had ga'en up to Lourie Lowther's, and had bidden the drinking of twa cheerers, and gotten just in again upon the moss, and was whigging cannily awa hame, twa landloupers jumpit out of a peat-hag on me or I was thinking, and got me down, and knevelled me sair aneuch, or I could gar my whip walk about their lugs; and troth, gudewife, if this honest gentleman hadna come up, I would have gotten mair licks than I like, and lost mair siller than I could weel spare; so ye maun be thankful to him for it, under God.' With that he drew from his side-pocket a large greasy leather pocket-book, and bade the gudewife lock it up in her kist. 'God bless the gentleman, and e'en God bless him wi' a' my heart; but what can we do for him, but to gie him the meat and quarters we wadna refuse to the poorest body on earth--unless (her eye directed to the pocketbook, but with a feeling of natural propriety which made the inference the most delicate possible), unless there was ony other way--' Brown saw, and estimated at its due rate, the mixture of simplicity and grateful generosity which took the downright way of expressing itself, yet qualified with so much delicacy; he was aware his own appearance, plain at best, and now torn and spattered with blood, made him an object of pity at least, and perhaps of charity. He hastened to say his name was Brown, a captain in the----regiment of cavalry, travelling for pleasure, and on foot, both from motives of independence and economy; and he begged his kind landlady would look at her husband's wounds, the state of which he had refused to permit him to examine. Mrs. Dinmont was used to her husband's broken heads more than to the presence of a captain of dragoons. She therefore glanced at a table-cloth not quite clean, and conned over her proposed supper a minute or two, before, patting her husband on the shoulder, she bade him sit down for 'a hard-headed loon, that was aye bringing himsell and other folk into collie-shangies.'