would ne'er have been tramping this day o'er the very grund I ploughed, to work in that pit, dash her! and me aughty years of age and mair." "How, then, did it happen?" cried Horace, eagerly. "But I'll hev to be agooin," said the pitman, lifting himself up with reluctance and difficulty--"the timekeeper yonder, he's a pertickler man, and has nae consideration for an old body's infirmities: though I'm wonderful comforted with the speerits, I'll no deny. Eyeh! eyeh! the old Squire, he was a grand man, he was, as lang's he had it, and threw his siller about like water, and was aye needing, aye needing, like them sort o' men. Afore mony days, if ye'll believe me, there was word of his own agent, that was Maister Pouncet, the 'torney in Kenlisle, buying some land of him, awl to serve the Squire, as the fowks said; but when I heard it was this land, 'Ho, ho!' says I to mysel', 'there's more nor clear daylight in this job,' says I. So I held my whisht, and waited to see; and sure enow, before long came down surveyors and engineers, and I know not all what, and the same lad, with the muckle mouth, that was now made partner to Mr. Pouncet; and that was the start o' the pit, dash her! that's cost me twenty years o' my life and twa bonnie sons; and them's the masters, blast them! that take their goold out o't year after year, and wunna spare a penny-piece for the aged and frail. Eyeh, that's them!--but it's my belief I'll see something happen to that lad with the muckle mouth before I die." "And what did your old Squire say, eh, when the land was found so rich?" said Horace; "did he try to break the bargain, and take it back again?" "Him!" cried the decrepid old labourer, now once more halting along in the fresh sunshine, with his shadow creeping before him, and his "Davy" creaking from his bony finger--"him! a man that knawed neither care nor prudence awl his born days; and to go again his own 'torney that had done for him since ever he came to his fortin',--not him! He said it was confoonded lucky for Pouncet, and laughed it off, as I hev heard say, and thought shame to let see how little siller he got for that land. He never had no time, nor siller nouther, to goo into lawsuits, and his own agent, as I tell you; besides that he was a simple man, was the Squire, and believed in luck more nor in cheating. Eyeh! eyeh! but I blamed aye the chield with the muckle mouth. He was the deevil that put harm into the t'other lawyer's head; for wan man may be mair wicked nor anither, even amang 'torneys. It wasn't lang after till he left this country. Eh, lad, yon man's the deevil for cunning. I wouldna trust him with his own soul if he could cheat that--dash them a'! I mought have keeped on my kailyard, and seen my lads at the tail of the plough, if, instead of his pits and his vile siller, them fields had still been part o' Tinwood Farm!"