"It canna be helpit," he said, giving his head a bit shake; "it canna be helpit, friends. Ay, Jess, ye were a gude ane in yere day, lass,--mony a penny and pound have I made out of ye. Which o' ye can lend me a hand, lads? Rin away for a gun some o' ye." Here Thomas Clod interfered with a small bit of advice--a thing that Thomas was good at, being a Cameraman elder, and accustomed to giving a word. "Wad ye no think it better," said Thomas, "to stick her with a long gully-knife, or a sharp shoemaker's parer? It wad be an easier way, I'm thinking." Dog on it! I could scarcely keep from shuddering when I heard them speaking in this wild, heathenish, bloody sort of a manner. "'Deed no," quo' Saunders Tram, at whose side I was standing, "far better send away for the smith's forehammer, and hit her a smack or twa betwixt the e'en; so ye wad settle her in half a second." "No, no;" cried Tammie Dobbie, lending in his word, "a better plan than a' that, wad be to make a strong kinch of ropes, and hang her." Lovey ding! such ways of showing how to be merciful!! But the old Jockey himself interfered. "Haud yere tongues, fules," was his speech; "yonder's the man coming wi' a gun. We'll shune put an end to her. She would have won for a hunder pounds, if she hadna broken her leg.--Wha'll wager me that she wadna hae won? But she's the last of my stable, puir beast; and I havena ae plack to rub against anither, now that I have lost her. Gi'e me the gun and the penny candle. Is she loaded?" speired he at the man that carried the piece. "Troth is she," was the answer, "double charged." "Then stand back, lads," quod the old round-shouthered horse-couper, and ramming down the candle he lifted up the piece, cocking it as he went four or five yards in front of the poor bleeding brute, that seemed, though she could not rise, to know what he was about with the weapon of destruction; casting her black eye up at him, and looking pitifully in his face. When I saw him taking his aim, and preparing to draw the trigger, I turned round my back, not being able to stand it, and brizzed the flats of my hands with all my pith against the opening of my ears; nevertheless, I heard a faint boom; so, heeling round, I observed the miserable bleeding creature lift her head, and pulling up her legs, give them a plunge down again on the divots: after which she lay still, and we all saw, to our satisfaction, that death had come to her relief.