"Twa mile and a bittock," answered Tammie. "But wait a wee.--Up cam the two lights snoov-snooving, nearer and nearer; and I heard distinctly the sound of feet that werena men's--cloven feet, maybe--but nae wheels. Sae nearer it cam and nearer, till the sweat began to pour owre my een as cauld as ice; and, at lang and last, I fand my knees beginning to gi'e way; and, after tot-tottering for half a minute, I fell down, my staff playing bleach out before me. When I cam to mysell, and opened my een, there were the twa lights before me, bleez-bleezing, as if they wad blast my sight out. And what did they turn out to be, think ye? The de'il or spunkie, whilk o' them?" "I'm sure I canna tell," said I. "Naithing mair then," answered Tammie, "but twa bowets; ane tied to ilka knee of auld Doofie, the half-crazy horse-doctor, mounted on his lang- tailed naig, and away through the dark by himsell, at the dead hour o' night, to the relief of a man's mare seized with the batts, somewhere down about Oxenford." I was glad that Tammie's story had ended in this way, when out came another tramping on its heels. "Do you see the top of yon black trees to the eastward there, on the braehead?" "I think I do," was my reply. "But how far, think ye, are we from home now?" "About a mile and a half," said Tammie.--"Weel, as to the trees, I'll tell ye something about them. "There was an auld widow-leddy lived langsyne about the town-end of Dalkeith. A sour, cankered, curious body--she's dead and rotten lang ago. But what I was gaun to say, she had a bonny bit fair-haired, blue- ee'd lassie of a servant-maid that lodged in the house wi' her, just by all the world like a lamb wi' an wolf; a bonnier quean, I've heard tell, never steppit in leather shoon; so all the young lads in the gate-end were wooing at her, and fain to have her; but she wad only have ae joe for a' that. He was a journeyman wright, a trades-lad, and they had come, three or four year before, frae the same place thegither--maybe having had a liking for ane anither since they were bairns; so they were gaun to be married the week after Da'keith Fair, and a' was settled. But what, think ye, happened? He got a drap drink, and a recruiting party listed him in the king's name, wi' pitting a white shilling in his loof.