Serjeant.—He shakes as if he had an ague-fit.
Clifford.—’Tis absolutely like an earthquake shaking the globe.—Here, sir; pray swallow some of this warm punch—it will bring life into you.
Stranger—(in a perfect palsy of cold.)—Och! it’s most reveeving indeed, though the taste of it is just altogether poisoned with the moss that’s in my mouth.
Clifford—(with astonishment.)—Mr. Macpherson!
Author.—Is it possible?
Grant.—Where, in the name of all goodness, can you have dropped from, my worthy sir?
Clifford.—Though we know not where he has dropped from, we may see plainly enough, from the foul streams that drop from him, that he has dropped himself, head over heels, into some black peat-hag. Here—get towels, that we may rub the dirt out of his eyes.
Dominie.—Ech, sirs! give me another drop of yon comfortable stuff, and let me see a bit glisk of the fire.—Aye.—Hech me! I’m much the better of that.
Clifford.—Sit down here, sir. Sit down in this chair close to the fire; but first take off that streaming coat of thine. It reminds me of some of those vast black Highland mosses, the very drainings of which give origin to some dozen of rivers. Now, take another pull at this hot stuff, and then tell us your adventures if you can.
Dominie.—Oh, dear me, that is good! Why, gentlemen, my story is short, though my way has been long and weary enough. The fack is, that when I got to my brother Ewan’s house, I found that he was away to the low country to make some bargain about the buying of a stock of iron, and that he was not to be home again for a fortnight. You may believe I was much disappointed at this intelligence, after the long tramp I had all the way from Caithness, to come and see him. But it would appear, that my letter to him must have somehow miscarried. Be that as it may, I had no sooner been satisfied that I had no chance of seeing Ewan for a time, than my heart began to yearn after those with whom I had so lately and so sorrowfully parted. So, thinks I to myself, I’ll just take my foot in my hand, and after the gentlemen. I’ll catch them at Inchrory. If the night had been good and clear, I should have been here good two hours ago. But on came the tempest; and the wind, and the rain, and the darkness together, so bamboozled and dumbfounded me, that, as I was fighting along with might and main, I fell souse over head and ears into a deep peat-pot,