captain and he taking a couple of additional tumblers each, on the head of it, to begin with. We say to begin with; for it by no means ended with the quantity named. The captain was a jolly dog, and loved his liquor, and was, withal, so facetious a companion, that he prevailed on his new friend to swallow a great deal more than did him any good. To tell a truth, which, however, we would not have known at Carlisle, Johnny Armstrong, who had the character of a sober man, got, on this occasion, into a rather discreditable condition, and, in this state, he was escorted by the captain—who stood liquor like a water-cask—to the vessel, and was once more embarked; but it was now on board the Fifteen Sisters of Skatehaven. On getting him on board, the captain, seeing the state he was in, prudently bundled him down into the cabin, and thrust him into his own bed, where he immediately fell into a profound sleep that extended over twelve mortal hours. At the end of this period, however, Johnny awoke; but it was not by any means of his own accord, for he was awakened by a variety of stimulants, or rousers, if we may be allowed to coin a word for the occasion, all operating at once. These were, a tremendous uproar on the deck, a fearful rolling of the vessel, the roaring of wind, and the splashing, dashing, and gurling of waves; and, to crown all, a feeling of deadly sickness. When he first opened his eyes, he could not conceive where he was, or what was the meaning of the furious motion that he felt, and of the tremendous sounds that he heard. A few minutes' cogitation with himself, however, solved the mystery, and exposed to him his true position. In great alarm—for he thought the vessel was on the eve of going down—Johnny Armstrong rolled himself out of his bed, and crawled in his shirt up the cabin ladder. On gaining the summit, he found himself confronted by the captain, who, with a very serious face, was standing by the helm.
"Are—are—are—we—near—Mon—trose, captain?" inquired Johnny, in a voice rendered so feeble by sickness and terror, that it was impossible to hear him a yard off, amidst the roaring of the winds and waves; for we suppose we need not more explicitly state, that he was in the midst of a storm, and as pretty a one it was as the most devoted admirer of the picturesque could desire to see.
"What?" roared the captain, in a voice of thunder, at the same time stooping down to catch his feeble interrogatory. Johnny repeated it; but, ere he could obtain an answer, a raking wave, which came in at the stern, took him full on the breast as he stood on the companion ladder, with his bust just above the level of the deck, sent him down, heels over head, into the cabin, and, in a twinkling, buried him in a foot and a half of water on the floor, where he lay for some time at full length, sprawling and floundering amidst the wreck which the sudden and violent influx of water had occasioned. On recovering from the stunning effects of his descent—for he had, amongst other small matters, received a violent contusion on the head—Johnny for an instant imagined that he had somehow or other got to the bottom of the sea. Finding, however, at length, that this was not precisely the case, he arose, though dripping with wet, yet not very like a sea god, and having denuded himself of his only garment, his shirt, crawled into his bed, where he now determined to await quietly and patiently the fate that might be intended for him; and this fate, he had no doubt, was suffocation by drowning.
"Very extraordinar this," said Johnny Armstrong to himself, as he lay musing in bed on the perilous situation into which he had so simply and innocently got—"very extraordinar, that I couldna get the length o' Brechin without a' this uproar, and confusion, and difficulty, and danger; this knocking about frae place to place, half drooned and half murdered. Here have I been now for
mair than a week at it, and it's my opinion I'm no twenty mile nearer't yet than I was, for a' this kick up. Dear me," he went on soliloquizing, "I'm sure Brechin's no sic an out o' the way place. The road's straught, and the distance no great. Then, how, in the name o' wonder, is it that I canna mak' it out like ither folk, let me do as I like?"
Thus cogitated Johnny Armstrong as he lay on his bed of sickness, sorrow, and danger. But his cogitations could in no way mend the matter, nor, though they could, was he long permitted to indulge in them; for that mortal sickness under which he had been before suffering, but which the little incident of the visit from the wave, with its consequences, had temporarily banished, again returned with tenfold vigour, making him regardless of all sublunary things—even of life itself. In this state of supineness and suffering did Johnny lie for three entire days and nights—for so long did the storm continue with unabated fury—the vessel having, for some four-and-twenty hours previously, been quite unmanageable, and driving at the mercy of the winds and waves. A dreadful crash, however, at length announced that some horrible crisis was at hand. The vessel had struck, and, in a few seconds more, she was in a thousand pieces, and her unfortunate crew, including Johnny Armstrong, were struggling in the waves. From this instant he lost all consciousness; and, when he again awoke to life, he found himself lying on the sea-beach; but how he had come there he never could tell, nor could he at all conjecture by what accident his life had been saved, when all the rest in the ill-fated vessel had perished; for Johnny was indeed the only person that had escaped. On coming to himself he started to his feet, and gazed around him, with a bewildered look, to see if any object would present itself that might help him to guess where he was. But his survey affording him no such aid to recognition, he began to move inland, in the
hope of meeting with somebody who could give him the information desired; and in this he was not disappointed, that is, he did meet somebody; but the appearance of that somebody surprised Johnny "pretty considerably." He had a high-crowned hat on, such as Johnny had never seen in his life before; an enormous pair of breeches; and a pipe a yard long in his mouth. His tout ensemble, in short, was exceeding strange in Johnny Armstrong's eyes. Nevertheless, he accosted him.
"Can ye tell me, freen, how far I may be frae Brechin?" he inquired.
The stranger shook his head, but made no reply.