And, suiting the action to the words, doun from the chaise they accordingly dragged me; but, as I would not on any account enter Miss Cochrane's house, the youngsters lifted me into a butcher's slaughtering barrow, and whirled me along the pavement like daft devils; and in the lapse o' a few minutes, I was thudded against my landlady's door, and tumbled out on the dirty street, as unceremoniously as if I had been the "lord o' misrule" at a village feast. Being carried up-stairs and laid upon a sofa, I was owre asleep before ye could say "Jock Robinson," and as unconscious o' the late hullybilloo as the bairn unborn. The burning fever, however, that the drink had flung me into would not let me sleep for any length o' time; and about two in the morning I awoke, with my tongue sticking to my mouth, as if it had been tacked; nor could I open my lips wide aneugh to let in a teaspoon shank, though my very throat was cracking with the heat, like a piece o' parched muirland. In raising mysel on the sofa, I fortunately got hold o' the bell-rope, and, resting mysel on my elbow, I rang it as furiously as if the house had been in flames about my ears.
"What, what, what is the matter with you?" sputtered the terrified landlady, scrambling up the stairs. "People will think it is the fire-bell."
"It is a great enough fire-bell," says I; "and if ye do not keep back your abominable candle, you'll set my breath a-low."
"The good folk will then take you for one of the new lights," says she.
"For mercy's sake," cries I, "bring up your water-pipe, and let it run doun my throat, to slocken me!"
"There's not such a thing as a water-pipe in Wooler," says the aggravating creature. "The good people in this quarter haven't the spirit in them that you've got."
"Oh, do not torture me, wife," said I, "with your off-taking way, for I could drink the Till dry, could I get at it."
"You shall have a proper sluicing in it in the morning, then," says the unfeeling wretch; "so just lay your head high till daylight comes in."
Seeing I could not better myself, I flung my head down with a terrible clash on the side o' the sofa; while my thirst grew so intolerable, that the very breath which issued from my cramped lips was like to stifle me. In this indescribably miserable state I lay till about seven o'clock, when, by a sickly effort o' strength, I got up, and tried to walk across the floor; but my brain reeled at every step, and my limbs shook beneath me like willow wands. With my eyes swimming in dizziness, I next sought the washhand-basin, and plunging my head into the cauld water, I kept it there for nearly three minutes, drinking copiously at the same time; and though the terrible stimulus brought on a severe shivering qualm, that lasted for nearly a quarter-of-an-hour, it cleared my faculties sufficiently to lay me open to a' the violence o' self-reproach. Having swallowed a beefsteak, with plenty o' mustard and pepper, I felt comparatively recruited, at least in body; and when the day had worn on to about four in the afternoon, I thought, as the reading-room was only at the next door, I might contrive to slip in unobserved, and get a sight o' the papers. I accordingly stole out, and got into the room without meeting any one, where I found an auldish man in a brown tufted wig, who used glasses, sitting brooding owre the bad times fornent the window. He did not take any notice o' me, nor I o' him; but I had not got weel seated, when in steps a spruce-looking body, in a Petersham frock, who immediately marched up to the spectacled dumby, and inquired if there was any news going.
"None," replied the latter, in a sepulchral tone o' voice, "neither foreign nor domestic."