and water. As we began to see what this meant, we
(that is, Fletcher and I) scrambled on after them, while the boy,
horses, and carriage were plunging in the water, which left only the
horses' heads and the boy's body visible. By the time we got up to them,
the man on horseback and the men on foot were perfectly mad with
pantomime; for as to any of their shouts being heard by the boy, the
water made such a great noise that they might as well have been dumb. It
made me quite sick to think how I should have felt if Kate had been
inside. The carriage went round and round like a great stone, the boy
was as pale as death, the horses were struggling and plashing and
snorting like sea-animals, and we were all roaring to the driver to
throw himself off and let them and the coach go to the devil, when
suddenly it came all right (having got into shallow water), and, all
tumbling and dripping and jogging from side to side, climbed up to the
dry land. I assure you we looked rather queer, as we wiped our faces and
stared at each other in a little cluster round about it. It seemed that
the man on horseback had been looking at us through a telescope as we
came to the track, and knowing that the place was very dangerous, and
seeing that we meant to bring the carriage, had come on at a great
gallop to show the driver the only place where he could cross. By the
time he came up, the man had taken the water at a wrong place, and in a
word was as nearly drowned (with carriage, horses, luggage, and all) as
ever man was. Was _this_ a good adventure?

"We all went on to the inn,--the wild man galloping on first, to get a
fire lighted,--and there we dined on eggs and bacon, oat-cake, and
whiskey; and changed and dried ourselves. The place was a mere knot of
little outhouses, and in one of these there were fifty Highlanders _all
drunk_. . . . Some were drovers, some pipers, and some workmen engaged to
build a hunting-lodge for Lord Breadalbane hard by, who had been driven
in by stress of weather. One was a paper-hanger. He had come out three
days before to paper the inn's best room, a chamber almost large enough
to keep a Newfoundland dog in, and, from the first half-hour after his
arrival to that moment, had been hopelessly and irreclaimably drunk.
They were lying about in all directions: on forms, on the ground, about
a loft overhead, round the turf-fire wrapped in plaids, on the tables,
and under them. We paid our bill, thanked our host very h