a heathenish dress as ye
have on till ye has nae been seen in these pairts within the memory o'
mon. An' I'm thinkin' that sic a dress never was for sittin' on the
cauld rock, as ye done beyont. Mon! but do ye no fear the rheumatism
or the lumbagy wi' floppin' doon on to the cauld stanes wi' yer bare
flesh? I was thinking that it was daft ye waur when I see ye the
mornin' doon be the port, but it's fule or eediot ye maun be for the
like o' thot!' Mr. Markam did not care to argue the point, and as they
were now close to his own home he asked the salmon-fisher to have a
glass of whisky--which he did--and they parted for the night. He took
good care to warn all his family of the quicksand, telling them that
he had himself been in some danger from it.

All that night he never slept. He heard the hours strike one after the
other; but try how he would he could not get to sleep. Over and over
again he went through the horrible episode of the quicksand, from the
time that Saft Tammie had broken his habitual silence to preach to him
of the sin of vanity and to warn him. The question kept ever arising
in his mind: 'Am I then so vain as to be in the ranks of the foolish?'
and the answer ever came in the words of the crazy prophet: '"Vanity
of vanities! All is vanity." Meet thyself face to face, and repent ere
the quicksand shall swallow thee!' Somehow a feeling of doom began to
shape itself in his mind that he would yet perish in that same
quicksand, for there he had already met himself face to face.

In the grey of the morning he dozed off, but it was evident that he
continued the subject in his dreams, for he was fully awakened by his
wife, who said:

'Do sleep quietly! That blessed Highland suit has got on your brain.
Don't talk in your sleep, if you can help it!' He was somehow
conscious of a glad feeling, as if some terrible weight had been
lifted from him, but he did not know any cause of it. He asked his
wife what he had said in his sleep, and she answered:

'You said it often enough, goodness knows, for one to remember
it--"Not face to face! I saw the eagle plume over the bald head! There
is hope yet! Not face to face!" Go to sleep! Do!' And then he did go
to sleep, for he seemed to realise that the prophecy of the crazy man
had not yet been fulfilled. He had not met himself face to face--as
yet at all events.

He was awakened early by a maid who came to tell him that there was a
fisherman at the door who wanted to s