Roderick entered the room where sat Peter Sangster and his friend. A roaring fire of wood billets and peat blazed on the hearth, each had a smoking tumbler at his elbow, and soothed himself with a pipe. There was a steaminess and a flavour of broadcloth and shoe leather diffused about the apartment, but it was evident the gentlemen themselves were nearly dried, and subsiding into a sort of drowsy comfort under the united influence of warmth, toddy, and tobacco. 'Ahoy! Sir preacher! Turned up at last? and what have you done with my mother?' 'She is safe in a shieling up one of the cross glens, and I have already ordered a gig to be sent for her. You may expect her in little more than an hour. We very nearly got lost on the hill in consequence of waiting to look for an eye-glass she had dropped. When that was found, you had gone out of hearing, and we found ourselves alone. Eventually we had recourse to the old device of following running water, and a pretty course it led us, over slippery rock faces, and into pools of ice-cold water. Your mother thought she was drowned more than once, and at last gave up all hope of getting home alive, and but that she could hear the barking of dogs and the cries of children a little way below, she would have collapsed altogether.' 'Hm,' said Peter, 'I can imagine--I am glad it was you and not me! The old lady is apt to cut up rough under difficulty. However I had my own troubles. See my coat! Split right up the middle and only held together by the collar and the two pins which Mrs. Tuppeny here has tagged it together with. I have to sit bolt upright, or they run into me like skewers whenever I lean back. Perhaps they are skewers.' 'Ha!' broke in Wallowby, 'we heard a screach overhead, and when I looked up, there were a pair of boot heels within a foot of my eye, the legs belonging to them were only dimly visible, and whatever was above that was out of sight in the mist. The guide got hold of one, I took the other, while Miss Sophia stood well to the one side. Then we said one, two, three, and gave a pull together. There was a crack of rending broad-cloth and oh! such an unearthly howl. He must have fancied he was being dragged down into the pit of darkness. Eh, Peter? and there stood my gentleman clutching his fingers into the cravats of his two preservers and panting like a steamboat!--Pretty exhibition of nerves, my fine fellow!--What will they say at the club when they hear of it?' 'You shut up! for a clumsy blunderbuss! You nearly dislocated my hip joint with your idiotic wrenching, and then wonder that I cried out!' 'What has become of Miss Sophia?' asked Roderick. 'Tea and bed upstairs,' replied Wallowby with a guffaw; 'the landlady marched her up stairs to bed first thing, like a naughty child who had wet her frock, and I heard her say, she would dry her coats for her. What are coats by the way? Scotticé for garters? I know what breeks are.'