An answer which was perhaps the result of sheer despair, for the conviction of the “real unreality” of what he had seen was now so much beyond doubt that he began to submit to it as a doom; and what is irremediable becomes, like death, to be bearable, nay, even accommodating to the routine of life; and so the two jogged along till they came to the Prophet’s, where they sat down to their liquor and, we may add, loquacity, of which latter Mucklewham was so profuse, that any other less simple person than David might have thought that the guardsman wanted to speak against time. But David suspected nothing, and he was the more inclined to be patient that his friend had promised to pay the score. “And when saw ye Robina?” said David. “Not for a good round year, my bairn,” said the big corporal. “Gude Lord, did ye no see her and speak to her even this day?” Whereupon the big guardsman laughed a horse (guardsman’s) laugh; and pointing his finger to his eye he twirled the same, that is the finger, merrily round. A movement which David too well understood; and after heaving a deep sigh, he took a deep pull at the ale, as if in a paroxysm of despair. And so they drank on, till David having risen and left the room for a breath of fresh air, found on his return that his generous friend had vanished. Very wonderful, no doubt. But, then, had he not taken his jug with him?--no doubt to get it replenished--and he would return with a filled tankard. Vain expectation! Mucklewham was only another Sprunt, another lie of the visual sense. Did David Tweedie really need this new proof? David knew he didn’t; neither did he require the additional certainty of his calamity by having to pay only for his own “shot.” The Prophet did not ask for more, nor did he think it necessary to say why; perhaps he would make the corporal pay his own share afterwards. The whole thing was as clear as noon: David had been drinking with one who had no stomach wherein to put his liquor, and for the good reason that he had no body to hold that stomach. “Waur than the case o’ the letter, or Sprunt, (hiccup,) or Robina dressed in my claes,” said he lugubriously, “for I only _saw_ them, but I handled the corporal, sat with him, drank with him, heard him speak; yet baith he and the pewter jug were off in a moment, and I hae paid (hic) only for ae man’s drink. But is it no a’ a dream thegither? I wouldna wonder I am at this very moment in my bed wi’ Robina lying at my back.”