large field-bee came humming from the west, and began to fly round his
head. He raised his hand to brush it away; it widened its circle, and
then came humming into his ear as before. He raised his hand a second
time, but the bee would not be scared off; it hummed ceaselessly round
and round him, until at length its murmurings seemed to be fashioned
into words, articulated in the voice of his deceased companion--“Dig,
Willie, and drink!” it said; “Dig, Willie, and drink!” He accordingly
set himself to dig, and no sooner had he torn a sod out of the bank
than a spring of clear water gushed from the hollow; and the bee
taking a wider circle, and humming in a voice of triumph that seemed
to emulate the sound of a distant trumpet, flew away. He looked after
it, but as he looked the images of his dream began to mingle with those
of the waking world; the scenery of the hill seemed obscured by a dark
cloud, in the centre of which there glimmered a faint light; the rocks,
the sea, the long declivity, faded into the cloud; and turning round
he saw only a dark apartment, and the faint beams of morning shining in
at a window. He rose, and after digging the well, drank of the water
and recovered. And its virtues are still celebrated; for though the
water be only simple water, it must be drunk in the morning, and as it
gushes from the bank; and with pure air, exercise, and early rising for
its auxiliaries, it continues to work cures.
CHAPTER XXIV.
“Fechtam memorate blodæam,
Fechtam terribilem.”--DRUMMOND’S _Polemo Middinia_.
“Tulzies lang-remember’d an’ bluidy,
Terrible tulzies.”--_Muckle-Vennel Translation._
[Sidenote: WARS OF THE TOWN’S-PEOPLE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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