He was in great astonishment what this could be; for, as he came closer on it, he saw it had no likeness to the dead body of a man, but rather appeared to be a heap o' bed-clothes. And what think you it turned out to be? for I see ye're glowring as your een were gaun to loup out--Just neither more nor less than a strong mineral well; or what the doctors ca' a callybit spring, a' boustered about wi' heaps o' soapy, limy kind o' stuff, that it seems had thrown out fiery vapours i' the nighttime. "However, Robin, being unable to do ony mair in the way o' searching, had now nae hope left but in finding his dead son by some kind o' supernatural means. Sae he determined to watch a third night, and that at the very identical peat stack where it had been said his son's staff was found. He did sae; and about midnight, ere ever he wist, the dog set up a howl close beside him. He called on him by his name, and the dog came, and fawned on his old acquaintance, and whimpered, and whinged, and made sic a wark, as could hardly hae been trowed. Robin keepit haud o' him a' the night, and fed him wi' pieces o' bread, and then as soon as the sun rose, he let him gang; and the poor affectionate creature went straight to his dead master, who, after all, was lying in a little green spritty hollow, not above a musket-shot from the peat stack. This rendered the whole affair more mysterious than ever; for Robin Dodds himself, and above twenty men beside, could all have made oath that they had looked into that place again and again, so minutely, that a dead bird could not have been there without their having seen it. However, there the body of the youth was gotten, after having been lost for the long space of ten weeks; and not in a state of great decay neither, for it rather appeared swollen, as if it had been lying among water. "Conjecture was now driven to great extremities in accounting for all these circumstances. It was manifest to every one, that the body had not been all the time in that place. But then, where had it been? or what could have been the reasons for concealing it? These were the puzzling considerations. There were a hunder different things suspectit; and mony o' them, I dare say, a hunder miles frae the truth; but on the whole, Linton was sair lookit down on, and almaist perfectly abhorred by the country; for it was weel kenn'd that he had been particularly churlish and severe on the young man at a' times, and seemed to have a peculiar dislike to him. An it hadna been the wife, wha was a kind considerate sort of a body, if Tam had gotten his will, it was reckoned he wad hae hungered the lad to dead. After that, Linton left the place, and gaed away, I watna where; and the country, I believe, came gayan near to the truth o' the story at last: