"Ay," said Donald, with a look of great satisfaction, on performing this feat, "that's something like a human Christian's trink. No your tam vinekar, as would colic a horse." Saying this, he filled up and discussed another modicum of the brandy; his followers, in the meantime, having done the same duty by the two bottles of wine, which were subsequently replaced by another two, by the order of their hospitable entertainer. On Donald, however, his libations were now beginning to produce, in a very marked manner, their usual effects. He was first getting into a state of high excitation; thumping the table violently with his fist, and sputtering out furious discharges of Gaelic and English, mingled in one strange and unintelligible mess of words, and seemingly oblivious of the fact that not a syllable of what he said could be comprehended by his auditory. This, then, was a circumstance which did not hinder him from entertaining his friends with a graphic description of Eddernahulish, and a very animated account of a particular deer-chase in which he had once been engaged. In short, in the inspiration of the hour, Donald seemed to have entirely forgotten every circumstance connected with his present position. He appeared to have forgotten that he was in a foreign land; forgotten the purpose that brought him there; forgotten his brother; forgotten those associated with him were Spaniards, not Atholemen; in truth, forgotten everything he should have recollected. In this happy state of obfuscation, Donald continued to roar, to drink, and to talk away precisely as he was wont to do in Rory M'Fadyen's "public" in Kilnichrochokan. From being oratorical, Donald became musical, and insisted on having a song from some of his friends; but failing to make his request intelligible, he volunteered one himself, and immediately struck up, in a strong nasal twang, and with a voice that made the whole house ring:-- "Ta Heelan hills are high, high, high, An' ta Heelan miles are long; But, then, my freens, rememper you, Ta Heelan whisky's strong, strong, strong! Ta Heelan whisky's strong, "And who shall care for ta length o' ta mile, Or who shall care for ta hill, If he shall have, 'fore he teukit ta way, In him's cheek one Heelan shill? In him's cheek one Heelan shill? "An' maype he'll pe teukit twa; I'll no say is no pe tree; And what although it should pe four? Is no pussiness you or me, me, me-- Is no pussiness you or me." Suiting the action to, at least, the spirit of the song, Donald tossed off another bumper of the alcohol, which had the rather odd effect of recalling him to some sense of his situation, instead of destroying, as might have been expected, any little glimmering of light on that subject which he might have previously possessed. On discussing the last glass of brandy--