f the street, which, save for the
light of a great fire, would have been pitch dark at mid-day, and in
which he found a little wrinkled old woman, as yellow as the smoke that
filled the apartment. "Choose," said the hag, as she looked at the
injured part, "one of two things--a cure slow but sure, or sudden but
imperfect. Or shall I put back the hurt altogether till you get home?"
"That, that," said Jock; "if I were ance home I could bear it well
enouch." The hag began to pass her hand over the injured part, and to
mutter under her breath some potent charm; and as she muttered and
manipulated, the swelling gradually subsided, and the livid tints
blanched, till at length nought remained to tell of the recent accident
save a pale spot in the middle of the breast, surrounded by a
thread-like circle of blue. And now, she said, you are well for three
weeks; but be prepared for the fourth. Jock prosecuted his northward
journey, and encountered the usual amount of adventure by the way. He
was attacked by robbers, but, assistance coming up, he succeeded in
beating them off. He lost his way in a thick mist, but found shelter,
after many hours' wandering far among the hills, in a deserted
shepherd's shielin'. He was nearly buried in a sudden snow-storm that
broke out by night, but, getting into the middle of a cooped-up flock
of sheep, they kept him warm and comfortable amid the vast
drift-wreaths, till the light of morning enabled him to prosecute his
journey. At length he reached home, and was prosecuting his ordinary
avocations, when the third week came to a close; and he was on a lonely
moor at the very hour he had met with the accident on the High Street,
when he suddenly heard the distant rattle of a chariot, though not a
shadow of the vehicle was to be seen; the sounds came bearing down upon
him, heightening as they approached, and, when at the loudest, a violent
blow on the breast prostrated him on the moor. The stroke of the High
Street "had come back," just as the wise woman had said it would, though
with accompaniments that Jock had not anticipated. It was with
difficulty he reached his cottage that evening; and there elapsed fully
six weeks ere he was able to quit it again. Such, in its outlines, was
one of the marvellous narratives of Jock Mo-ghoal. He belonged to a
curious class, known by specimen, in, I suppose, almost every locality,
especially in the more primitive ones--for the smart ridicule common in
the artific