but there was no sign of the carter; and we
were informed by the innkeeper, to whom he was well known, that we might
have to wait for him all day, and perhaps not see him at night.
Click-Clack--a name expressive of the carter's fluency as a talker, by
which he was oftener designated than by the one in the parish
register--might no doubt have purposed in the morning joining us at an
early hour, but that was when he was sober; and what his intention might
be now, said the innkeeper, when in all probability he was drunk, no
living man could say. This was rather startling intelligence to men who
had a long journey through a rough country before them; and my
comrade--a lad a year or two older than myself, but still an
apprentice--added to my dismay by telling me he had been sure from the
first there was something wrong with Click-Clack, and that his master
had secured his services, not from choice, but simply because, having
thoughtlessly become surety for him at a sale for the price of a horse,
and being left to pay for the animal, he had now employed him, in the
hope of getting himself reimbursed. I resolved, however, on waiting for
the carter until the last moment after which it would be possible for us
to reach our ultimate stage without perilously encroaching on the night;
and, taking it for granted that he would not very soon join us, I set
out for a neighbouring hill, which commands an extensive view, to take
note of the main features of a district with which I had formed, during
the two previous years, not a few interesting associations, and to dry
my wetted clothes in the breeze and the sun. The old tower of Fairburn
formed one of the most striking objects in the prospect; and the eye
expatiated beyond from where the gneiss region begins, on a tract of
broken hill and brown moor, uncheered by a single green field or human
dwelling. There are traditions that, in their very peculiarity, and
remoteness from the tract of ordinary intention, give evidence of their
truth; and I now called up a tradition, which I owed to my friend the
maniac, respecting the manner in which the Mackenzies of Fairburn and
the Chisholms of Strathglass had divided this barren tract between them.
It had lain, from the first settlement of the country, an unappropriated
waste, and neither proprietor could tell where his own lands terminated,
or those of his neighbour began; but finding that the want of a proper
line of demarcation led to quarrels