bogs and
quagmires; then across a track of newly-ploughed land; and then they
entered a second wood. At length, after a miserable night's wandering,
day broke upon the two forlorn satyrs; and Jock found himself in a
strange country, with a long narrow lake in front and a wood behind. He
had wandered after his guide into the remote parish of Tarbet.

Tarbet abounded at that time in little muddy lakes, edged with
water-flags and reeds, and swarming with frogs and eels; and it was one
of the largest and deepest of these that now lay before Jock and his
guide. Angus tucked up his blue gown, as if to wade across. Jock would
have as soon thought of fording the German Ocean. "Oh, wicked Jock
Gordon!" exclaimed the fool, when he saw him hesitate; "the colonel's
waiting, poor man, for his head, and Jock will no' take it to the
smithy." He stepped into the water. Jock followed in sheer desperation;
and, after clearing the belt of reeds, both sank to the middle in the
mingled water and mud. Angus had at length accomplished the object of
his journey. Extricating himself in a moment--for he was lithe and
active--he snatched the sheep's head and trotters from Jock, and,
leaping ashore, left the poor man sticking fast. It was church-time ere
he reached, on his way back, the old Abbey of Fearn, still employed as a
Protestant place of worship; and as the sight of the gathering people
awakened his church-going propensity, he went in. He was in high
spirits--seemed, by the mouths he made, very much to admire the sermon,
and paraded the sheep's head and trotters through the passages and
gallery a score of times at least, like a monk of the order of St.
Francis exhibiting the relics of some favourite saint. In the evening he
found his way home, but learned, to his grief and astonishment, that
"wicked Jock Gordon" had got there shortly before him in a cart. The
poor man had remained sticking in the mud for three long hours after
Angus had left him, until at length the very frogs began to cultivate
his acquaintance, as they had done that of King Log of old; and in the
mud he would have been sticking still, had he not been extricated by a
farmer of Fearn, who, in coming to church, had taken the lake in his
way. He left Nigg, however, for Cromarty on the following day, convinced
that he was no match for his rival, and dubious how the next adventure
might terminate.

Such was the story which I found current in Nigg, when working in its
church