is permitting himsel to be suspended owre a precipice
aboon a hundred feet high, wi' a rope fastened round his oxters, and
three laddies like himsel hauding on by the ither end o't--and this
was dune merely to harry the nest o' a waterwagtail. Had the screams
o' the callants, who found him owre heavy for them, and that they were
unable to draw him up again, not brought some ploughmen to their
assistance, he must have been precipitated into eternity. However, as
I intended to say, it was shortly after the news arrived o' your
having sailed for India, that a fire broke out in the dead o' nicht in
a house occupied by Katie Alison's father. Never shall I forget the
uproar and consternation o' that terrible nicht. There was not a
countenance in the town but was pale wi' terror. The flames roared and
raged from every window, and were visible through some parts in the
roof. The great black clouds o' smoke seemed rushing from the crater
of a volcano. The floors o' the second storey were falling, and
crashing, and crackling, and great burning sparks, some o' them as big
as a man's hand, were rising in thousands and tens o' thousands from
the flaming ruins, and were driven by the wind, like a shower o' fire,
across the heavens. It was the most fearsome sight I had ever beheld.
But this was not the worst o't; for, at a window in the third storey,
which was the only one in the house from which the flames were not
bursting, stood bonny Katie Alison, wringing her hands and screaming
for assistance, while her gowden hair fell upon her shouthers, and her
cries were heard aboon the raging o' the conflagration. I heard her
cry distinctly, "My father!--my father!--will nobody save my father?"
for he lay ill of a fever in the room where she was, and was
unconscious of his situation. But there was none to render them
assistance. At times, the flames and the smoke, issuing from the
windows below, concealed her from the eyes of the multitude. Several
had attempted her rescue, but all of them had been forced to retreat,
and some of them scorched fearfully; for in many places the stairs had
given way, and the flames were bursting on every side. They were
attempting to throw up a rope to her assistance--for the flames issued
so fiercely from the lower window, that, though a ladder had been
raised, no man could have ascended it--when at that moment, my old
scholar, James Johnstone (Venturesome Jamie, indeed!), arrived. He
heard the cries o' Katie-