is uproar, and confusion, and difficulty, and
danger; this knocking about frae place to place, half drooned and half
murdered. Here have I been now for mair than a week at it, and it's my
opinion I'm no twenty mile nearer't yet than I was, for a' this kick up.
Dear me," he went on soliloquizing, "I'm sure Brechin's no sic an out o'
the way place. The road's straught, and the distance no great. Then,
how, in the name o' wonder, is it that I canna mak' it out like ither
folk, let me do as I like?"

Thus cogitated Johnny Armstrong as he lay on his bed of sickness,
sorrow, and danger. But his cogitations could in no way mend the matter,
nor, though they could, was he long permitted to indulge in them; for
that mortal sickness under which he had been before suffering, but which
the little incident of the visit from the wave, with its consequences,
had temporarily banished, again returned with tenfold vigour, making him
regardless of all sublunary things--even of life itself. In this state
of supineness and suffering did Johnny lie for three entire days and
nights--for so long did the storm continue with unabated fury--the
vessel having, for some four-and-twenty hours previously, been quite
unmanageable, and driving at the mercy of the winds and waves. A
dreadful crash, however, at length announced that some horrible crisis
was at hand. The vessel had struck, and, in a few seconds more, she was
in a thousand pieces, and her unfortunate crew, including Johnny
Armstrong, were struggling in the waves. From this instant he lost all
consciousness; and, when he again awoke to life, he found himself lying
on the sea-beach; but how he had come there he never could tell, nor
could he at all conjecture by what accident his life had been saved,
when all the rest in the ill-fated vessel had perished; for Johnny was
indeed the only person that had escaped. On coming to himself he started
to his feet, and gazed around him, with a bewildered look, to see if any
object would present itself that might help him to guess where he was.
But his survey affording him no such aid to recognition, he began to
move inland, in the hope of meeting with somebody who could give him
the information desired; and in this he was not disappointed, that is,
he did meet somebody; but the appearance of that somebody surprised
Johnny "pretty considerably." He had a high-crowned hat on, such as
Johnny had never seen in his life before; an enormous pair of breeches;