moment."

We will not even attempt to describe Johnny's amazement, horror, and
consternation, on this announcement being made to him, for we feel how
vain it would be, and how far short any idea we could convey would be of
the reality.

"Holland!" said Johnny. "Heaven hae a care o' me! Ye surely dinna mean
to say that I'm in Holland the noo?"

"To be sure I vas," said the Dutchman, smiling at Johnny's ludicrous
perturbation. "Mine Got, did you not know you vas in Hollands? Vere you
come from, in all de vorlds, you not know dat?"

"I tell't ye already," replied Johnny, with a most rueful countenance,
"that I cam last frae Alloa. But ye're surely no in earnest, freen," he
added, in a desperate hope that it might, after all, be but a joke,
"when ye say that I'm in Holland?"

"Ah! sure earneest--no doubt--true," said the Dutchman, now laughing
outright at Johnny's perplexity.

As in the former case, we presume we need not be more explicit in saying
that Johnny had actually been wrecked on the coast of Holland.

"Weel, weel," said the Brechin voyager, with an air expressive of more
calmness and resignation than might have been expected, "this does cowe
the gowan! How, in Heaven's name, am I ever to fin' my way hame again?
Little did I think I was ever to be landed this way amang savages."

Johnny Armstrong, it will be here observed, could have been no great
reader--otherwise, he never would have applied the term savages to so
decent, industrious, and civilized a people as the Dutch. The Dutchman,
who was a kind, good-natured fellow--taking no offence whatever at
Johnny's unbecoming expression, because probably he did not understand
it, and compassionating his situation--now invited him into the house,
where Johnny, having succeeded in conveying to the whole household,
through the medium of the speaker of broken English, the story of his
misfortunes, was treated with much hospitality. With these kind people
Johnny Armstrong remained for about a week--for they would not allow him
to go sooner--when, having entirely recovered from the effects of his
sea voyage and shipwreck, he proceeded to Rotterdam; being accompanied
and assisted in all his movements by his benevolent host, Dunder Vander
Dunder, of Slootzsloykin. On arriving at Rotterdam, a passage was
engaged for Johnny on board one of the Leith packets, or regular
traders, in which he was next day snugly deposited; and, in an hour
after, he was again braving the d