ndred
cords had got entangled round our legs, and our heart quaked too
desperately to suffer us to shriek--but Lawrie Logan had his hand on us
in a minute, and brought us to shore as easily as a Newfoundland dog
lands a bit of floating wood.

But that was a momentary danger, and Lawrie Logan ran but small risk,
you will say, in saving us; so let us not extol that instance of his
intrepidity. But fancy to yourself, gentle reader, the hideous mouth of
an old coal-pit, that had not been worked for time immemorial, overgrown
with thorns, and briers, and brackens, but still visible from a small
mount above it, for some yards down its throat--the very throat of death
and perdition. But can you fancy also the childish and superstitious
terror with which we all regarded that coal-pit, for it was said to be a
hundred fathom deep--with water at the bottom--so that you had to wait
for many moments--almost a minute--before you heard a stone, first
beating against its sides--from one to the other--plunge at last into
the pool profound. In that very field, too, a murder had been
perpetrated, and the woman's corpse flung by her sweetheart into that
coal-pit. One day some unaccountable impulse had led a band of us into
that interdicted field--which we remember was not arable--but said to be
a place where a hare was always sure to be found sitting among the
binweeds and thistles. A sort of thrilling horror urged us on closer and
closer to the mouth of the pit--when Wee Wise Willie's foot slipping on
the brae, he bounded with inexplicable force along--in among the thorns,
briers, and brackens--through the whole hanging mat, and without a
shriek, down--down--down into destruction. We all saw it happen--every
one of us--and it is scarcely too much to say, that we were for a while
all mad with horror. Yet we felt ourselves borne back instinctively from
the horrible pit--and as aid we could give none, we listened if we could
hear any cry--but there was none--and we all flew together out of the
dreadful field, and again collecting ourselves together, feared to
separate on the different roads to our homes. "Oh! can it be that our
Wee Wise Willie has this moment died sic a death--and no a single ane
amang us a' greetin for his sake?" said one of us aloud; and then indeed
did we burst out into rueful sobbing, and ask one another who could
carry such tidings to Logan Braes? All at once we heard a clear, rich,
mellow whistle as of a blackbird--and