st perceive the sound.
"Be it where it will," says I, "I will face it!" Thus speaking, I went
out of the tent, and hearkened very attentively, but could hear nothing.
I then ran for my gun, and walked through the wood as fast as I could
to the plain; but still I neither saw nor heard anything. I was then
in hopes of seeing somebody on the lake, but no one appeared; for I was
fully determined to make myself known to whomsoever I should meet; and,
if possible, to gain some intelligence of my wife. But after so much
fruitless pains, my hopes being at an end, I was returning when I heard,
"Peter! Peter!" again at a great distance, the sound coming from a
different quarter than at first. Upon this I stopped, and heard it
repeated; and it was as if the speaker approached nearer and nearer.
Hereupon I stepped out of the wood (for I had just re-entered it upon
my return home), when I saw two persons upon the swangean just over my
head. I cried out, "Who's that?" And they immediately called again,
"Peter! Peter!"--_Ors clam gee_, says I; that is, Here am I.--On this
they directly took a small sweep round (for they had overshot me before
they heard me) and alighted just by me; when I perceived them to be
my wife's countrymen, being dressed like her, with vol. only broader
chaplets about their heads, as she had told me the glumms all wore.
After a short obeisance, they asked me if I was the glumm Peter,
barkett* to Youwarkee. I answered I was. They then told me they
came with a message from Pendlehamby, colamb** of Arndrumn-stake, my
goppo,*** and from Youwarkee his daughter. I was vastly rejoiced to see
them, and to hear only the name of my wife. But though I longed to know
their message, I trembled to think of their mentioning it, as one
of them was just going to do, for fear of hearing something very
displeasing; so I begged them to go through the wood with me to the
grotto, where we should have more leisure and convenience for talk, and
where, at the same time, they might take some refreshment. But though I
had thus put off their message, I could not forbear inquiring by the way
after the health of my goppo, and my wife and children, how they got to
Arndrumnstake, and how they found their relations and friends. They told
me all were well; and that Youwarkee, as she did on me, desired I would
think on her with true affection. I found this was the phrase of the
country. As for the rest, I hoped it would turn out well at last, thou