ewer. The local situation of this receptacle of filth was well
known to Mr. Touchwood; for Saunders Jaup was at the very head of those
who held out for the practices of their fathers, and still maintained
those ancient and unsavoury customs which our traveller had in so many
instances succeeded in abating. Guided, therefore, by his nose, the
Nabob made a considerable circuit to avoid the displeasure and danger of
passing this filthy puddle at the nearest, and by that means fell upon
Scylla as he sought to avoid Charybdis. In plain language, he approached
so near the bank of a little rivulet, which in that place passed betwixt
the footpath and the horse-road, that he lost his footing, and fell into
the channel of the streamlet from a height of three or four feet. It was
thought that the noise of his fall, or at least his call for assistance,
must have been heard in the house of Saunders Jaup; but that honest
person was, according to his own account, at that time engaged in the
exercise of the evening; an excuse which passed current, although
Saunders was privately heard to allege, that the town would have been
the quieter, "if the auld, meddling busybody had bidden still in the
burn for gude and a'."

But Fortune had provided better for poor Touchwood, whose foibles, as
they arose out of the most excellent motives, would have ill deserved so
severe a fate. A passenger, who heard him shout for help, ventured
cautiously to the side of the bank, down which he had fallen; and, after
ascertaining the nature of the ground as carefully as the darkness
permitted, was at length, and not without some effort, enabled to assist
him out of the channel of the rivulet.

"Are you hurt materially?" said this good Samaritan to the object of his
care.

"No--no--d--n it--no," said Touchwood, extremely angry at his disaster,
and the cause of it. "Do you think I, who have been at the summit of
Mount Athos, where the precipice sinks a thousand feet on the sea, care
a farthing about such a fall as this is?"

But, as he spoke, he reeled, and his kind assistant caught him by the
arm to prevent his falling.

"I fear you are more hurt than you suppose, sir," said the stranger:
"permit me to go home along with you."

"With all my heart," said Touchwood; "for though it is impossible I can
need help in such a foolish matter, yet I am equally obliged to you,
friend; and if the Cleikum Inn be not out of your road, I will take your
arm so far, and