CHAP. x. WEDGED AMONGST ROCKS. 199 



my lips. I shut my eyes, and felt a strange-like sensa- 

 tion of a rushing sound in my ears ; and then of 

 coming suddenly and violently, with a tremendous 

 thud, upon the stony rock." 



His breath was gone, and it was long before he 

 could recover it. He was for a time utterly senseless. 

 On slightly recovering consciousness, he thought he 

 was under the influence of a night-mare. He seemed 

 to be in bed, and saw before him hideous faces, grin- 

 ning and grimacing, like so many demons. He tried 

 to shake them off, to shut them out. But no ! the 

 monsters were still there in all their hideousness, and 

 still he was utterly helpless. 



At length two ploughmen, who had been working 

 in the adjoining field, and seen Edward fall over the 

 cliff, came forward to its edge, and looked down 

 upon him wedged among the rocks. " Ye're no dead 

 yet, are ye?" said one of the men. Edward was 

 unable to make any answer. " Fa is't ?" said the other 

 man. " Ou ! it's that feel chiel * that's aye gaun 

 aboot wi' his gun and his wallets !" The men looked 

 down again in consternation, with eyes that seemed 

 about to leap from their sockets. Edward at length 

 began to feel about him. He felt himself wedged, as 

 in a vice, between two long and oval pieces of rock, 

 and quite unable to set himself free. The two country- 

 men went round by the Tarlair pathway, in order to 

 get Edward out of his fixture. It seemed to him an 

 age before they arrived. 



* Fed chiel foolish fellow. 



