NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE. 115 



hoping for its total subsidence, sleep with downy pinion 

 brooded over us, and we became unconscious. 



"While, wrapt in slumber, we were dreaming of the 

 forest and its antlered occupants, a great change was 

 taking place around us. The wind fell, and, as is 

 frequently the case, was succeeded by rain ; not indeed 

 a gentle shower, nor yet a short but brisk one, but a 

 steady regular downfall, heavy enough to saturate 

 almost anything. The roof of the cottage, at no time 

 of the best, had not been bettered by the storm of the 

 last few hours ; and I was first brought to a conscious- 

 ness of what was going on around me, by a something 

 pattering on my head at short intervals, and trickling 

 slowly and chillingly down my neck. This was the 

 rain oozing through the roof; and on looking about I 

 perceived several little pools, forming from the same 

 cause, in different parts of the room. In one corner a 

 series of drops were quietly following each other down 

 the barrel of a rifle to the improvement of the powder. 

 In another place they were collecting inside one of my 

 boots. Here they were diluting the cream on the 

 shelf; there they were reducing the lump-sugar to a 

 pulp. Indeed almost the only dry place of any size 

 was that under shelter of the table. 



This was, in sooth, a cheering prospect! and as I 

 sprang out of bed, and anxiously opened the door, the 

 sight which greeted my eyes was not calculated to 

 console for the distress within. On all sides the rain 

 was coming straight down, and seemed likely to con- 

 tinue ; not a break was there in the clouds, to fan the 

 faintest hope into life. Down the face of the big cliff, 

 Creag-na-sturm, when between times I could see so 



12 



