"Once on the Skifso when I was after salmon, and once in the Doorab
hills above Abjela."
"Were ye sick when they rescued ye? I was. I had twae muscles sprung
on my arm, but that was naething to the retching and dizziness when they
laid me on the heather. Jock Jeffrey was bending ower me, and though he
wasna touching me I began to suffocate, and yet I was ower weak to cry
out and had to thole it."
"I know. If you hang up in the void for a little and get the feeling of
great space burned on your mind, you nearly die of choking when you are
pulled up. Fancy you knowing about that."
"Have you suffered it, Maister Lewie?" said the man.
"Once. There was a gully in the Doorabs just like the Scarts o' the
Muneraw, only twenty times deeper, and there was a bridge of tree-trunks
bound with ropes across it. We all got over except one mule and a
couple of men. They were just getting off when a trunk slipped and
dangled down into the abyss with one end held up by the ropes. The poor
animal went plumb to the bottom; we heard it first thud on a jag of rock
and then, an age after, splash in the water. One of the men went with
it, but the other got his legs caught between the ropes and the tree and
managed to hang on. The poor beggar was helpless with fright; and he
squealed--great heavens! how he did squeal!"
"And what did ye dae?" asked a breathless audience.
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