Little eminences arose like islands on its surface, bearing here and there patches of corn, which even at this season was green, and sometimes a hut or farm-house, shaded by a willow or two and surrounded by large elder-bushes.

These insulated dwellings communicated with each other by winding passages through the moss, impassable by any but the natives themselves.

The public road, however, was tolerably well made and safe, so that the prospect of being benighted brought with it no real danger.

Still it is uncomfortable to travel alone and in the dark through an unknown country; and there are few ordinary occasions upon which Fancy frets herself so much as in a situation like that of Mannering.
As the light grew faint and more faint, and the morass appeared blacker and blacker, our traveller questioned more closely each chance passenger on his distance from the village of Kippletringan, where he proposed to quarter for the night.

His queries were usually answered by a counter-challenge respecting the place from whence he came.