I thought all the sheep- heads were looking at one another, and then girn-girning at me.

At last I grew desperate; and my hair was as stiff as wire, though it was as wet as if I had been douking in the Esk.

I began to bite through the wooden spars with my teeth, and rugged at them with my nails, till they were like to come off--but no, it would not do.

At length, when I had greeted myself mostly blind, and cried till I was as hoarse as a corbie, I saw auld Janet Hogg taking in her bit washing from the bushes, and I reeled and screamed till she heard me .-- It was like being transported into heaven; for, in less than no time, my mother, with her apron at her eyes, was at the door; and Cursecowl, with a candle in the front of his hat, had scarcely thrawn the key, when out I flew; and she lifted up her foot, (I dare say it was the first and last time in her life, for she was a douce woman,) and gave him such a kick and a push, that he played bleach over, head foremost, without being able to recover himself; and, as we ran down the close, we heard him cursing and swearing in the dark, like a devil incarnate..