“Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!” were the first sounds I heard on recovering from the faint into which I had fallen; and the first object I saw was Mr. Waft, with the tears coursing down “his pitiful nose,” standing at my side and wringing his hands. “Are ye dead, Mr. Todd?— oh! oh! Mr. Todd, are ye dead? are ye dead?” were the next sounds.

Having recovered my senses, I said to him, “Help me up, bailie.”

“I’ll do that, I’ll do that, Mr. Todd,” cried he, stooping down and taking me under the right arm and hauling me up with might and main.

“Where's Mr. Bell?” said I softly, and cautiously looking round— “where is he? I hope he is gone home; poor man!”

“Oh, Mr. Todd, Mr. Todd, if it had na been for you and your dexterity, where indeed would have been Mr. Bell, or his precious soul?” exclaimed the still distressed bailie: “he would have been over the Falls, food for fishes—food for fishes.”

Being by this time quite recovered, I requested the bodie to compose himself and to lend me his arm to help me home, for the shadow of the world was coming on, and the night had closed her window-shutters. I then again enquired in a more collected manner for Mr. Bell.

“In his drookit condition,” replied the bailie, “what could he do but to run for help? He just said ye had snatched him from perdition, bade me look to you till he could send help; and with his teeth chattering with the cold as if his jaws were mill-hoppers, he ran off to the town. Gude guide us! how did he happen to fall into the water? surely it was not a fell-in-the-sea concern; he did na mean to drown himself, though every body says he is by himself.”

“No, Mr. Waft,” was my grave and solemn response; “ye may contradict whoever says he intended to drown himself;” but in a moment I was smitten with a consciousness of having laid an emphasis on the last word that had been better softer; and therefore I added, “This pathway on the raging river's brink is not a road for folk to take in the twilight; alas for him, he was in great jeopardy!”