Sunders Macully, the Scotchman, who pushes directly for Vails, has
promised to give it you into your own hand, and therefore I would not
miss the opportunity to let you know as I am still in the land of the
living: and yet I have been on the brink of the other world since I sent
you my last letter.--We went by sea to another kingdom called Fife, and
coming back, had like to have gone to pot in a storm.--What between the
frite and sickness, I thought I should have brought my heart up; even
Mr Clinker was not his own man for eight and forty hours after we
got ashore. It was well for some folks that we scaped drownding; for
mistress was very frexious, and seemed but indifferently prepared for
a change; but, thank God, she was soon put in a better frame by the
private exaltations of the reverend Mr Macrocodile.--We afterwards
churned to Starling and Grascow, which are a kiple of handsome towns;
and then we went to a gentleman’s house at Loff-Loming, which is a
wonderful sea of fresh water, with a power of hylands in the midst
on’t.--They say as how it has n’er a bottom, and was made by a musician
and, truly, I believe it; for it is not in the coarse of nature.--It has
got waves without wind, fish without fins, and a floating hyland; and
one of them is a crutch-yard, where the dead are buried; and always
before the person dies, a bell rings of itself to give warning.
O Mary! this is the land of congyration--The bell knolled when we
were there--I saw lights, and heard lamentations.--The gentleman, our
landlord, has got another house, which he was fain to quit, on account
of a mischievous ghost, that would not suffer people to lie in their
beds. The fairies dwell in a hole of Kairmann, a mounting hard by; and
they steal away the good women that are in the straw, if so be as how
there a’n’t a horshoe nailed to the door: and I was shewn an ould vitch,
called Elspath Ringavey, with a red petticoat, bleared eyes, and a mould
of grey bristles on her sin.--That she mought do me no harm, I crossed
her hand with a taster, and bid her tell my fortune; and she told me
such things descriving Mr Clinker to a hair--but it shall ne’er be said,
that I minchioned a word of the matter.--As I was troubled with fits,
she advised me to bathe in the loff, which was holy water; and so I
went in the morning to a private place along with the house-maid, and
we bathed in our birth-day soot, after the fashion of the country; and
behold whilst we dabbled in the loff, sir George Coon started up with a
gun; but we clapt our hands to our faces, and passed by him to the place
where we had left our smocks--A civil gentleman would have turned his
head another way.--My comfit is, he knew not which was which; and, as
the saying is, all cats in the dark are grey--Whilst we stayed at
Loff-Loming, he and our two squires went three or four days churning
among the wild men of the mountings; a parcel of selvidges that lie in
caves among the rocks, devour young children, speak Velch, but the vords
are different. Our ladies would not part with Mr Clinker, because he is
so stout and so pyehouse, that he fears neither man nor devils, if so be
as they don’t take him by surprise.--Indeed, he was once so flurried by
an operition, that he had like to have sounded.--He made believe as if
it had been the ould edmiral; but the old edmiral could not have made
his air to stand on end, and his teeth to shatter; but he said so in
prudence, that the ladies mought not be afear’d. Miss Liddy has been
puny, and like to go into a decline--I doubt her pore art is too
tinder--but the got’s-fey has set her on her legs again.--You nows
got’s-fey is mother’s milk to a Velch woman. As for mistress, blessed be
God, she ails nothing.--Her stomick is good, and she improves in grease
and godliness; but, for all that, she may have infections like other
people, and I believe, she wouldn’t be sorry to be called your ladyship,
whenever sir George thinks proper to ax the question--But, for my part,
whatever I may see or hear, not a praticle shall ever pass the lips of,
Dear Molly, Your loving friend, WIN. JENKINS GRASCO, Sept. 7.
Remember me, as usual, to Sall.--We are now coming home, though not the
nearest road.--I do suppose, I shall find the kitten a fine boar at my
return.
To Sir WATKIN PHILLIPS, Bart. at Oxon.