He felt, indeed, extremely and overpoweringly unwell, as,
with an infinity of trouble, he groped his devious way to the open air,
and to the burn that went singing by. Here, after drinking copiously, he
lay till grey dawn, groaning, the thundering of the linn incessantly
jarring his splitting head. Then, when there was light enough, the
unhappy man rose on unsteady feet, and started looking for his horse. A
fruitless search; no sign of a horse could be seen, beyond the trampled
space where he had stood the previous night, and a few hoof-prints in
the soft, peaty soil elsewhere. There was no help for it; he must tramp;
and with throbbing temples he pursued a tottering and uncertain course
homewards. Next day he returned, full of schemes of revenge, and with
help sufficient to overcome any resistance that Donald and his friends
could possibly make, even if they thought it wise to attempt any
resistance whatever, which was unlikely.
It was a crestfallen gauger that reached Donald's bothy on this second
visit. He found his horse, it is true, pinched and miserable, and with
staring coat, and without saddle or bridle. But of Donald or of the
Still, or the products of that Still, not a sign--only a few taunting,
ill-spelled words traced in chalk, with evident care and much painful
toil, on the knocked-out head of an old cask.
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