Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 407, September, 1849

For six hours, and more heavily, I do think, than I ever heard it rain before in this watery world. Having detected a few drops in the ceiling of my cubiculum, I had slipt away to the Van on the first blash of the business – and from that hour to this have been under the Waterfall – as snug as a Kelpie.

TALBOYS

In we got – well jammed together – a single gentleman, or even two, would have been blown out – and after some remonstrances with the old Greys, we were off to Luib. Long before we were nearly half-way up the brae behind the Camp, Seward complained that the water was running down his back – but ere we reached the top, that inconvenience and every other was merged. The carriage seemed to be in a sinking state, somewhere about Achlian; and rolling before the rain-storm – horses we saw none – it needed no great power of imagination to fear we were in the Loch. At this juncture we came all at once close upon – and into – an appalling crash, and squash, and splash – a plunging, rushing, groaning, and moaning, and roaring – which for half-a-minute baffled conjecture. The Bridge – you know it, sir – the old Bridge, that Seward was never tired of sketching – going – going – gone; down it went – men, horses, all, at the very parapet, And sent us with a jaup in among the Woods.

NORTH

Do you mean to say you were on the Bridge as it sunk?

TALBOYS

I know nothing about it. How should I? We were in the heart of the Noise – we were in the heart of the Water – we were in the heart of the Wood – we, the vehicle, the horses – the same horses, I believe, that were standing behind the Camp when we mounted – though I had not seen them distinctly since, till I recognised them madly galloping in their traces up and down the foaming banks.

NORTH

Were you all on this side of the River?

TALBOYS

Ultimately we were – else how could we have got here? You seem incredulous, sir. Mind me – I don't say we were on the Bridge – and went down with it. It is an open question – and in the absence of dispassionate witnesses must be settled by probabilities. Sorry that, though the Driver saved himself, the Vehicle in the mean time should be lost – with all the Rods.

NORTH

They will be recovered on a change of weather. How and when got ye back?

TALBOYS

On horseback. Buller behind Seward – myself before a man who occasionally wore a look of the Driver. I hope it was he – if it was not – the Driver must have been drowned. We had now the wind – that is, the storm – that is, the hurricane in our faces – and the animals every other minute wheeled about and stood rooted for many minutes to the road, with their tails towards Cladich. My body had fortunately lost all sensation hours before we regained the Camp.

NORTH

Hours! How long did it take you to accomplish the two miles?

TALBOYS

I did not time it; but we entered the Great Gate of the Camp to the sound of the Breakfast Bagpipes.

SEWARD

As soon as we had changed ourselves – as you say in Scotland —

TALBOYS

Let's bother Mr North no more about it. With exception of the Bridge, 'tis not worth talking of – and we ought to be thankful it was not Night. Then what a delightful feeling of security now, sir, from all intrusion of vagrant visitors from the Dalmally side! By this time communication must be cut off with Edinburgh and Glasgow —via Inverary – so the Camp is virtually insulated. In ordinary weather, there is no calling the Camp our own. So far back as yesterday only, 8 English – 4 German – 3 French – 29 Italian – 1 Irish, all Male, many mustached – and from those and other countries, nearly an equal number of Female – some mustached too – "but that not much."

NORTH

Impossible indeed it is to enjoy one hour's consciousness of secure solitude, in this most unsedentary age of the world. – Look there. Who the deuce are you, sir? Do you belong to Cloud-land – and have you made an involuntary descent in the deluge? Or are you of the earth earthy? Off, sir – off to the back premises. Enter the Pavilion at your peril, you Phenomenon. Turn him out, Talboys.

TALBOYS

Then I must turn out myself. I stepped forth for a moment to the Front —

NORTH

And have in that moment been transmogrified into the Man of the Moon. A false alarm. But methinks you might have been satisfied with the Bridge.

TALBOYS

It is clearing up, sir – it is clearing up – pails and buckets, barrels and hogsheads, fountains and tanks, are no longer the order of the day. Jupiter Pluvius is descending on Juno with moderated impetuosity – is restricting himself to watering pans and garden engines – there is reason to suspect, from the look of the atmosphere, that the supplies are running short – that in a few hours the glass will be up to Stormy – and hurra, then, for a week of fine, sunshiny, shadowy, breezy, balmy, angling Weather! Why, it is almost fair now. I do trust that we shall have no more of those dry, dusty, sandy, gravelly days, so unlike Lochawe-side, and natural only in Modern Athens or the Great Desert. Hark! it is clearing up. That is always the way with thorough-bred rain – desperate spurt or rush at the end – a burst when blown – dead-beat —

SEWARD

Mr North, matters are looking serious, sir.

NORTH

I believe there is no real danger.

SEWARD

The Pole is cracking —

TALBOYS

Creacking. All the difference in the world between these two words. The insertion of the letter E converts danger into safety – trepidation into confidence – a Tent into a Rock.

BULLER

I have always forgot to ask if the Camp is insured?

NORTH

An insurance was effected, on favourable terms, on the Swiss Giantess before she came into my possession – the Trustees are answerable for the Van – the texture of the Tents is tough to resist the Winds – and the stuff itself was re-steeped during winter in pyroligneous acid of my own invention, which has been found as successful with canvass as with timber. Deeside, the Pavilion and her fair Sisterhood are impervious alike to Wet and Dry Rot – Fire and Water.

TALBOYS

You can have no idea, sir, of the beautiful running of our Drains. When were they dug?

NORTH

Yestreen – at dusk. Not a field in Scotland the worse of being drained – my lease from Monzie allows it – a good landlord deserves a good tenant; and though it is rather late in the year for such operations, I ventured on the experiment – partly for sake of the field itself, and partly for sake of self-preservation. Not pioneers, and miners, and sappers alone – the whole Force were employed under the Knave of Spades – open drains meanwhile – to be all covered in – with tiles – ere we shift quarters.

TALBOYS

A continuance of this weather for a day or two will bring them up in shoals from the Loch – Undoubtedly we shall have Eels. I delight in drain-angling. Silver Eels! Gold Fish! You shall be wheeled out, my dear sir, in Swing, and the hand of your own Talboys shall disengage the first "Fish, without fins" from the Wizard's Hook.

SEWARD