on the mountain top, the mouth of the cave is open, an' any
one may go in that might happen to see it. One man it
appears did, an' wishin' to know from curiosity whether the
sogers were dead or livin', he touched one of them wid his
hand, who started up an' axed him the same question, 'Is the
time come?' Very fortunately he said, 'No;' an' that minute
the soger was as sound in his trance as before."

"An', Barney, what did the soger mane when he said. 'The man
is, but the hour is not?'"

"What did he mane? I'll tell you that. The man is
Bonyparty, which manes, when put into proper explanation,
the _right side_; that is, the true cause. Larned men have
found _that_ out."

That part of it where Ned M'Keown resided was peculiarly beautiful and
romantic. From the eminence on which the house stood, a sweep of the
most fertile meadowland stretched away to the foot of a series of
intermingled hills and vales, which bounded this extensive carpet
towards the north. Through these meadows ran a smooth river, called the
Mullin-burn, which wound its way through them with such tortuosity, that
it was proverbial in the neighborhood to say of any man remarkable for
dishonesty, "He's as crooked as the Mullin-burn," an epithet which was
sometimes, although unjustly, jocularly applied to Ned himself. This
deep but narrow river had its origin in the glens and ravines of a
mountain which bounded the vale in a south-eastern direction; and
after sudden and heavy rains it tumbled down with such violence and
impetuosity over the crags and rock-ranges in its way, and accumulated
so amazingly, that on reaching the meadows it inundated their surface,