application of the spur with a groan, and stumbled at every stone
(and they were not few) which lay in his road.

Mannering now grew impatient. He was occasionally betrayed into a
deceitful hope that the end of his journey was near, by the
apparition of a twinkling light or two; but, as he came up, he was
disappointed to find that the gleams proceeded from some of those
farm-houses which occasionally ornamented the surface of the
extensive bog. At length, to complete his perplexity, he arrived
at a place where the road divided into two. If there had been
light to consult the relics of a finger-post which stood there, it
would have been of little avail, as, according to the good custom
of North Britain, the inscription had been defaced shortly after
its erection. Our adventurer was therefore compelled, like a
knight-errant of old, to trust to the sagacity of his horse, which,
without any demur, chose the left-hand path, and seemed to proceed
at a somewhat livelier pace than before, affording thereby a hope
that he knew he was drawing near to his quarters for the evening.
This hope, however, was not speedily accomplished, and Mannering,
whose impatience made every furlong seem three, began to think that
Kippletringan was actually retreating before him in proportion to
his advance.

It was now very cloudy, although the stars, from time to time, shed
a twinkling and uncertain light. Hitherto nothing had broken the
silence around him, but the deep cry of the bog-blitter, or
bull-of-the-bog, a large species of bittern; and the sighs of the
wind as it passed along the dreary morass. To these was now joined
the distant roar of the ocean, towards which the traveller seemed
to be fast approaching. This was no circumstance to make his mind