Page:Guy Mannering Vol 1.djvu/14

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4
GUY MANNERING.

county of Dumfries, and spent much of the day in making drawings of them from different points; so that, upon mounting his horse to resume his journey, the brief and gloomy twilight of the season had already commenced. His way lay through a wide track of black moss, extending for miles on each side and before him. Little eminences arose like islands on its surface, bearing here and there patches of corn, which even at this season was green, and sometimes a hut, or farm-house, shaded by a willow or two, and surrounded by large elder-bushes. These insulated dwellings communicated with each other by winding passages through the moss, impassable by any but the natives themselves. The public road, however, was tolerably well-made and safe, so that the prospect of being benighted brought with it no real danger. Still it is uncomfortable to travel, alone and in the dark, through an unknown country, and there are few ordinary occasions upon which Fancy frets