<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0063" id="link2H_4_0063"></SPAN></p>
<h2> To Mrs MARY JONES, at Brambleton-hall. </h2>
<h3> DEAR MARY, </h3>
<p>Sunders Macully, the Scotchman, who pushes directly for Vails, has
promised to give it you into your own hand, and therefore I would not miss
the opportunity to let you know as I am still in the land of the living:
and yet I have been on the brink of the other world since I sent you my
last letter.—We went by sea to another kingdom called Fife, and
coming back, had like to have gone to pot in a storm.—What between
the frite and sickness, I thought I should have brought my heart up; even
Mr Clinker was not his own man for eight and forty hours after we got
ashore. It was well for some folks that we scaped drownding; for mistress
was very frexious, and seemed but indifferently prepared for a change;
but, thank God, she was soon put in a better frame by the private
exaltations of the reverend Mr Macrocodile.—We afterwards churned to
Starling and Grascow, which are a kiple of handsome towns; and then we
went to a gentleman's house at Loff-Loming, which is a wonderful sea of
fresh water, with a power of hylands in the midst on't.—They say as
how it has n'er a bottom, and was made by a musician and, truly, I believe
it; for it is not in the coarse of nature.—It has got waves without
wind, fish without fins, and a floating hyland; and one of them is a
crutch-yard, where the dead are buried; and always before the person dies,
a bell rings of itself to give warning.</p>
<p>O Mary! this is the land of congyration—The bell knolled when we
were there—I saw lights, and heard lamentations.—The
gentleman, our landlord, has got another house, which he was fain to quit,
on account of a mischievous ghost, that would not suffer people to lie in
their beds. The fairies dwell in a hole of Kairmann, a mounting hard by;
and they steal away the good women that are in the straw, if so be as how
there a'n't a horshoe nailed to the door: and I was shewn an ould vitch,
called Elspath Ringavey, with a red petticoat, bleared eyes, and a mould
of grey bristles on her sin.—That she mought do me no harm, I
crossed her hand with a taster, and bid her tell my fortune; and she told
me such things descriving Mr Clinker to a hair—but it shall ne'er be
said, that I minchioned a word of the matter.—As I was troubled with
fits, she advised me to bathe in the loff, which was holy water; and so I
went in the morning to a private place along with the house-maid, and we
bathed in our birth-day soot, after the fashion of the country; and behold
whilst we dabbled in the loff, sir George Coon started up with a gun; but
we clapt our hands to our faces, and passed by him to the place where we
had left our smocks—A civil gentleman would have turned his head
another way.—My comfit is, he knew not which was which; and, as the
saying is, all cats in the dark are grey—Whilst we stayed at
Loff-Loming, he and our two squires went three or four days churning among
the wild men of the mountings; a parcel of selvidges that lie in caves
among the rocks, devour young children, speak Velch, but the vords are
different. Our ladies would not part with Mr Clinker, because he is so
stout and so pyehouse, that he fears neither man nor devils, if so be as
they don't take him by surprise.—Indeed, he was once so flurried by
an operition, that he had like to have sounded.—He made believe as
if it had been the ould edmiral; but the old edmiral could not have made
his air to stand on end, and his teeth to shatter; but he said so in
prudence, that the ladies mought not be afear'd. Miss Liddy has been puny,
and like to go into a decline—I doubt her pore art is too tinder—but
the got's-fey has set her on her legs again.—You nows got's-fey is
mother's milk to a Velch woman. As for mistress, blessed be God, she ails
nothing.—Her stomick is good, and she improves in grease and
godliness; but, for all that, she may have infections like other people,
and I believe, she wouldn't be sorry to be called your ladyship, whenever
sir George thinks proper to ax the question—But, for my part,
whatever I may see or hear, not a praticle shall ever pass the lips of,</p>
<p>Dear Molly, Your loving friend, WIN. JENKINS GRASCO, Sept. 7.</p>
<p>Remember me, as usual, to Sall.—We are now coming home, though not
the nearest road.—I do suppose, I shall find the kitten a fine boar
at my return.</p>
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