"Now, Dr. Johnson, along with Boswell acting as his Squire, happen'd, in August of 'seventy-three, to be crossing into Scotland as well, upon their famous Trip to the Hebrides."
"More likely," snorts Ives, "they didn't pass within a hundred miles of Mason."
Yet (speculates the Revd), did they hesitate, upon the Border, at some rude Inn, just before taking the fatal Step across into the Celtick Unknown?... Sitting at a table, drinking Ale, observing the Mist thro' the Window-Panes, Mason forty-five, the Cham sixty-four. "You seem a seri?ous young man, with Thames-side intonations in your Voice, if I'm not mistaken."
"Sir, I saw you at The Mitre Tavern, once."
"Royal Society, are you."
"As your own Intonation already implies, Sir, not bloody likely, is it? tho' I have contracted with them, and more than once."
"You're the Star-Gazer, what's his name."
"Mason," Boswell informs him.
"Damme 'f that's not it exactly," says Mason. "Thankee, Gents, altho' this time I am come upon an Errand of Gravity." He explains to them his search for a Scottish Mountain, suiting as many as possible of Maske-lyne's Stipulations.
"Hum..." Boswell's gaze bright'ning, "he's Clive of India's Brother-in-law. Do you suppose the Nabob wants to buy a Mountain?”
"Good Lord,— Maskelyne, working in Confidence, as a Land-Agent? I never thought of that."
"Then you are not as corrupted as you believe you are, at least accord?ing to the creases of your Phiz, Sir," somewhat brusquely announces Dr. Johnson. "Such relative Innocence may be a sacred Asset, yet a secular Liability. May you ever distinguish the one from the other. Oh, and Mason?"
"Your Servant."
"Be careful."
"Of what, Sir?"
"Of the Attention you'll be getting up there, if your Principal's illustrious Relation becomes widely known," warns Mr. Boswell, him?self a Scot.
"Upon the Map I carry," declares Dr. J., "nothing appears, beyond here, but Mountains,— in Practice to examine them all is a task without end,— and ev'ry Scot you meet will be trying to sell you at least one, that he,— and ignore not 'she,'— happens to know of. These people are strong, shrewd. Be not deceiv'd by any level of the Exotick they may present you, Kilts, Bag-Pipes sort of thing. Haggis. You must keep unfailing Vigilance."
Mr. Boswell bows elaborately, whilst keeping his Eye-balls upon the Roll.
Out there in the Fog brimming and sweeping now over Ridge-tops and into the Glens, somewhere it waits, the world across the next Line, in darkness and isolation, barren, unforgiving, a Nation that within Mason's lifetime has risen to seize the Crown, been harrow'd into submission, then been shipp'd in great Lots to America. "I imagine there's yet a bit of.. .resentment about?"
The Doctor snorts. "The word you grope for is Hatred, Sir,— inveter?ate, inflexible Hatred. The 'Forty-five lives on here, a Ghost from a Gothick Novel, ubiquitous, frightfully shatter'd, exhibiting gallons of a certain crimson Fluid,— typickal of the People, don't you see."
"Aye, he means me," sighs Mr. Boswell. He picks up the Bone rem?nant of a Chop and gestures with it. "Soon he will commence with the Cannibalism-Joaks, pray you, miss it not, 'tis more hilarious than may at first seem likely. All his lifelong Enmity, emerging at last in this way. No
 one knows why, but he intends to go to the Hebrides, to the furthest Isle, to view the Dark Ages upon Display."
"The uncomplicated People, laboring with their primitive Tools," gushes Mason, "— the simplicity of Faith, lo, its Time reborn."
' 'Tis fascinating, this belief among you Men of Science," remarks Dr. J., "that Time is ever more simply transcended, the further one is willing to journey away from London, to observe it."
"Why, Mason here's done the very thing," cries Boswell. "In America. Ask him."
Mason glowers, shaking his head. "I've ascended, descended, even condescended, and the List's not ended,— but haven't yet trans-cended a blessed thing, thankee."
"The Savages of America," intones the Doctor, "— what Powers do they possess, and how do they use them?" As if here, at the Edge of the World, they might confide what no one would ever say aloud in London,— with Boswell a-bustle to get it all scribbl'd down into his Quarto.
The abruptness of the Doctor's Question reminds Mason of himself, addressing the Learned English Dog, a dozen years ago...his mouth creeps upward at the corners, almost achieving an Horizon............