|
I KNOW little from
personal observation about the Highlanders in the far North or in the
central districts of Scotland, but I am old enough to have very vivid
reminiscences of those in the West; and of their character, manners, and
customs as these existed during that transition period which began after
"the '45," but has now almost entirely passed away with emigration, the
decay of the "kelp" trade, the sale of so many old properties, and the
introduction of large sheep farms, deer forests, and extensive
shootings.
I have conversed with a
soldier—old John Shoemaker, he was called—who bore arms under Prince
Charlie. On the day I met him he had walked several miles, was hale and
hearty though upwards of a hundred years old, and had no money save ten
shillings, which he always carried in his pocket to pay for his coffin.
He conversed quite intelligently about the olden time with all its
peculiarities. I have also known very many who were intimately
acquainted with the "chiefs" and "men" of those days, and who themselves
had imbibed all the impressions and views then prevalent as to the world
in general, and the Highlands in particular.
The Highlanders whom the
tourist meets with now-a-days are very unlike those I used to know, and
who are now found only in some of the remote unvisited glens, like the
remains of a broken-up Indian nation on the outskirts of the American
settlements. The porters who scramble for luggage on the quays of Oban,
Inverary, Fort William, or Portree; the gillies who swarm around a
shooting-box, or even the more aristocratic keepers—that whole set, in
short, who live by summer tourists or autumnal sportsmen—are to the real
Highlander, in his secluded parish or glen, what a commissionnaire in a
hotel at Innspruck is to Hofer and his confederates.
The real Highland
peasantry are, I hesitate not to affirm, by far the most intelligent in
the world. I say this advisedly, after having compared them with those
of many countries. Their good-breeding must strike every one who is
familiar with them. Let a Highland shepherd from the most remote glen be
brought into the dining-room of the laird, as is often done, and he will
converse with ladies and gentlemen, partake of any hospitality which may
be shown him with ease and grace, and never say or do anything gauche or
offensive to the strictest propriety. This may arise in some degree from
what really seems to be an instinct in the race, but more probably it
comes from the familiar intercourse which, springing out of the old
family and clan feeling, subsisted of old between the upper and lower
classes. The Highland gentleman never meets the most humble peasant whom
he knows without chatting with him as with an acquaintance, even shaking
hands with him; and each man in the district, with all his belongings,
ancestry and descendants included, is familiarly known to every other.
Yet this familiar intercourse never causes the inferior at any time, or
for a single moment, to alter the dignified respectful manner which he
recognises as due to his superior. They have an immense reverence for
those whom they consider "real gentlemen," or those who belong to the
"good families," however distantly connected with them. No members of
the aristocracy can distinguish more sharply than they do between
genuine blood though allied with poverty, and the want of it though
allied with wealth. Different ranks are defined with great care in their
vocabulary. The chief is always called lord—"the lord of Lochiel," "the
lord of Lochbuy." The gentlemen tenants are called "men"—"the man" of
such and such a place. The poorest "gentleman" who labours with his own
hands is addressed in more respectful language than his better-to-do
neighbour who belongs to their own ranks. The one is addressed as "you,"
the other as "thou;" and should a property be bought by some one who is
not connected with the old or good families, he may possess thousands,
but he never commands the same reverence as the poor man who has yet
"the blood" in him. The "pride and poverty" of the Gael have passed into
a proverb, and express a fact.
They consider it
essential to good manners and propriety never to betray any weakness or
sense of fatigue, hunger, or poverty. They are great admirers in others
of physical strength and endurance: those qualities which are most
frequently demanded of themselves. When, for example, a number of
Highland servants sit down to dinner, it is held as proper etiquette to
conceal the slightest eagerness to begin to eat; and the eating, when
begun, is continued with apparent indifference—the duty of the elder
persons being to coax the younger, and especially any strangers that are
present, to resume operations after they have professed to have partaken
sufficiently of the meal. They always recognise liberal hospitality as
essential to a "gentleman," and have the greatest contempt for
narrowness or meanness in this department of life. Drunkenness is rarely
indulged in as a solitary habit, but too extensively, I must admit, at
fairs and other occasions—funerals, not then, but now happily
excepted—when many meet together from a distance, with time on their
hands, and money in their pockets.
The dislike to make their
wants known, or to complain of poverty, was also characteristic of them
before the poor law was introduced, or famine compelled them to become
beggars from the general public. But even when the civilised world
poured its treasures, twenty years ago, into the Fund for the Relief of
Highland Destitution, the old people suffered deeply ere they accepted
any help. I have known families who closed their windows to keep out the
light, that their children might sleep on as if it were night, and not
rise to find a home without food. I remember being present at the first
distribution of meal in a distant part of the Highlands. A few old women
had come some miles, from an inland glen, to receive a portion of the
bounty. Their clothes were rags, but every rag was washed, and patched
together as best might be. They sat apart for a time, but at last
approached the circle assembled round the meal depot. I watched the
countenances of the group as they conversed apparently on some momentous
question. This I afterwards ascertained to be, which of them should go
forward and speak for the others. One woman was at last selected; while
the rest stepped back and hung their heads, concealing their eyes with
their tattered tartan plaids. The deputy slowly walked towards the
rather large official committee, whose attention, when at last directed
to her, made her pause. She then stripped her right arm bare, and,
holding up the miserable skeleton, burst into tears and sobbed like a
child! Yet, during all these sad destitution times, there was not a
policeman or soldier in those districts. No food riot ever took place,
no robbery was attempted, no sheep was ever stolen from the hills; and
all this though hundreds had only shell-fish, or "dilse," gathered on
the sea-shore to live upon.
The Highlander is assumed
to be a lazy animal, and not over honest in his dealings with strangers.
I have no desire to be a special pleader in his behalf, notwithstanding
all my national predilections in his favour. But I must nevertheless
dissent to some extent from these sweeping generalisations. He is
naturally impulsive and fond of excitement, and certainly is wanting in
the steady, persevering effort which characterises his Southern brother.
But the circumstances of his country, his small "croft" and want of
capital, the bad land and hard weather, with the small returns for his
uncertain labour, have tended to depress rather than to stimulate him.
One thing is certain, that when he is removed to another clime, and
placed in more favourable circumstances, he exhibits a perseverance and
industry which make him rise very rapidly.
It must be confessed,
however, that Highland honesty is sometimes very lax in its dealings
with the Sassanach. The Highlander forms no exception, alas, to the
tribe of guides, drivers, boatmen, all over Europe, who imagine that the
tourist possesses unlimited means, and travels only to spend money. A
friend of mine who had been so long in India that he lost the Highland
accent, though not the language, reached a ferry on his journey home,
and, concealing his knowledge of Gaelic, asked one of the Highland
boatmen what his charge was. "I'll ask the maister," was his reply. The
master being unable to speak English, this faithful mate acted as
interpreter. "What will you take from this Englishman?" quoth the
interpreter "Ask the fellow ten shillings," was the reply of the honest
master, the real fare being five shillings. "He says," explained the
interpreter, "that he is sorry he cannot do it under twenty shillings,
and that's cheap." Without saying anything, the offer was apparently
accepted; but while sailing across, my friend spoke in Gaelic, on which
the interpreter sharply rebuked him in the same language. "I am ashamed
of you!" he said; "I am indeed, for I see you are ashamed of your
country; och, och, to pretend to me that you were an Englishman! you
deserve to pay forty shillings—but the ferry, is only five!" Such
specimens, however, are found only along the great tourist thoroughfares
where they are in every country too common.
I have said that the
Highlanders are an intelligent, cultivated people, as contrasted with
that dull, stupid, 'prosaic, incurious condition of mind which
characterises so many of the peasantry in other countries. Time never
hangs heavily on their hands during even the long Nvintei evenings, when
outdoor labour is impossible. When I was young, I was sent to live among
the peasantry in "the parish," so as to acquire a knowledge of the
language; and living, as I did, very much like themselves, it was my
delight to spend the long evenings in their huts, hearing their tales
and songs. These huts were of the most primitive description. They were
built of loose stones and clay; the walls were thick, the door low, the
rooms numbered one only, or in more aristocratic cases two. The floor
was clay; the peat-fire was built in the middle of the floor, and the
smoke, when amiable and not bullied by a sulky wind, escaped quietly and
patiently through a hole in the roof. The window was like a porthole,
part of it generally filled with glass and part with peat. One bed, or
sometimes two, (with clean home-made sheets, blankets, and counterpane,)
a "dresser" with bowls and plates, a large chest, and a corner full of
peat, filled up the space beyond the circle about the fire. Upon the
rafters above, black as ebony from peat-reek, a row of liens and
'chickens with a stately cock roosted in a paradise of heat.
Let me describe one of
these evenings. Round the fire are seated, some on stools, some on
stones, some on the floor, a happy group. Two or three girls, fine,
healthy, blue-eyed lassies, with their hair tied up with ribbon snood,
are knitting stockings. Hugh, the son of Sandy, is busking hooks; big
Archy is pealing' willow-wands and fashioning them into baskets; the
shepherd Donald, the son of Black John, is playing on the Jews' harp;
while beyond the circle are one or two herd boys in kilts, reclining on
the floor, all eyes and ears for the stories. The performances of Donald
begin the evening, and form interludes to its songs, tales, and
recitations. He has two large "Lochaber trumps," for Lochaber trumps
were to the Highlands what Cremona violins were to musical Europe. He
secures the end of each with his teeth, and, grasping them with his
hands so that the tiny instruments are invisible, he applies the little
finger of each hand to their vibrating steel tongues. He modulates their
tones with his breath, and brings out of them Highland reels,
strathspeys, and jigs,—such wonderfully beautiful, silvery, distinct,
and harmonious sounds as would draw forth cheers and an encore even in
St James's Hall. But Donald, the son of Black John, is done, and he
looks to bonny Mary Cameron for a blink of her hazel eye to reward him,
while in virtue of his performance he demands a song from her. Now Mary
has dozens of songs, so has Kirsty, so has Flory,—love songs, shearing
songs, washing songs, Prince Charlie songs, songs composed by this or
that poet in the parish; and therefore Mary asks, What song? So until
she can make up her mind, and have a little playful flirtation with
Donald, the son of Black John, she requests Hugh, the son of Sandy, to
tell a story. Although Hugh has abundance of this material, he too
protests that he has none. But having betrayed this modesty, he starts
off with one of those which are given by Mr Campbell, to whose
adinirable and truthful volumes I refer the reader. [No man knows the
Highlanders better than Mr Campbell—very few so well—and I am glad to
quote his opinions. In the introduction to the "Highland Tales," he
says: "I have wandered among the peasantry of many countries, and this
trip but confirmed my old impression. There are few peasants that I
think so highly of, none that I love so well. Scotch Highlanders have
faults in plenty, but they have the bearing of Nature's own
gentlemen—the delicate natural tact which discovers, and the good taste
which avoids, all that would hurt or offend a guest. The poorest is ever
the readiest to share the best he has with the stranger; a kind word
kindly meant is never thrown away, and whatever may be the faults of
this people, I have never found a boor or a churl in a Highland bothy."
The Highlander sees every
year a numerous flood of tourists of all nations pouring through his
lochs and glens, but he knows as little of them as they of him. The
shoals of herring that enter Loch Fyne know as much of the dun deer on
the hill side, as Londoners and Highlanders know of each other. The want
of a common language here, as elsewhere, keeps Highlands and Lowlands,
Celt and Saxon, as clearly separate as oil and water in the same glass."
He remarks with equal truth regarding their stories: "I have never heard
a story whose point was obscenity publicly told in a Highland cottage;
and I believe that such are rare. I have heard them where the rough
polish of more modern ways has replaced the polished roughness of `wild'
Highlanders; and that where even the bagpipes have been almost abolished
as profane. I have heard the music of the Cider Cellars in a parlour,
even in polished England, where I failed to extract anything else from a
group of comfortably dressed villagers."]
When the story is done,
improvisation is often tried, and amidst roars of laughter the aptest
verses the truest and most authentic specimens of tales, are made,
sometimes in clever satire, sometimes with knowing allusions to the
weaknesses or predilections of those round the fire. Then follow riddles
and puzzles ; then the trumps resume their tunes, and Mary sings her
song, and Kirsty and Flory theirs, and all join in chorus, and who cares
for the wind outside or the peat-reek inside ! Never was a more innocent
or happy group. This fondness for music from trump, fiddle, or bagpipe,
and for song-singing, story-telling, and improvisation, was universal,
and imparted a marvellous buoyancy and intelligence to the people.
These peasants were,
moreover, singularly inquisitive, and greedy of information. It was a
great thing if the schoolmaster or any one else was present who could
tell them about other people and other places. I remember an old
shepherd who questioned me closely how the hills and rocks were formed,
as a gamekeeper had heard some sportsmen talking about this. The
questions which were put were no doubt often odd enough. A woman, for
example, whose husband was anxious to emigrate to Australia, stoutly
opposed the step, until she could get her doubts solved on some
geographical point that greatly disturbed her. She consulted the
minister, and the tremendous question which chiefly weighed on her mind
was, whether it was true that the feet of the people there were opposite
to the feet of the people at home? and if so—what then?
There is one science the
value of which it is very difficult to make a Highlander comprehend, and
that is mineralogy. He connects botany with the art of healing;
astronomy with guidance from the stars, or navigation; chemistry with
dyeing, brewing, &c.; but "chopping bits off the rocks!" as he calls
it,—this has always been a mystery. A shepherd, while smoking his cutty
at a small Highland inn, was communicating to another in Gaelic his
experiences of "mad Englishmen," as he called them. "There was one,"
said the narrator, "who once gave me his bag to carry to the inn by a
short cut across the hills, while he walked, by another road. I was
wondering myself why it was so dreadfully heavy, and when I got out of
his sight I was determined to see what was in it. I opened it, and what
do you think it was? But I need not ask you to guess, for you would
never find out It was stones!" "Stones!" exclaimed his companion,
opening his eyes. "Stones! Well, well, that beats all T ever knew or
heard of them! and did you carry it?" "Carry it! Do you think I was as
mad as himself? No! I emptied them all out, but I filled the bag again
from the cairn near the house, and gave him good measure for his money!"
The schoolmaster has been
abroad in the Highlands during these latter years, and few things are
more interesting than the eagerness with which education has been
received by the people. When the first deputation from the Church of
Scotland visited the Highlands and Islands, in a Government cruiser put
at their disposal, to inquire into the state of education and for the
establishing of schools in needy districts, most affecting evidence was
afforded by the poor people of their appreciation of this great boon..
In one island where an additional school was promised, a body of the
peasantry accompanied the deputies to the shore, and bade them farewell
with expressions of the most tender and touching gratitude; and as long
as they were visible from the boat, every man was seen standing with his
head uncovered. In another island where it was thought necessary to
change the site of the school, a woman strongly protested against the
movement. In her fervour she pointed to her girl and said, "She and the
like of her cannot walk many miles to the new school, and it was from
her dear lips I first heard the words of the blessed gospel read in our
house; for God's sake don't take away the school! "Her pleading was suc
cessful. Old men in some cases went to school to learn to read and
write. One old man, when dictating a letter to a neighbour, got
irritated at the manner in which his sentiments had been expressed by
his amanuensis. "I'm done of this!" he at length exclaimed. "Why should
I have my tongue in another man's mouth when I can learn to think for
myself on paper? I'll go to the school and learn to write!" And he did
so. A class in another school was attended by elderly people. One of the
boys in it, who was weeping bitterly, being asked by the teacher the
cause of his sorrow, ejaculated in sobs, "I trapped my grandfather, and
he'll no let me up!" The boy was below his grandfather in the class, and
having "trapped," or corrected him in his reading, he claimed the right
of getting above him, which the old man resisted.
I may notice, for the
information of those interested in the education of the Irish or
Welsh-speaking populations, that Gaelic is taught in all the Highland
schools, and that the result has been an immediate demand for English.
The education of the faculties, and the stimulus given to acquire
information, demand a higher aliment than can be afforded by the medium
of the Gaelic language alone. But it is not my intention to discourse,
in these light sketches, upon grave themes requiring more space and time
to do them justice than my space can afford.
Another characteristic
feature of the Highland peasantry is the devoted and unselfish
attachment which they retain through life to any of their old friends
and neighbours. An intimate knowledge of the families in the district is
what we might expect. They are acquainted with all their ramifications
by blood or by marriage, and from constant personal inquiries, keep up,
as far as possible, a knowledge of their history, though they may have
been out of the country for years. I marked, last summer, in the
Highlands the surprise of a general officer from India, who was
revisiting the scenes of his youth, as old men, who came to pay their
respects to him, inquired about every member of his family, showing a
thorough knowledge of all the marriages which had taken place, and the
very names of the children who had been born. "I declare," remarked the
general, "that this is the only country where they care to know a man's
father or grandfather! What an unselfish interest, after all, do these
people take in one, and in all that belongs to him! And how have they
found all this out about my nephews and . nieces, with their children?"
Their love of kindred, down to those in whom a drop of their blood can
be traced, is remarkable enough, but not so much so as this undying
interest in old friends, whether they be rich or poor. Even the bond of
a common name—however absurd this appears—has its influence still in the
Highlands. I remember when it was so powerful among old people as to
create not only strong predilections, but equally strong antipathies
towards strangers of whom nothing was known save their name. This is
clanship fossilised. In the Highlands there arc other connexions which
are considered closely allied to those of blood. The connexion, for
instance, between children—it may be of the laird and of the peasant—who
are reared by the same nurse, is one of these. Many an officer has been
accompanied by his "foster-brother" to "the wars," and has ever found
him his faithful servant and friend unto death. Such a one was Ewen
M`Millan, who followed Col. Cameron, or Fassifern—as he was called, in
Highland fashion, from his place of residence,—to whom Sir Walter Scott
alludes in the lines
"Proud Ben Nevis hears
with awe,
How, at the bloody Quatre Bras,
Brave Cameron heard the wild hurrah
Of conquest as he fell."
The foster-brother was
ever beside his dear master, with all the enthusiastic attachment and
devotion of the old clan times, throughout the Peninsular campaign. The
92d Regiment was commanded by Fassifern, and speaking of its conduct at
the Nive, Napier says:—"How gloriously did that regiment come forth to
the charge with their colours flying and their national music playing as
. if going to review! This was to understand war. The man (Col.
Cameron,) who at that moment, and immediately after a repulse, thought
of such military pomp, was by nature a soldier." Four days after this,
though on each of those days the fighting was continued and severe, the
92d was vigorously attacked at St Pierre. Fassifern's horse was shot
under him, and he was so entangled by the fall as to be utterly unable
to resist a French soldier, who would have transfixed hirn but for the
fact that the foster-brother transfixed the Frenchman. Liberating his
master, and accompanying him to his regiment, the foster-brother
returned under a heavy fire and amidst a fierce combat to the dead
horse. Cutting the girths of the saddle and raising it on his shoulders,
he rejoined the 92d with the trophy, exclaiming, "We must leave them the
carcase, but they will never get the saddle on which Fassifern sat!" The
Gaelic sayings, "Kindred to twenty degrees, fosterage to a hundred," and
"Woe to the father of the foster-son who is unfaithful to his trust,"
were fully verified in M'Millan's case. I may add one word about Colonel
Cameron's death as illustrative of the old Highland spirit. He was
killed in charging the French at Quatre Bras. The moment he fell, his
foster-brother was by his side, carried him out of the field of battle,
procured a cart, and sat in it with his master's head resting on his
bosom. They reached the village of Waterloo, where M`Millan laid him on
the floor of a deserted house by the way-side. The dying man asked how
the day went, expressed a hope that his beloved Highlanders had behaved
well, and that "his country would believe he had served her faithfully;"
and then commanded a piper, who had by this time joined them, to play a
pibroch to him, and thus bring near to him his home among the hills far
away. Higher thoughts were not wanting, but these could mingle in the
heart of the dying Highlander with "Lochaber no more." He was buried on
the 17th by M'Millan and his old brave friend Captain Gordon —who still
survives to tell the story—in the Allee Verte, on the Ghent road. The
following year the faithful foster-brother returned, and took the body
back to Lochaber; and there it lies in peace beneath an obelisk which
the traveller, as lie enters the Caledonian Canal from the south, may
see near a cluster of trees which shade the remains of the Lochiei
family, of which Fassifern was a younger branch. [A very interesting
memoir of Fassifern, from which these facts are taken, has been written
by the Rev. A. Clerk, the minister of the parish in which the Colonel is
interred. It is published by Murray & Son, Glasgow.]
It must, however, be
frankly admitted that there is no man more easily offended, more
thin-skinned who cherishes longer the memory of an insult, or keeps up
with more freshness a personal, family, or party feud than the genuine
Highlander. Woe be to the man who offends his pride or vanity!
"I may forgive, but I
cannot forget!" is a favourite saying. He will stand by a friend till
the last, but let a breach be once made, and it is most difficult ever
again to repair it as it once was. The "grudge" is immortal. There is no
man who can fight and shake hands like the genuine Englishman.
It is difficult to pass
any judgment on the state of religion past or present in the Highlands.
From the natural curiosity of the Highlanders, their desire to obtain
instruction, the reading of the Bible in the schools, they are on the
whole better informed in respect to religion than the poorer peasantry
of other countries. But when their religious life is suddenly quickened
it is apt to manifest itself for a time in enthusiasm or fanaticism, for
the Highlander "moveth altogether if he move at all." The people have
all a deep religious feeling, but that again, unless educated, has been
often mingled with superstitions which have come down from heathen and
Roman Catholic times. Of these superstitions, with some of their
peculiar customs, I may have to speak in another chapter.
The men of "the '45"
were, as a class, possessed of strong sympathies for Romanism or
Episcopacy, as the supposed symbols of loyalty. I mentioned, in a former
chapter, how the parish minister of that time had prayed with his eyes
open and his pistols cocked. But I have been since reminded of a fact
which I had forgotten, that one of the lairds who had "followed Prince
Charlie," and who sat in the gallery opposite the parson, had threatened
to shoot him if he dared to pray for King George, and, on the occasion
referred to, had ostentatiously laid a pistol on the book-board. It was
then only that the minister produced his brace to keep the laird in
countenance ! This same half-savage laird was, in later years, made more
civilised by the successor of the belligerent parson. Our parish
minister, on one occasion, when travelling with the laird, was obliged
to sleep at night in the same room with him in a Highland inn. After
retiring to bed, the laird said, "O minister, I wish you would tell some
tale." "I shall do so willingly," replied the minister; and he told the
story of Joseph and his brethren. When it was finished, the laird
expressed his great delight at the narrative, and begged to know where
the minister had picked it up, as it was evidently not Highland. "I got
it," quoth the minister, "in a book you have often heard of, and where
you may find many other most delightful and most instructive stories,
which, unlike our Highland ones, are all true—in the Bible."
I will here recall an
anecdote of old Rory, illustrative of Highland superstition in its very
mildest form. When "the minister" came to "the parish," it was the
custom for certain offenders to stand before the congregation during
service, and do penance in a long canvas shirt drawn over their ordinary
garments. He discontinued this severe practice, and the canvas shirt was
hung up in his barn, where it became an object of awe and fear to the
farm servants, as having somehow to' do with the wicked one. He resolved
to put it to some useful purpose, and what better could it be turned to
than to repair the sail of "The Roe," which had been torn by a recent
squall? Rory, on whom this task devolved, respectfully protested against
patching the sail with the wicked shirt ; but the more he did so, the
more the minister—who had himself almost a superstitious horror for
superstition—resolved to show his contempt for Rory's fears and warnings
by commanding the patch to be adjusted without delay, as he had that
evening to cross the stormy sound. Rory dared not refuse, and his work
was satisfactorily finished, but he gave no response to his master's
thanks and praises as the sail was hoisted with a white circle above the
boom, marking the new piece in the old garment. As they proceeded on
their voyage, the wind suddenly rose, until the boat was staggering
gunwale down with as much as she could carry. When passing athwart the
mouth of a wide glen, which, like a funnel, always gathered and
discharged, in their concentrated force, whatever squalls were puffing
and whistling round the hills, the sea to windward gave token of a very
heavy blast, which was rapidly approaching "The Roe," with a huge line
of foam before it, like the white helmet crests of a line of cavalry
waving in the charge. The minister was at the helm, and was struck by
the anxiety visible in Rory's face, for they had mastered many worse
attacks in the same place without difficulty. "We must take in two
reefs, Rory," he exclaimed, "as quickly as possible. Stand by the
halyards, boys! quick and handy." But the squall was down upon them too
sharp to admit of any preparation. "Reefs will do no good to-day,"
remarked Rory with a sigh. The water rushed along the gunwale, which was
taking in more than was comfortable, while the spray was flying over the
weather bow as the brave little craft, guided by the minister's hand,
lay close to the wind as a knife. When the squall was at the worst, Rory
could restrain himself no longer, but opening his large boat knife,
sprang up and made a dash at the sail. Whirling the sharp blade round
the white patch, and embracing a good allowance of cloth beyond to make
his mark sure, he cut the wicked spot out. As it flew far to leeward
like a sea bird, Rory resumed his seat, and, wiping his forehead, said:
"Thanks to Providence, that's gone! and just see how the squall is gone
with it!" The squall had indeed spent itself, while the boat was eased
by the big hole. "I told you how it would be. Oh! never, never, do the
like again, minister, for it's a tempting of the devil!" Rory saw he was
forgiven, as the minister and his boys burst into a roar of merry
laughter at the scene. |
