d
that my communication, chiming in with his train of cogitation at the
time, caught both his ear and mind; and his reply, though brief, was
expressive of the gratification which its snatch of incident had
conveyed. As our skiff sped on a few oar-lengths more, we disturbed a
flock of sea-gulls, that had been sporting in the sunshine over a shoal
of sillocks; and a few of them winged their way to a jutting crag that
rose immediately beside the shelf. I saw Chalmers' eye gleam as it
followed them. "Would you not like, Sir," he said, addressing himself to
my minister, who sat beside him--"Would you not like to be a sea-gull? I
think _I_ would. Sea-gulls are free of the three elements--earth, air,
and water. These birds were sailing but half a minute since without
boat, at once angling and dining, and now they are already rusticating
in the Chaplain's Lair. I think I could enjoy being a sea-gull." I saw
the Doctor once afterwards in a similar mood. When on a visit to him in
Burnt-island, in the following year, I marked, on approaching the shore
by boat, a solitary figure stationed on the sward-crested trap-rock
which juts into the sea immediately below the town; and after the time
spent in landing and walking round to the spot, there was the solitary
figure still, standing motionless as when first seen. It was
Chalmers--the same expression of dreamy enjoyment impressed on his
features as I had witnessed in the little skiff, and with his eyes
turned on the sea and the opposite land. It was a lovely morning. A
faint breeze had just begun to wrinkle in detached belts and patches the
mirror-like blackness of the previous calm, in which the broad Firth had
lain sleeping since day-break; and the sunlight danced on the new-raised
wavelets; while a thin long wreath of blue mist, which seemed coiling
its tail like a snake round the distant Inchkeith, was slowly raising
the folds of its dragon-like neck and head from off the Scottish
capital, dim in the distance, and unveiling fortalice, and tower, and
spire, and the noble curtain of blue hills behind. And there was
Chalmers, evidently enjoying the exquisiteness of the scene, as only by
the true poet scenery can be enjoyed. Those striking metaphors which so
abound in his writings, and which so often, without apparent effort, lay
the material world before the reader, show how thoroughly he must have
drunk in the beauties of nature; the images retained in his mind became,
like words to