, I repine,
But I must away with the morn.
New scenes shall evolve on my sight,
The world and its follies be new;
But ah! can such scenes of delight
Ere arise, as I witnessed with you!"

Timid as he naturally was, he soon learned to abide in my company
terrors which most of my bolder companions shrank from encountering. I
was fond of lingering in the caves until long after nightfall,
especially in those seasons when the moon at full, or but a few days in
her wane, rose out of the sea as the evening wore on, to light up the
wild precipices of that solitary shore, and to render practicable our
ascending path to the hill above. And Finlay was almost the only one of
my band who dared to encounter with me the terrors of the darkness. Our
fire has often startled the benighted boatman as he came rowing round
some rocky promontory, and saw the red glare streaming seawards from the
cavern mouth, and partially lighting up the angry tumbling of the surf
beyond; and excise-cutters have oftener than once altered their tack in
middle Firth, and come bearing towards the coast, to determine whether
the wild rocks of Marcus were not becoming a haunt of smugglers.

Immediately beyond the granitic gneiss of the hill there is a subaqueous
deposit of the Lias formation, never yet explored by geologist, because
never yet laid bare by the ebb; though every heavier storm from the sea
tells of its existence, by tossing ashore fragments of its dark
bituminous shale. I soon ascertained that the shale is so largely
charged with inflammable matter as to burn with a strong flame, as if
steeped in tar or oil, and that I could repeat with it the common
experiment of producing gas by means of a tobacco-pipe luted with clay.
And, having read in Shakspere of a fuel termed "sea-coal," and unaware
at the time that the poet merely meant coal brought to London by sea, I
inferred that the inflammable shale cast up from the depths of the Firth
by the waves could not be other than the veritable "sea-coal" which
figured in the reminiscences of Dame Quickly; and so, assisted by
Finlay, who shared in the interest which I felt in the substance, as at
once classical and an original discovery, I used to collect it in large
quantities and convert it into smoky and troubled fires, that ever
filled our cavern with a horrible stench, and scented all the shore.
Though unaware of the fact at the time, it owed its inflammability, not
to vegeta