e variety to the
mainland; and, on the other, the variously complexioned Hebrides, from
the Isle of Skye to Uist and Barra, and from Uist and Barra to Tiree and
Mull. The contiguous Small Isles, Muck and Rum, lay moored immediately
beside us, like vessels of the same convoy that in some secure roadstead
drop anchor within hail of each other. I could willingly have lingered
on the top of the Scuir until after sunset; but the minister, who, ever
and anon, during the day, had been conning over some notes jotted on a
paper of wonderfully scant dimensions, reminded me that this was the
evening of his week-day discourse, and that we were more than a
particularly rough mile from the place of meeting, and within, half an
hour of the time. I took one last look of the scene ere we commenced our
descent. There, in the middle of the ample parish glebe, that looked
richer and greener in the light of the declining sun than at any former
period during the day,--rose the snug parish manse; and yonder,--in an
open island channel, with a strip of dark rocks fringing the land
within, and another dark strip fringing the barren Eilean Chaisteil
outside,--lay the Betsey, looking wonderfully diminutive, but evidently
a little thing of high spirit, taut-masted, with a smart rake aft, and a
spruce outrigger astern, and flaunting her triangular flag of blue in
the sun. I pointed first to the manse, and then to the yacht. The
minister shook his head.

"'Tis a time of strange changes," he said; "I thought to have lived and
died in that house, and found a quiet grave in the burying-ground yonder
beside the ruin; but my path was a clear though a rugged one; and from
almost the moment that it opened up to me, I saw what I had to expect.
It has been said that I might have lain by here in this out-of-the-way
corner, and suffered the Church question to run its course, without
quitting my hold of the Establishment. And so I perhaps might. It is
easy securing one's own safety, in even the worst of times, if one look
no higher; and I, as I had no opportunity of mixing in the contest, or
of declaring my views respecting it, might be regarded as an unpledged
man. But the principles of the Evangelical party were my principles; and
it would have been consistent with neither honor nor religion to have
hung back in the day of battle, and suffered the men with whom in heart
I was at one to pay the whole forfeit of our common quarrel. So I
attended the Convocation