tle fleet, with some five or six vessels sweeping up the Kyle
before us, and some three or four driving on behind. Never, except
perhaps in a Highland river big in flood, have I seen such a tide. It
danced and wheeled, and came boiling in huge masses from the bottom; and
now our bows heaved abruptly round in one direction, and now they jerked
as suddenly round in another; and, though there blew a moderate breeze
at the time, the helm failed to keep the sails steadily full. But
whether our sheets bellied out, or flapped right in the wind's eye, on
we swept in the tideway, like a cork caught during a thunder shower in
one of the rapids of the High Street. At one point the Kyle is little
more than a quarter of a mile in breadth; and here, in the powerful eddy
which ran along the shore, we saw a group of small fishing-boats
pursuing a shoal of sillocks in a style that blent all the liveliness of
the chase with the specific interest of the angle. The shoal, restless
as the tides among which it disported, now rose in the boilings of one
eddy, now beat the water into foam amid the stiller dimplings of
another. The boats hurried from spot to spot wherever the quick
glittering scales appeared. For a few seconds, rods would be cast thick
and fast, as if employed in beating the water, and captured fish glanced
bright to the sun; and then the take would cease, and the play rise
elsewhere, and oars would flash out amain, as the little fleet again
dashed into the heart of the shoal. As the Kyle widened, the force of
the current diminished, and sail and helm again became things of
positive importance. The wind blew a-head, steady though not strong; and
the Betsey, with companions in the voyage against which to measure
herself, began to show her paces. First she passed one bulky vessel,
then another: she lay closer to the wind than any of her fellows, glided
more quickly through the water, turned in her stays like Lady Betty in
a minuet; and, ere we had reached Kyle Akin, the fleet in the middle of
which we had started were toiling far behind us, all save one vessel, a
stately brig; and just as we were going to pass her too, she cast
anchor, to await the change of the tide, which runs from the west during
flood at Kyle Akin, as it runs from the east through Kyle Rhea. The wind
had freshened; and as it was now within two hours of full sea, the force
of the current had somewhat abated; and so we kept on our course,
tacking in scant room, h