just to wait a little. The honest Methodist, after looking
out in vain for the bit of board, was just stepping into the shrouds, to
try whether he could not see the rock on which the bit of board is
placed, when all at once his vessel found out both board and rock for
herself. We also had anxious looking out this evening for the bit of
board: one of us thought he saw it right a-head; and when some of the
others were trying to see it too, John Stewart succeeded in discovering
it half a pistol-shot astern. The evening was one of the loveliest. The
moon rose in cloudy majesty over the mountains of Glenelg, brightening
as it rose, till the boiling eddies around us curled on the darker
surface in pale circlets of light, and the shadow of the Betsey lay as
sharply defined on the brown patch of calm to the larboard as if it were
her portrait taken in black. Immediately at the water-edge, under a tall
dark hill, there were two smouldering fires, that now shot up a sudden
tongue of bright flame, and now dimmed into blood-red specks, and sent
thick strongly-scented trails of smoke athwart the surface of the Kyle.
We could hear, in the calm, voices from beside them, apparently those of
children; and learned that they indicated the places of two
kelp-furnaces,--things which have now become comparatively rare along
the coasts of the Hebrides. There was the low rush of tides all around,
and the distant voices from the shore, but no other sounds; and, dim in
the moonshine, we could see behind us several spectral-looking sails
threading their silent way through the narrows, like twilight ghosts
traversing some haunted corridor.

It was late ere we reached the opening of Isle Ornsay; and as it was
still a dead calm we had to tug in the Betsey to the anchoring ground
with a pair of long sweeps. The minister pointed to a low-lying rock on
the left-hand side of the opening,--a favorite haunt of the seal. "I
took farewell of the Betsey there last winter," he said. "The night had
worn late, and was pitch dark; we could see before us scarce the length
of our bowsprit; not a single light twinkled from the shore; and, in
taking the bay, we ran bump on the skerry, and stuck fast. The water
came rushing in, and covered over the cabin-floor. I had Mrs. Swanson
and my little daughter aboard with me, with one of our servant-maids who
had become attached to the family, and insisted on following us from
Eigg; and, of course, our first care was to get t