upon the rocks among the bursting
bubbles; once more his whole heart seemed to be set on driftwood, fit, if
it was fit for anything, to throw upon the fire. Pleased as he was with
what he found, he still incessantly grumbled at his ill-fortune.

'Aros,' he said, 'is no a place for wrecks ava'--no ava'. A' the years
I've dwalt here, this ane maks the second; and the best o' the gear clean
tint!'

'Uncle,' said I, for we were now on a stretch of open sand, where there
was nothing to divert his mind, 'I saw you last night, as I never thought
to see you--you were drunk.'

'Na, na,' he said, 'no as bad as that. I had been drinking, though. And
to tell ye the God's truth, it's a thing I cannae mend. There's nae
soberer man than me in my ordnar; but when I hear the wind blaw in my
lug, it's my belief that I gang gyte.'

'You are a religious man,' I replied, 'and this is sin'.

'Ou,' he returned, 'if it wasnae sin, I dinnae ken that I would care
for't. Ye see, man, it's defiance. There's a sair spang o' the auld sin
o' the warld in you sea; it's an unchristian business at the best o't;
an' whiles when it gets up, an' the wind skreights--the wind an' her are
a kind of sib, I'm thinkin'--an' thae Merry Men, the daft callants,
blawin' and lauchin', and puir souls in the deid thraws warstlin' the
leelang nicht wi' their bit ships--weel, it comes ower me like a glamour.
I'm a deil, I ken't. But I think naething o' the puir sailor lads; I'm
wi' the sea, I'm just like ane o' her ain Merry Men.'

I thought I should touch him in a joint of his harness. I turned me
towards the sea; the surf was running gaily, wave after wave, with their
manes blowing behind them, riding one after another up the beach,
towering, curving, falling one upon another on the trampled sand.
Without, the salt air, the scared gulls, the widespread army of the sea-
chargers, neighing to each other, as they gathered together to the
assault of Aros; and close before us, that line on the flat sands that,
with all their number and their fury, they might never pass.

'Thus far shalt thou go,' said I, 'and no farther.' And then I quoted as
solemnly as I was able a verse that I had often before fitted to the
chorus of the breakers:--

But yet the Lord that is on high,
Is more of might by far,
Than noise of many waters is,
As great sea billows are.

'Ay,' said my kinsinan, 'at the hinder end, the Lord will triumph; I
dinnae misdoobt