e midst of silent prayer he finally lost all
consciousness.

When Bertram next awoke from his fainting fit, he heard the sea no
longer thundering about him, and no longer felt himself tossing upon
its waves. There was darkness around him, but not the darkness of that
mighty night which the elements in uproar form. What first met his eyes
was the obscure outline of a rude hut. For a long time he stared
without consciousness upon the rafters of the ceiling, on which fish
and ragged aprons were hung up to dry, and swinging to and fro in the
current of air. This monotonous motion, which under other circumstances
might have lulled him to sleep like the ticking of a clock, gradually
awoke him to entire consciousness. The awful scene, which had just
passed over him, came up to his mind in sudden contrast with that
bright moment on the deck of the Halcyon in which he had first beheld
the coasts of Wales lying in sunshine before him; and his thoughts soon
took a coherent arrangement; though he could not yet make out the
connexion between the barrel on which he had navigated the ocean and
his present bed, nor between that fearful night abroad and the dried
herrings and patched aprons which now dangled above him. These thoughts
however gave way at this moment to anxiety about his portmanteau. This
to his great satisfaction he found beneath his head; and he now turned
his attention to the other objects about him.

The cottage was of that humble order which in this kingdom are found
only at the extremities of the Scotch Highlands, and tenanted by a race
of paupers who gain a scanty subsistence from the limpits and other
marine products which they take at low water. The frame-work of the
hovel was rudely put together of undressed pine-boughs: the walls were
a mixed composition of clay, turf, sea-weed, muscle-shells, and flints:
timbers had been laid for the main-beams of a ceiling; but they were
not connected by joists, nor covered in; so that the view was left open
to the summit of the roof, which being composed of sedge and moss
allowed a passage to the wind and rain. In the little room were hanging
all kinds of utensils, but in so confused an arrangement and in so
dubious a light that Bertram could make out but little of what he saw.
The sole light in the hut proceeded from a fire in the corner. But this
fire was so sparingly fed, that it seldom blazed up or shot forth a
tongue of flame except when a draught of wind swept through