take our pipes, and you shall make the acquaintance
of my fair daughter, Katerina."

At the time we are speaking of, M'Clise was about six-and-twenty years
of age; he was above the middle size, elegant in person, and with a
frankness and almost nobility in his countenance, which won all who saw
him.

His manners were like those of most seamen, bold, but not offensively
so. His eye was piercing as an eagle's, and it seemed as if his very
soul spoke from it. At the very first meeting between him and the
daughter of Vandermaclin, it appeared to both as if their destinies were
to unite them.

They loved not as others love, but with an intensity which it would be
impossible to portray; but they hardly exchanged a word. Again and again
they met; their eyes spoke, but nothing more. The bell was put on board
the vessel, the money had been paid down, and M'Clise could no longer
delay. He felt as if his heartstrings were severed as he tore himself
away from the land where all remained that he coveted upon earth. And
Katerina, she too felt as if her existence was a blank; and, as the
vessel sailed from the port, she breathed short; and when not even her
white and lofty top-gallant sail could be discovered as a speck, she
threw herself on her couch and wept. And M'Clise as he sailed away,
remained for hours leaning his cheek on his hand, thinking of, over and
over again, every lineament and feature of the peerless Katerina.

The months passed away, during which M'Clise was busied every ebb of the
tide in superintending the work on the rock. At last, all was ready; and
once more was to be beheld a gay procession; but this time it was on the
water. It was on a calm and lovely summer's morn, that the abbots and
the monks, attended by a large company of the authorities, and others,
who were so much interested in the work in hand, started from the shore
of Aberbrothwick in a long line of boats, decorated with sacred and with
other various banners and devices. The music floated along the water,
and the solemn chants of the monks were for once heard where never yet
they had been heard before, or ever will again. M'Clise was at the rock,
in a small vessel purposely constructed to carry the bell, and with
sheers to hang it on the supports imbedded in the solid rock. The bell
was in its place, and the abbot blessed the bell; and holy water was
sprinkled on the metal, which was for the future to be lashed by the
waves of the salt sea. And