152 GUN BURST. 



the scene of action. It was a deep and rather an extensive 

 pool, and the unfortunate seal absconded to the place most 

 likely to afford concealment till the flood-tide should liberate 

 him from the hand of his enemies. But, alas ! they were 

 many and malignant ; and, driven from his deepest and last 

 retreat, to avoid being meshed in the net, he was forced upon 

 the shoal, when an otter- spear, struck to the socket of the 

 grains by the vigorous arm of Hennessey, killed him without 

 a straggle. When the net was brought ashore, the moiety of 

 a large salmon remained in the meshes, and told the errand 

 which induced the defunct seal to commit himself to the faith- 

 less shoals which proved so fatal to him. 



This is, indeed, a day of incidents. Dinner was just 

 removed, when, on the top of flood, a coast-guard galley ran 

 in with a leading breeze from the westward. The very 

 elegant proportions of the boat, the happy attitude, the snowy 

 whiteness of her large lugs, as with the favourable light 

 which a sunless but clear blue sky gave, she rounded the 

 headland, and came up like a race-horse to the pier, had 

 called our undivided attention to her arrival. While conjecture 

 was busy as to what her business might be, we observed a 

 man with his arm slung in a handkerchief, and apparently in 

 considerable pain, leave her. The cause was soon ascer- 

 tained, for a serious accident had occurred, and we all 

 adjourned to the kitchen, where Antony was already occupied 

 with the wound. 



It appeared that a gun, with which the poor fellow had 

 been shooting rabbits, had burst and shattered his hand ; and 

 when I saw the whole of the palm sadly lacerated, and the 

 thumb attached by a small portion of the muscles, I really 

 feared to save it was a hopeless task. But Antony and my 

 kinsman thought differently. The old man bound the wound 

 up with a professional neatness that I could not have expected 

 from him ; the patient was accommodated in the Lodge, and 

 A n a fortnight the galley again returned, to bring him, tho- 

 roughly convalescent, to his station. 



I had some curiosity to examine the unlucky gun that 

 caused the mischief. There was a longitudinal rent along the 

 barrel, of seven or eight inches, terminating where the left 

 hand usually grasps the stock. There had, no doubt, been a 



