Hlejanfcer IRusscl 55' 



patience. Standing on this sublime rampart, awed by 

 the alternating silence, and the thunder of ocean's 

 artillery, as each slow-succeeding wave crashed against 

 the repelling rock, or rushed booming into the ca 

 and bays, a singing bird, unseen on the face of the 

 cliff, sent forth a strain so low, so clear, so sweet, like 

 a spirit-visitant from some far and better world. Awe 

 stole in by eye and ear in presence of that truceless 

 war between the invading ocean and the defying land ; 

 but so it was a deeper, though less dreary, dread came 

 from the faint notes of that tiny and unseen songster. 

 No fine-strung mental frame was required to hear in 

 it an echo and memory of that ' still small voice ' which, 

 issuing we know not whence, is heard ever and again 

 amid the loudest storms and fiercest tumults of our 

 mortal state." 



It was on one of these fishing holidays that Russel 

 met a clergyman with whom he had the following 

 colloquy. " Do you ever fish ? " asked the editor of The 

 Scotsman. "Yes," replied the man in black, with the 

 peculiarly sanctimonious smile which that class of parson 

 usually assumes when perpetrating a pious joke, " that 

 is my vocation ; but I do not fish for salmon or trout, I 

 am only a fisher of men." " I'm afraid," rejoined Russel, 

 " you don't make much of it, then, for I looked into your 

 creel on Sunday and there was very little in it." 



Now and then Russel accepted an invitation to shoot 

 but he was a poor shot, and so awkward in handling his 

 gun that I have heard it said that the shot was some- 

 times purposely drawn from his cartridges to ensure the 

 safety of the other members of the shooting party ; and 



