HOME LIFE. 77 



a house on Holy Island, off the shores of which the 

 Comatula had its home. Lying across Lamlash Bay, it 

 formed a splendid natural breakwater, and gave security 

 to the hundreds of vessels which sometimes sought shelter 

 in the bay from the storms outside. The island itself 

 was a great rocky mass, rising a thousand feet out of the 

 sea. The solitary house stood at the northern end, two 

 miles from the village of Lamlash, across the bay. Dr. 

 Carpenter was a fearless boatman ; he was fond of an oar, 

 and had a passion for sailing, which he had first practised 

 in the West Indies ; and his boat was often seen scudding 

 across for letters and provisions while the visitors on the 

 other side were glad to be on shore. He was commonly 

 known in the village as " the eccentric Englishman ; " and 

 an old woman in the valley behind, who had never been 

 beyond the confines of the bay in all her life, could not 

 repress her amazement that any one should " come down 

 " fra' London and live on an island, wi' the water a' 

 " round it." 



To this summer home came many friends, drawn by 

 interest in common pursuits and the opportunities of 

 dredging, which were by no means so frequent then as 

 now. Dr. Balfour, Professor of Botany in the University of 

 Edinburgh, who often resided at Lamlash, was a frequent 

 visitor ; so, too, was Professor (now Sir William) Thomson, 

 from his Brodick home. The guests, to be sure, ran risks 

 of possible detention, if a gale cut off the communications ; 

 and it was with mingled amusement and despair that the 

 mistress of the establishment, in the early hours of the third 

 day of a violent storm which had actually sunk the boat at 

 her moorings, received a plaintive request from Professor 

 Helmholtz for a bread poultice, when there was but half 

 a loaf left, and the household would have to breakfast on 

 porridge, tinned meat, oatcake, and potatoes. Such inci- 



