AILSA CRAIG. 323 



to the Craig very early in the morning. With a 

 little gush of that kind of natural amiability one 

 meets with in men anxious to do business pleasantly, 

 he gave himself away, and said : 



" I'll just take ye ower at anny time ye like, sir." 



My reply staggered him visibly. 



" You are the sort of man for my money. We'll 

 start at two o'clock in the morning," I exclaimed. 



" Oh, that's varry 'arly ! " he ejaculated. " I 

 canna mak' steam much before that 'oor, even if I 

 sit up the neet." 



I was anxious to maintain the advantage I had 

 gained by his unguarded offer, so pointed out that 

 he would get back in such good time as to enable 

 him to sleep all the afternoon. He finally assented, 

 and, setting to work, got up steam by the appointed 

 hour, and we crept out of the harbour and away 

 across the nine or ten miles of choppy sea dividing 

 us from the great weird pillar of rock standing high, 

 gaunt, and grey out of the ocean. 



We all had breakfast with the Craigp Girvan, 

 and greatly enjoyed his fried Guillemots' eggs, 

 bread and butter, and large cups of tea, mollified 

 by liberal quantities of rich goat's milk. 



We ascended the great crag under the guid- 

 ance of the brother who lives upon it. He 

 seemed very doubtful about my ability to visit the 

 ledges whereon the Gannets breed, but when I 

 convinced him of my determination to do what he 

 or anybody else did, he led the way upwards, and, 

 by way of making me feel the hazardousness of the 

 undertaking, he pointed out one place where he 

 had himself sustained a fall that had, according to 

 his own account, broken well nigh the majority of 

 the bones within his body, arid another where a 

 nephew of his had been killed outright. 



