10 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



rolled pebbles of a basalt which in the neighbourhood of Edin- 

 burgh would be deemed considerably more modern than the 

 times of the Mountain Limestone, and in the Isle of Skye, 

 considerably more modern than the times of the Oolite. 



The sun-light was showering its last slant rays on island 

 and loch, and then retreating upwards along the higher hills, 

 chased by the shadows, as our boat quitted the bay of Oban, 

 and stretched northwards, along the end of green Lismore, 

 for the Sound of Mull. We had just enough of day left as 

 we reached mid sea, to show us the gray fronts of the three 

 ancient castles, which at this point may be at once seen 

 from the deck, Dunolly, Duart, and Dunstaffhage ; and 

 enough left us as we entered the Sound, to show, and barely 

 show, the Lady Rock, famous in tradition, and made classic 

 by the pen of Campbell, raising its black back amid the tides, 

 like a belated porpoise. And then twilight deepened into 

 night, and we went snorting through the Strait with a stream 

 of green light curling off from either bow in the calm, to- 

 wards the high dim land, that seemed standing up on both 

 sides like tall hedges over a green lane. We entered the 

 Bay of Toberinory about midnight, and cast anchor amid a 

 group of little vessels. An exceedingly small boat shot out 

 from the side of a yacht of rather diminutive proportions, but 

 tartly rigged for her size, and bearing an outrigger astern. 

 The water this evening was full of phosphoric matter, and it 

 gleamed and sparkled around the little boat like a northern 

 aurora around a dark cloudlet. There was just light enough 

 to show that the oars were plied by a sailor-like man in a 

 Guernsey frock, and that another sailor-like man, the skipper, 

 mayhap, attired in a cap and pea-jacket, stood in the stern. 

 The man in the Guernsey frock was John Stewart, sole mate 

 and half the crew of the Free Church yacht Betsey ; and the 

 skipper-like man in the pea-jacket was my friend the minis- 

 ter of the Protestants of Small Isles. In five minutes more 



