A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 95 



peared Meanwhile the boat drifted slowly away : first one 

 little head would appear for a moment over the gunwale, then 

 another, as if reconnoitring the enemy ; but I still kept my 

 place on deck ; and at length, tired out, the ragged little crew 

 took to their oars, and rowed into a shallow bay at the lower 

 extremity of the glebe, with a cottage, in size and appearance 

 much resembling an ant-hill, peeping out at its inner extre- 

 mity among some stunted bushes. I had marked the place 

 before, and had been struck with the peculiarity of the choice 

 that could have fixed on it as a site for a dwelling : it is at 

 once the most inconvenient and picturesque on this side the 

 island. A semicircular line of columnar precipices, that 

 somewhat resembles an amphitheatre turned outside in, for 

 the columns that overlook the area are quite as lofty as those 

 which should form the amphitheatre's outer wall, sweeps 

 round a little bay, flat and sandy at half-tide, but bordered 

 higher up by a dingy, scarce passable beach of columnar frag- 

 ments that have toppled from above. Between the beach and 

 the line of columns there is a bosky talus, more thickly covered 

 with brushwood than is at all common in the Hebrides, and 

 scarce more passable than the rough beach at its feet And 

 at the bottom of this talus, with its one gable buried in the 

 steep ascent, for there is scarce a foot-breadth of platform 

 between the slope and the beach, and with the other gable 

 projected to the tide-line on rugged columnar masses, stands 

 the cottage. The story of the inmate, the father of the two 

 ragged boys, is such a one as Crabbe would have delighted 

 to tell, and as he could have told better than any one else. 



He had been, after a sort, a freebooter in his time, but born 

 an age or two rather late ; and the law had proved over strong 

 for him. On at least one occasion, perhaps ofbener, for his 

 adventures are not all known in Eigg, he had been in prison 

 for sheep-stealing. He had the dangerous art of subsisting 

 without the ostensible means, and came to be feared and 



