98 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



as the father raised them up ; and, save for the interference 

 of the minister, the hut, notwithstanding the permission he 

 gave, would scarce have been built. 



On the morning of Monday we unloosed from our moor- 

 ings, and set oui> with a light variable breeze for Isle Ornsay, 

 in Skye, where the wife and family of Mr Swanson resided, 

 and from which he had now been absent for a full month. 

 The island diminished, and assumed its tint of diluting blue, 

 that waxed paler and paler hour after hour, as we left it 

 slowly behind us; and thajScuir, projected boldly from its 

 steep hill-top, resembled a sharp hatchet-edge presented to the 

 sky. " Nowhere," said my friend, " did I so thoroughly rea- 

 lize the Disruption of last year as at this spot. I had just 

 taken my last leave of the manse ; Mrs Swanson had staid a 

 day behind me in charge of a few remaining pieces of furni- 

 ture, and I was bearing some of the rest, and my little boy 

 Bill, scarce five years of age at the time, in the yacht with 

 me to Skye. The little fellow had not much liked to part 

 from his mother, and the previous unsettling of all sorts of 

 things in the manse had bred in him thoughts he had not 

 quite words to express. The further change to the yacht, 

 too, he had deemed far from an agreeable one. But he had 

 borne up, by way of being very manly; and he seemed rather 

 amused that papa should now have to make his porridge for 

 him, and to put him to bed, and that it was John Stewart, 

 the sailor, who was to be the servant girl. The passage, how- 

 ever, was tedious and disagreeable ; the wind blew a-head, 

 and heart and spirits failing poor Bill, and somewhat sea-sick 

 to boot, he lay down on the floor, and cried bitterly to be 

 taken home. ' Alas, my boy ! ' I said, ' you have no home 

 now : your father is like the poor sheep-stealer whom you 

 saw on the shore of Eigg. This view of matters proved in 

 no way consolatory to poor Bill. He continued his sad wail, 

 ' Home, home, home ! ' until at length he fairly sobbed him- 



