116 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



Which now, some ages from his race concealed, 

 The hoary sire in gratitude revealed. * * * 

 Scarce twenty measures from the living stream 

 To cool one cup sufficed : the goblet crowned, 

 Breathed aromatic fragrances around." 



Winds were light and variable. As we reached the mid- 

 dle of the sound opposite Armadale, there fell a dead calm : 

 and the Betsey, more actively idle than the ship manned by 

 the Ancient Mariner, dropped stemwards along the tide, to 

 the dull music of the flapping sail. The minister spent the 

 day in the cabin, engaged with his discourse for the morrow ; 

 and I, that he might suffer as little from interruption as pos- 

 sible, mis-spent it upon the deck. I tried fishing with the 

 yacht's set of lines, but there were no fish to bite, got into 

 the boat, but there were no neighbouring islands to visit, 

 and sent half a dozen pistol-bullets after a shoal of porpoises, 

 which, coming from the Free Church yacht, must have asto- 

 nished the fat sleek fellows pretty considerably, but did them, 

 I am afraid, no serious damage. As the evening began to 

 close gloomy and gray, a tumbling swell came heaving in 

 right ahead from the west ; and a bank of cloud, which had 

 been gradually rising higher and darker over the horizon in 

 the same direction, first changed its abrupt edge atop for a 

 diffused and broken line, and then spread itself over the cen- 

 tral heavens. The calm was evidently not to be a calm long ; 

 and the minister issued orders that the gaff-topsail should be 

 taken down, and the storm-jib bent ; and that we should 

 lower our topmast, and have all tight and ready for a smart 

 gale a-head. At half-past ten, however, the Betsey was still 

 pitching to the swell, with not a breath of wind to act on 

 the diminished canvass, and with but the solitary circum- 

 stance in her favour, that the tide ran no longer against her, 

 as before. The cabin was full of all manner of creakings ; 

 the close lamp swung to and fro over the head of my friend ; 

 and a refractory Concordance, after having twice travelled 



