158 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



fort, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the cave of Fran- 

 cis, with its heaps of dead men's bones. One note stuck fast 

 to the islanders. In times of peril and alarm, said the mi- 

 nister, the ancient inhabitants of the island had two essen- 

 tially different kinds of places in which they sought security ; 

 they had the deep unwholesome cave, shut up from the light 

 and the breath of heaven, and the tall rock summit, with its 

 impregnable fort, on which the sun shone and the wind blew. 

 Much hardship might no doubt be encountered on the one, 

 when the sky was black with tempest, and rains beat or snows 

 descended ; but it was found associated with no story of real 

 loss or disaster, it had kept safe all who had committed 

 themselves to it ; whereas in the close atmosphere of the other 

 there was warmth, and, after a sort, comfort ; and on one 

 memorable day of trouble the islanders had deemed it the 

 preferable sheltering place of the two. And there survived 

 mouldering skeletons, and a frightful tradition, to tell the his- 

 tory of their choice. Places of refuge of these very opposite 

 kinds, said the minister, continuing his allegory, are not pe- 

 culiar to your island : never was there a day or a place of 

 trial in which they did not advance their opposite claims : 

 they are advancing them even now all over the world. The 

 one kind you find described by one great prophet as low-lying 

 " refuges of lies," over which the desolating " scourge must 

 pass," and which the destroying "waters must overflow ;" while 

 the true character of the other may be learned from another 

 great prophet, who was never weary of celebrating his " rock 

 and his fortress." " Wit succeeds more from being happily 

 addressed," says Goldsmith, " than even from its native poign- 

 ancy." If my friend's allegory does not please quite as well 

 in print and in English as it did when delivered viva voce in 

 Gaelic, it should be remembered that it was addressed to an 

 out-door congregation, whose minds were filled with the con- 

 sequences of the Disruption, that the bones of Uamh Fraing 



