304 A SHOWERY JOURNEY. 



ROCKHAM BAY. 



My first attempt to see Barricane was a failure. 

 The weather had been unsettled for some time, and 

 though it gave a treacherous promise of truce when I 

 set out, the cessation of hostilities lasted only long 

 enough to beguile me as far as the romantic valley of 

 Lee, when the artillery of the clouds began to batter 

 away at my head, with the energy of a garrison that 

 has reserved its missiles, to pour them on the besiegers, 

 when almost at the summit of the scaling ladders. 



A hasty run for the nearest tree ; — half an hour's 

 tedious idleness under the drip of some poplars ; — fre- 

 quent longing glances at the sky ; — and an occasional 

 sally out into the rain to take an observation of the 

 weather to windward. Black and threatening enough 

 it looked, especially over the sea, where the sky was 

 filled with ragged pillars driving perpendicularly along 

 in misty grandeur ; or, as the poet has said, with the 

 torn fragments of a canopy : — 



" The day is low'ring ; — stilly black 

 Sleeps the grim wave, while heaven's rack, 

 Dispers'd and wild, 'twixt earth and sky 

 Hangs like a shatter'd canopy." 



Moore. 



I had taken the precaution to cover the saddle of 

 my steed, when I alighted for shelter, with an im- 

 promptu cloth of weeds from the ditch, binding it on 

 with a flexible root of ivy snatched from an old wall ; 

 so that when I mounted again after the shower, I had 

 the satisfaction of a tolerably dry seat. 



