I got mysel' in the great deep; and why the Lord should hae
made yon unco water is mair than ever I could win to understand. He made
the vales and the pastures, the bonny green yaird, the halesome, canty
land--

And now they shout and sing to Thee,
For Thou hast made them glad,

as the Psalms say in the metrical version. No' that I would preen my
faith to that clink neither; but it's bonny, and easier to mind. 'Who
go to sea in ships,' they hae't again--

and in
Great waters trading be,
Within the deep these men God's works
And His great wonders see.

Weel, it's easy sayin' sae. Maybe Dauvit wasna very weel acquaint wi'
the sea. But, troth, if it wasna prentit in the Bible, I wad whiles be
temp'it to think it wasna the Lord, but the muckle black deil that made
the sea. There's naething good comes oot o't but the fish; an' the
spentacle o' God riding on the tempest, to be shuere, whilk would be what
Dauvit was likely ettling at. But, man, they were sair wonders that God
showed to the _Christ-Anna_--wonders, do I ca' them? Judgments, rather:
judgments in the mirk nicht among the draygons o' the deep. And their
souls--to think o' that--their souls, man, maybe no' prepared! The
sea--a muckle yett to hell!"

I observed, as my uncle spoke, that his voice was unnaturally moved and
his manner unwontedly demonstrative. He leaned forward at these last
words, for example, and touched me on the knee with his spread fingers,
looking up into my face with a certain pallor, and I could see that his
eyes shone with a deep-seated fire, and that the lines about his mouth
were drawn and tremulous.

Even the entrance of Rorie, and the beginning of our meal, did not
detach him from his train of thought beyond a moment. He condescended,
indeed, to ask me some questions as to my success at college, but I
thought it was with half his mind; and even in his extempore grace,
which was, as usual, long and wandering, I could find the trace of his
preoccupation, praying, as he did, that God would "remember in mercy
fower puir, feckless, fiddling, sinful creatures here by their lee-lane
beside the great and dowie waters."

Soon there came an interchange of speeches between him and Rorie.

"Was it there?" asked my uncle.

"Ou, ay!" said Rorie.

I observed that they both spoke in a manner of aside, and with some show
of embarrassment, and that Mary herself appeared to colour, and looked
down on her p