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,
however, 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 himself asleep; and
I never, on any other occasion, so felt the desolateness of my condition
as when the cry of my boy,--'Home, home, home!'--was ringing in my
ears."

We passed, on the one hand, Loch Nevis and Loch Hourn, two fine arms of
the sea that run far into the mainland, and open up noble vistas among
the mountains; and, on the other, the long undulating line of Sleat in
Skye, with its intermingled patches of woodland and arable on the coast,
and its mottled ranges of heath and rock above. Towards evening we
entered the harbor of Isle Ornsay, a quiet, well-sheltered bay, with a
rocky islet for a breakwater on the one side, and the rudiments of a
Highland village, containing a few good houses, on the other. Half a
dozen small vessels were riding at anchor, curtained round, half-mast
high, with herring nets; and a fleet of herring-boats lay moored beside
them a little nearer the shore. There had been tolerable takes for a few
nights in the neighboring sea, but the fish had again disappeared, and
the fishermen, whose worn-out tackle gave such evidence of a
long-continued run of ill-luck, as I had learned to interpret on the
east coast, looked gloomy and spiritless, and reported a deficient
fishery. I found Mrs. Swanson and her family located in one of the two
best houses in the village, with a neat enclosure in front, and a good
kitchen-garden behind. The following day I spent in exploring the rocks
of t