fted during the night-time on a
kindly tide, considerably nearer our island, which we could now see
looming blue and indistinct through the haze some seven or eight miles
away. The rain ceased a little before nine, and the clouds rose,
revealing the surrounding lands, island and main,--Rum, with its abrupt
mountain-peaks,--the dark Cuchullins of Skye,--and, far to the
south-east, where Inverness bounds on Argyllshire, some of the tallest
hills in Scotland,--among the rest, the dimly-seen Ben-Wevis. But long
wreaths of pale gray cloud lay lazily under their summits, like shrouds
half drawn from off the features of the dead, to be again spread over
them, and we concluded that the dry weather had not yet come. A little
before noon we were surrounded for miles by an immense but
thinly-spread shoal of porpoises, passing in pairs to the south, to
prosecute, on their own behalf, the herring fishing in Lochfine or
Gareloch; and for a full hour the whole sea, otherwise so silent, became
vocal with long-breathed blowings, as if all the steam-tenders of all
the railways in Britain were careering around us; and we could see
slender jets of spray rising in the air on every side, and glossy black
backs and pointed fins, that looked as if they had been fashioned out of
Kilkenny marble, wheeling heavily along the surface. The clouds again
began to close as the shoal passed, but we could now hear in the
stillness the measured sound of oars, drawn vigorously against the
gunwale in the direction of the island of Eigg, still about five miles
distant, though the boat from which they rose had not yet come in sight.
"Some of my poor people," said the minister, "coming to tug us ashore!"
We were boarded in rather more than half an hour after,--for the sounds
in the dead calm had preceded the boat by miles,--by four active young
men, who seemed wonderfully glad to see their pastor; and then, amid the
thickening showers, which had recommenced heavy as during the night,
they set themselves to tow us into the harbor. The poor fellows had a
long and fatiguing pull, and were thoroughly drenched ere, about six
o'clock in the evening, we had got up to our anchoring ground, and
moored, as usual, in the open tideway between _Eilan Chasteil_ and the
main island. There was still time enough for an evening discourse, and
the minister, getting out of his damp clothes, went ashore and preached.

The evening of Sunday closed in fog and rain, and in fog and rai