er my
grandfather's diary preserves a record of these rude experiences; of
hard winds and rough seas; and of "the try-sail and storm-jib, those old
friends which I never like to see." They do not tempt to quotation, but
it was the man's element, in which he lived, and delighted to live, and
some specimen must be presented. On Friday, September 10th, 1830, the
_Regent_ lying in Lerwick Bay, we have this entry: "The gale increases,
with continued rain." On the morrow, Saturday, 11th, the weather
appeared to moderate, and they put to sea, only to be driven by evening
into Levenswick. There they lay, "rolling much," with both anchors ahead
and the square yard on deck, till the morning of Saturday, 18th.
Saturday and Sunday they were plying to the southward with a "strong
breeze and a heavy sea," and on Sunday evening anchored in Otterswick.
"Monday, 20th, it blows so fresh that we have no communication with the
shore. We see Mr. Rome on the beach, but we cannot communicate with
him. It blows 'mere fire,' as the sailors express it." And for three
days more the diary goes on with tales of davits unshipped, high seas,
strong gales from the southward, and the ship driven to refuge in
Kirkwall or Deer Sound. I have many a passage before me to transcribe,
in which my grandfather draws himself as a man of minute and anxious
exactitude about details. It must not be forgotten that these voyages in
the tender were the particular pleasure and reward of his existence;
that he had in him a reserve of romance which carried him delightedly
over these hardships and perils; that to him it was "great gain" to be
eight nights and seven days in the savage bay of Levenswick--to read a
book in the much agitated cabin--to go on deck and hear the gale scream
in his ears, and see the landscape dark with rain, and the ship plunge
at her two anchors--and to turn in at night and wake again at morning,
in his narrow berth, to the clamorous and continued voices of the gale.

His perils and escapes were beyond counting. I shall only refer to two:
the first, because of the impression made upon himself; the second, from
the incidental picture it presents of the north islanders. On the 9th
October 1794 he took passage from Orkney in the sloop _Elizabeth_ of
Stromness. She made a fair passage till within view of Kinnaird Head,
where, as she was becalmed some three miles in the offing, and wind
seemed to threaten from the south-east, the captain landed him, to