donjon keep, some blue and purple heaths might
be seen clothing the little shelves of rock, and, wherever a deeper
cleft occurred, some tall, broad-leaved ferns; but, except these, no
other vegetation was to be met with. Indeed, the country for miles
around displayed little else than the arid yellowish grass that springs
from light sandy soil, the scant pasturage of mountain sheep. Directly
in front of the bay, and with a distinctness occasionally startling,
might be seen rising up from the sea a mass of stately cliffs, which
seemed like a reflection of the Causeway. This was Staffa, something
more than thirty-odd miles off, but which, in the thin atmosphere of
a calm day, might easily be traced out from the little cove of
Port-na-Whapple.

Port-na-Whapple had once been a noted spot amongst fishermen; the
largest "takes" of salmon--and of the finest fish on the coast--had been
made there. For three or four weeks in the early autumn the little bay
was the scene of a most vigorous activity, the beach covered with rude
huts of branches and boat canvas, the strand crowded with people, all
busily engaged salting, drying, or packing the fish; boats launching, or
standing in, deep-laden with their speckled freight; great fires blazing
in every sheltered nook, where the cares of household were carried on in
common, for the fishermen who frequented the place lived like one large
family. They came from the same village in the neighborhood, and, from
time out of mind, had resorted to this bay as to a spot especially and
distinctively their own. They had so identified themselves with the
place that they were only known as Port-na-Whapple men; a vigorous,
stalwart, sturdy race of fellows were they, too, that none molested or
interfered with willingly.

About forty years before the time we now speak of, a new proprietor had
succeeded to the vast estate, which had once belonged to the Mark-Kers,
and he quickly discovered that the most valuable part of his inheritance
consisted in the fishing royalties of the coast To assert a right
to what nobody ever believed was the actual property of any one in
particular, was not a very easy process. Had the Port-na-Whapple men
been told that the air they breathed, or the salt sea they traversed,
were heritable, they could as readily have believed it, as that any one
should assert his claim to the strip of sandy beach where they and their
fathers before them had fished for ages.

Sir Archibald