CHAPTER VII.
"'Tis long since I beheld that eye
Which gave me bliss or misery;
And I have striven, but in vain,
Never to think of it again;
For though I fly from Albion,
I still can only love but one.
"And I will cross the whitening foam,
And I will seek a foreign home;
Till I forget a false fair face,
I ne'er shall find a resting-place;
My own dark thoughts I cannot shun,
But ever love, and love but one."—Byron.
On a dark night in December—stormy as that eve on which Leander swam for the last time across the broad Hellespont—a small lugger manfully breasting the billows ran ashore near Musselburgh. There was a high north-easter, driving sleet and snow before it, and raising a heavy surf, through which old Bill skilfully ran his craft ashore on the sandy, seaweedy, mussel-beds, whence the burgh takes its name.
"Have a care, you scurvy old devil," cried the Captain, as a huge sea broke over the side of the boat, and christened him with its salt spray—"Easy there—where is your seamanship gone? Egad, I'm drenched like a water rat."
"When you've sailed as far as me—you won't swear at a bit dusting like that—you are but a land-lubber after all!"
"Stow your venom, you old dogfish, and give us a dram. Ah! here comes another sea over these accursed sands! Ho! well done, Bill; she wore off like a gull: jump out, Ned, never mind wetting your boots. Easy, ho! down with the sail, here we go—ashore at last."
So saying he leaped into the water up to his knees after L'Estrange, and these two on one side, with old Bill and a German boy on the other, shoved up the smack high and dry.
"Well, let those like the sea who do—terra firma for me," cried the Captain, shaking the sea-water off his waterproof cloak. "'The white waves heaving high' be d—d! such a pitching and lurching as we've had—I am right glad to stand on something solid, arn't you, old fellow?"
"I am indeed—and glad to stretch my limbs—so miserably cooped up this last five hours! what an age it is since I last trod these sands! Oh! could I see how this will turn out!"