I came on deck just before six A.M. to take my shower-bath; the wind was about west by south, blowing a brisk gale, the ship under double-reefed topsails, with top-gallant sails set over them, making all smoke again—on one hand lay the Isle of Rathlin, with the north coast of Ireland, bleak and bare; on the other, the Mull of Kyntyre, with a tide of its own rushing by like a mill-race, and over it the cloudy crest of Isla, looming through the flitting vapours, cold, dark, and hard-visaged, as though no drop of whisky had ever been brewed therein. One could not recognise the misty monster, thus grimly shadowed forth, to be the parent of that glorious sunny spirit.
We had full time afforded to become well acquainted with the changing aspects of these and the other localities hereabouts, for we had to battle it with their ally the wind, and with their waters, for full sixty hours; and although we at length fought our course seaward, it was to feel that such another victory would be anything but serviceable to the gallant ship.
Oh that infernal Rathlin! I shall not soon forget it; it is a spot I always held in ill odour ever since Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs" taught my unsophisticated youth to weep over the wrongs of Wallace wight. Now, although I abominate the place more, I have learned to compassionate her ill-starred hero less, since to have been carried southward through "merrie England" from such a place of exile, albeit the journey ended in hanging, was yet a deliverance especially to be rejoiced in.
We had a near view of the natives too, one day, trying to catch us in a whale-boat, whilst we were hugging the land sculking from the strength of the tide of flood: but, thank Heaven! they missed taking us as we went about on the opposite tack, the which I shall ever consider a providential escape, although at the time, a heedless confidence in our numbers led Captain Maxwell to throw them the end of a rope. They failed to lay hold on it, however, and away we dashed by them like a whirlwind; whilst the disappointed men gesticulating fiercely, with their red "fell o' hair" blowing to the four corners of the earth, and their wild eyes and ogre mouths agape, yelled forth a volley of strange sounds, soon drowned by the louder roar of these summer waves. This was happily the only danger we incurred from the natives; we saw no more of them,[2] and right glad were all-hands when the last glimpse of the Hebrides, or Western Isles, as they are called in their charts, faded away in their mist.
After this date one heavy blow succeeded another until the first of August, with seldom sun enough to afford an observation: yet it mattered not; like sea-birds we "rode and slept," for the excellence of the boat, and the way in which she was handled, was evident enough to inspire even the nervousness of inexperience with confidence; and the efficiency of our domestic arrangements bade defiance to the anger of the elements;—uninfluenced by their frowns as by their smiles, on went the work, and meal succeeded meal with faultless regularity.
On the second of August we passed within the immediate atmosphere of a huge iceberg. We had for some time previous been enveloped in fog, which suddenly lifting, showed us this isle of ice, and two other smaller ones.
The main island, by which we were most attracted, lay about a quarter of a mile to leeward, of dazzling whiteness, and picturesque of form, having at one end a lofty cone-shaped mountain, and at the other an angular bold mound, crowned by what we decided to be an extensive Gothic fortalice or castle, not unworthy the Ice-king himself if bent on a summer trip round the gulf stream: between these promontories lay a deep valley thickly tenanted by tribes of the white gull.
Three sides of Castle-hill were regularly scarped, the fourth communicated by a neatly kept slope with the valley, and along this radiated a number of well-trodden paths, all uniting at the castle gate, at once giving evidence of considerable population, and great hospitality on the part of the worthy castellan.
The position of these islands was unusual, and their appearance occasioned a little surprise, although the fall of the thermometer, and the change in the temperature of the water, had led Captain Maxwell, some hours before we met them, to decide upon their vicinity.