United States or Gambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Snared by these interests, the boy seems to have become almost at once the eager confidant and adviser of his new connection; the Church, if he had ever entertained the prospect very warmly, faded from his view; and at the age of nineteen I find him already in a post of some authority, superintending the construction of the lighthouse on the isle of Little Cumbrae, in the Firth of Clyde.
In the island of Cumbrae is Millport, conspicuously by the tall spire which marks the site of an Episcopal chapel and college of great architectural beauty, built within the last few years. And in Arran are the villages of Lamlash and Brodick. The two Cumbrae islands constitute a parish.
Roderic, having filled his ships with plunder, then set out for Kintyre, where he was to join King Hakon. But entering the Clyde from Loch Long, he encountered a terrible storm. Ten of his vessels were completely wrecked, and his own galley was forced to steer clear of Bute, and take refuge behind the islands of Cumbrae. The measure of the Norwegian success was now full.
Hills, fringed with wood along their base, and gradually passing into moorland as they ascend, form, the shores on either side. The rocky islands of the Great and Little Cumbrae occupy the middle of the Frith, about fourteen or fifteen miles below Greenock: to the right lies the larger island of Bute; and further on the still larger island of Arran.
By this time my mind had returned into something like a state of sobriety; so I told him how it had been concerted between me and Sarah Lochrig that I should pass over to the wee Cumbrae, there to wait till the destroyers had passed by; for it was thought not possible that such an inordinate thirst for blood, as had followed upon our discomfiture at Rullion-green, could be of a long continuance; and I beseeched him to come with me, telling him that I was provided with a small purse of money in case need should require it, but in the charitable hearts of the pious we might count on a richer store.
And from the day of his charge at Little Cumbrae he steps before us what he remained until the end, a man of the most zealous industry, greedy of occupation, greedy of knowledge, a stern husband of time, a reader, a writer, unflagging in his task of self-improvement.
On the nearer side were the two islands of Cumbrae, with a strip of gray sea between them, where lay the storm-tossed galleys of King Hakon the Old.
We never have looked at it without thinking how many a heart-broken emigrant must be remembering that severely simple white tower as almost the last thing he saw in Scotland when he was leaving it for ever. There, before us, is Cumbrae: over Bute and over Cumbrae look the majestic mountains of Arran; that great granite peak is Goat-fell.
The country on our right, though very smiling and pretty, was not so grand as we expected; but we saw, far away over the port-bow, blue mountains rising one beyond the other. Directly after getting under weigh, we passed two islands, the Lesser Cumbrae, at the entrance of the Firth, and the Greater Cumbrae, a little higher up.
Thus came my brother and I to meet after the raid of Pentland; and having heard from me all that he could reasonably hope for, regarding the most valued casket of his affections, he came along with Mr Witherspoon; and we were next morning safely ferried over into the wee Cumbrae, by James Plowter the ferryman, to whom we were both well known.
Word Of The Day