United States or Macao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
No one could give her any comfort, for no one thought you could have escaped. The rest on board, indeed, had soon to think of themselves. The vessel drove past the Inchcape Rock, and all heard the tolling of the bell, and believed that they were going to strike on it.
Off the mouths of the Tay and the Forth, thirteen miles from Fifeness, eleven from Arbroath, and fourteen from the Red Head of Angus, lies the Inchcape or Bell Rock. It extends to a length of about fourteen hundred feet, but the part of it discovered at low water to not more than four hundred and twenty-seven.
At Arbroath are the ruins of the most extensive of the Scotch abbeys, scanty indeed, but still enough to show its state and importance in the "days of faith." Here once reigned the good abbott celebrated by Southey in his ballad of Ralph the Rover, familiar to every schoolboy. Ten miles off the coast is the reef where "The abbott of Aberbrothok Had placed a bell on the Inchcape rock.
Then "Ralph the Rover sailed away; he scoured the seas for many a day; and now, grown rich with plundered store, he steers his course for Scotland's shore." Then came a terrible storm with cloud darkness and night darkness and high roaring waves, "Now where we are," cried the pirate, "I cannot tell, but I wish I could hear the Inchcape bell."
On a bright afternoon in summer, when we stand on the high ground above Saint Andrew's, and look seaward for the Inchcape Rock, we can discern at first nothing at all, and then, if the day favours us, an occasional speck of whiteness, lasting no longer than the wave that is reflecting a ray of sunlight upwards against the indistinguishable tower.
A little one, you know, and the Merrows will help." "Of course," said Berry. "Some telling trifle or other. Can't we dramatize 'The Inchcape Rock'?" "Excellent," said I. "I should like to play the abbot. It would be rather suitable, too. If you remember, 'they blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok." "Why not?" said Berry. "We could have a very fervent little scene with them all blessing you."
Fenellan would not call him The Inchcape Bell! She murmured this to herself. Mr. Barmby was absent for two weeks. 'Can anything have offended him? Victor inquired, in some consternation, appreciating the man's worth, and the grand basso he was; together with the need for him at the Lakelands Concert in August. Nataly wrote Mr. Barmby a direct invitation. She had no reply.
And the story goes on to tell how the wretched rover "tore his hair," and "curst himself in his despair," when "with a shivering shock" the stout ship struck on the Inchcape Rock, and went down with Ralph and his plunder beside the good priest's bell. The story appealed to our love of kind deeds and of wildness and fair play.
Since Sir Patrick sailed from Aberdour, what a multitude have gone down in the North Sea! Yonder is Auldhame, where the London smack went ashore and wreckers cut the rings from ladies' fingers; and a few miles round Fife Ness is the fatal Inchcape, now a star of guidance; and the lee shore to the east of the Inchcape, is that Forfarshire coast where Mucklebackit sorrowed for his son.
Off the mouths of the Tay and the Forth, thirteen miles from Fifeness, eleven from Arbroath, and fourteen from the Red Head of Angus, lies the Inchcape or Bell Rock. It extends to a length of about fourteen hundred feet, but the part of it discovered at low water to not more than four hundred and twenty-seven.
Word Of The Day