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Towards three o'clock in the morning, the brig, leaving Rathlin Island on her starboard side, disembogued by the Northern Channel into the ocean. It was Sunday, the 8th of April, and the doctor read some chapters of the Bible to the assembled seamen.
"Between fifty and sixty miles from Rathlin," the fisherman said. "It was eight o'clock when we started, ten when the squall struck us, it will be dark by four, and fast as we are running we shall scarcely be in time to catch the last gleam of day.
"It was right well done," Archie replied, "and some day, when well trained and disciplined, Irish soldiers will be second to none in the world; but unless they will submit to training and discipline they can never hope to conquer the English." "And now, Sir Knight, what do you propose doing?" the chief said. "I shall make my way north," Archie replied, "and shall rejoin my king at Rathlin."
We wanted to cross to Rathlin Island, which is 'like an Irish stockinge, the toe of which pointeth to the main lande. That would bring Francesca six miles nearer to Scotland and her Scottish lover; and we wished to see the castle of Robert the Bruce, where, according to the legend, he learned his lesson from the 'six times baffled spider. We delayed too long, however, and the Sea of Moyle looked as bleak and stormy as it did to the children of Lir.
We have had a marvellous escape from the tempest thanks to God and his saints! seeing that we were blown off Rathlin, and have run before the gale down past Islay and through the Straits of Jura.
In all the annals of England there is no more disgraceful page than that which chronicles the savage ferocity with which King Edward behaved to the Scottish nobles and ladies who fell into his hands. The news of these murders excited the utmost fury as well as grief among the party at Rathlin, and only increased their determination to fight till the death against the power of England.
The chieftain thereupon caused his people to divert the course of a rill of water, which, falling over the mouth of the cave, would have prevented his purposed vengeance. A no less horrible deed was committed during the campaign of Essex against the Irish rebels in 1575. "On the coast of Antrim, not far from the Giant's Causeway, lies the singular island of Rathlin.
As a boy he had learned to be fond of the sport in the stream of Glen Cairn; but the sea was new to him, and whenever the weather permitting he used to go out with the natives in their boats. The Irish coast was but a few miles away, but there was little traffic between Rathlin and the mainland.
By a ruse which anywhere else he would have counted a piece of the blackest treachery, he seized Sir Brian and his wife and cut up their following when they were actually his own guests; and followed up the performance by a hideous and wanton massacre of women and children and decrepit men at Rathlin off the Antrim Coast; of which things he wrote with a perfect complacency, and for which he was highly applauded.
In its most populous modern day Rathlin contained not above 1,000 souls, and little wonder if its still smaller population, five centuries ago, fled in terror at the approach of Bruce. They were, however, soon disarmed of their fears, and agreed to supply the fugitive King daily with provisions for 300 persons, the whole number who accompanied or followed him into exile.
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