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The fair heavens shone over the windy blue seas; and the green island of Ulva lay basking in the sunlight, and as the old Umpire, with her heavy bows parting the rushing waves, carried them out to the west, they could see the black skarts standing on the rocks of Gometra, and clouds of puffins wheeling round the dark and lonely pillars of Staffa; while away in the north, as they got clear of Treshanish Point, the mountains of Rum and of Skye appeared a pale and spectral blue, like ghostly shadows at the horizon.
Amoena, Atalanta, Battlewings, Danceaway, Golden Eye, Lady Mar, Larissa, Marquesa, Mowerina, Modwena, Miss Middlewick, Shaker, Semolina, Staffa, Wheel of Fortune, Tact, Ulster Queen, and many besides. The Goddess of Fortune beamed on his Grace's colours whenever they appeared in the great races. The long series of victories resulted in immense winnings.
But Sir Allan has not the lands of Brolos quite cleared by this judgement, till a long account is made up of debts and interests on the one side, and rents on the other. I am, however, not much afraid of the balance. 'Macquarry's estates , Staffa and all, were sold yesterday, and bought by a Campbell. I fear he will have little or nothing left out of the purchase money.
Ulva was visible, to be sure, and Colonsay both of them a heavy and gloomy purple; and nearer at hand the rock of Errisker showed in a wan, gray light between the lowering sky and the squally sea; but Lunga, and Fladda, and Staffa, and Iona, and even the long promontory of the Ross of Mull, were all hidden away behind the driving mists of rain. "Oh you lazy people!"
Beside the Spasimo, there is a little picture of the Virgin and Child, with Saint Joseph, in Raphael's early manner, very lovely, and reminding one of the "Staffa" Madonna, at Perugia. It is faint in color, and most charming in careful execution.
It is said that he always held in veneration and esteem, that respectable and conscientious Friend, whose cabin boy he had been, and transmitted yearly to his OLD MASTER, as he termed him, a handsome present of Madeira, to cheer his declining days. The most magnificent of all known caverns, is that called Fingal's Cave, in the Isle of Staffa, on the western coast of Scotland.
Suddenly Allan paused his walk and looked northward towards the little isle of Staffa. On the sea line he saw what at first he took to be the Treshnish Islands; but soon these faint shadows loomed more distinct through the morning mist and took the shape of ships' sails. Six ships he counted. "Kenric is safe!" he sighed.
Hermas was taller than his companions; he could look easily over their heads and survey the sea of people stretching away through the columns, under the shadows of the high roof, as the tide spreads on a calm day into the pillared cavern of Staffa, quiet as if the ocean hardly dared to breathe. The light of many flambeaux fell, in flickering, uncertain rays, over the assembly.
My wife insists I shall add that the Laird of Staffa promised to look in on us this evening at eight or nine, for the purpose of letting us hear one of his clansmen sing some Highland boat-songs and the like, and that if you will come, as the Irish should to the Scotch, without any ceremony, you will hear what is perhaps more curious than mellifluous. The man returns to the isles to-morrow.
We never regretted that we abandoned the car a day for the trip to this quaint spot and its small sister island, Staffa, famed for Fingall's cave and the curious natural columns formed by volcanic action. The round trip covers a distance of about seventy-five miles and occupies eight or ten hours.
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