Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 18

Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 18

One morning, early in the spring of 1298, a small Scottish vessel lay becalmed in the middle of the Irish Channel, about fifteen leagues to the south of the Isle of Man. During the whole of the previous night, she had been borne steadily southward, by a light breeze from off the fast receding island; but it had sunk as the sun rose, and she was now heaving slowly to the swell, which still continued to roll onward, in long glassy ridges from the north. A thick fog had risen as the wind fellone of those low sea fogs which, leaving the central heavens comparatively clear, hangs its dense, impervious volumes around the horizon; and the little vessel lay as if imprisoned within a circular wall of darkness, while the sun, reddened by the haze, looked down cheerily upon her from above. She was a small and very rude-looking vessel, furnished with two lug-sails of dark brown, much in the manner of a modern Dutch lugger; with a poop and forecastle singularly high, compared with her height in the waist; and with sides which, attaining their full breadth scarcely a foot over the water, sloped abruptly inwards, towards the deck, like the wall of a mole or pier. The parapet-like bulwarks of both poop and forecastle were cut into deep embrasures, and ran, like those of a tower, all around the areas they enclosed, looking down nearly as loftily on the midships as [2] on the water. The sides were black as pitch could render themthe sails scarcely less dark; but, as if to shew man's love of the ornamental in even the rudest stage of art, a huge misshapen lion flared in vermillion on the prow, and over the stern hung the blue flag of Scotland, with the silver cross of St Andrew stretching from corner to corner. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 39759
Author: Wilson, John Mackay
Release Date: May 22, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Leighton, Alexander, 1800-1874