"If that be all," replied my grand-uncle, who was his brother's son, "rest easy, for here have I and Ronald of the Drums marched too, with nothing under our belts but the cold north wind."
Still my ancestor felt far from easy; but he forgot it before night, when a heavy gale came on, and the birlinns were scattered on the waters of the darkening deep like a flock of gulls; and it was in vain that he fired his pateraroes as signals to keep together.
The storm increased, and while some of the little fleet narrowly escaped being sucked (like the Danish prince of old) into the roaring whirlpool of Coirvreckan, many were blown to the Isle of Colonsay and others to the Sound of Jura. Many days—all days of storm with nights of pitchy blackness—followed, and on the first Thursday of the next wee
