Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

468 LOCH SCAVIG.
self that they would be unable to rig it when it arrived^
and hoping that it would not arrive at all. It did ar-
rive, however, and, what was much worse, it was rigged
loo. The trunk of a birch tree, not particularly straight,
formed the mast, and that, for want of a bolt, was fas-
tened to one of the thwarts with some twine. The yard
had beeji abstracted from a broom or a rake, and was
secured in the same manner to the top of the tree; while
the sail, made of two narrow blankets, pinned together
by wooden skewers, was also skewered round the broom-
stick. Ilaulyards, of course, there were none; and as
I was wondering whence the sheet and tack were to
come, one of the men very quietly stripped the scarlet
garters fiom his chequered stockings, and thus a ship
was at length generated, not much unlike those of the
heroic ages, the memorials of which still exist in the
sculptures of lona. It was now two o'clock ; and, in con-
sequence of this unexampled activity, in seven hours
more than a frigate would have required, we were ready
for sea.
I knew it was a four hours' row to Loch Scavig: with
a fair wind, it would probably be as many days' sail; but
I knew too that matters would not be better if I waited
a month, and that every to-morrow would be as every
to-day, to the last syllable of recorded time. So I took
the helm, the oar I should have said, and away we went;
rejoicing- that the trouble of rowing was at an end, and
looking- very much like a party of school boys in a washing
tub. The wind being- right aft for half a mile, we
proceeded as boldly down the stream as the Bear in the
Boat; but as the breeze drew along- shore, it first came
upon the quarter and then upon the beam. By degrees,
we went to leeward ; and then we made nothing but leeway
; and then the wind came before the beam, and the
separate blankets beginning to disagree, we lay to, upon