“and panted hard, As one who feels a nightmare in his bed, When all the house is mute.”
I saw from the knolls and undulations, which diversified the surface of his enormous shoes, that his _Pilgrims Progress_ had a good deal to do with _Bunyan's_, although his adjurations were not of that pious kind, which would have issued from the lips of the “preaching tinker,” and the deities, to whom he referred in his affliction, were, principally, _Zounds and Jingo_.
But we soon found a truer solace in the view of _Coom Dhuv_, the Black Valley, and in listening to the roar of its mountain streams, which, rising and falling upon the breeze, sounded as though some monster train bore giants over the hills, at express speed, with Gog and Magog for Guard and Stoker!
Lo! the dark valley darkens, and its foaming waterfalls seem to whiten beneath the low black clouds; and we stay not to visit _the Logan Stone_, which a child may move, but nothing under an earthquake could dislodge; but hasten, by _Lord Brandons Cottage_, to _the Upper Lake_, where, a boat awaiting us, we embark for _Roknaines Island._
Here, before a glowing fire, a fresh-caught salmon, cut into steaks, was broiling on arbutus skivers; and the founder of the feast, an Irish gentleman, whom we brought from the shore in our boat, hospitably invited us to postpone our luncheon until his guests arrived. Hungry, and anxious to proceed, we declined his courteous offer; but we should not have done so, had we been aware that he was awaiting the delightful party from _Tralee_. Alas, just as we had commenced our repast, and the boat so preciously freighted was descried in the distance, our pluvial fears were realised,
“And, in the scowl of heaven, each face Grew dark as we were speaking.”
It was piteous to see those girls come ashore, with the gentlemen's overcoats enveloping their fairy forms, and protecting their best bonnets; and I never experienced so strong a desire in my life to be transformed into a gig-umbrella.
Suddenly the weather brightened, but not so the prospects of the pretty pic-nic. There was a brief colloquy between master and men, sounds of surprise and disappointment, not loud but deep, and then a general laughter, but dismally artificial; for the knives, and the plates, and the wine, and the bread, everything, in fact, except the salmon, just ready in its hot perfection, had been sent to _the wrong Island!_