"Rather they than I," rejoined a languid fourth; and again there was a pause. Meanwhile the boat party seemed to be thinking little about the waterfall, or the need for expedition. For a few minutes the quick-glancing play of the oars was seen, and then they ceased again; and now an arm was stretched out toward some distant object in the landscape, as if asking a question; and then the little fellow pointed here and there, as if asking many questions at once, and, in short, the conjectures on the balcony were all thrown out. But now the oars had rested longer than usual, and a figure rose and stooped, and seemed occupied with something at the bottom of the boat. What were they about? They were surely not going to fish at this time of evening? No, they were not; for slowly a mast was raised, and a sail unfurled, which at first hung flapping, as if uncertain which side the wind would take it, and then gently swelled out to its full dimensions, and seemed too large a wing for so tiny a body. A slight air had arisen; the long reflected lines of colors, which every object on the shore dripped, as it were, into the lake, were gently stirred with a quivering motion; every soft strip of liquid tint broke gradually into a jagged and serrated edge; colors were mingled, forms were confused; the mountains, which lay in undiminished brightness above, seemed by some invisible agency to be losing their second selves from beneath them; long, cold white lines rose apparently from below, and spread radiating over all the liquid picture: in a few minutes, the lake lay one vast sheet of bright silver, and half the landscape was gone. The boat was no longer in the same element: before, it had floated in a soft, transparent ether; now, it glided upon a plain of ice. "I wish they had stuck to their oars," said the full, deep voice of an elderly gentleman; "hoisting a sail on these lakes is very much like trusting to luck in life--it may go on all right for a while, and save you much trouble, but you are never sure that it won't give you the slip, and that when you are least prepared." "No danger in the world, sir," said a young fop standing by, who knew as little about boating on Scotch lakes as he did of most things any where else. Meanwhile, the air had become chill, the sun had sunk behind the hills, and the boating party, tired, apparently, of their monotonous amusement, turned the boat's head toward shore. For some minutes they advanced with fuller and fuller bulging sail in the direction they sought, when suddenly the breeze seemed not so much to change as to be met by another and stronger current of air, which came pouring through the valley with a howling sound, and then, bursting on the lake, drove its waters in a furrow before it. The little boat started, and swerved like a frightened creature; and the sail, distended to its utmost, cowered down to the water's edge.