As the great square mainsails of the frigates fell, they began to feel the full pressure of their canvas, and gathered way; the transient bustle subsided, and as the broad sails swelled out from the yardheads, and the glassy river rippled beneath their sharp and lofty prows, they stood noiselessly down the opening Tay with the ebbing tide, and a western wind, right aft to bear them onward. With evening a soft opal-coloured light stole over the summer sky. The heat of the day had subsided, and a light breeze stole along the water, wafting from the shores of that majestic river the rich fragrance of the apple-bowers, the ripening grain, and the thousand plants that flourish by its margin. The great square tower of St. Mary, the pointed spire of St. Clement, the Rock of St. Nicholas, and the little burgh--for it was then indeed but a small but beautiful Dundee,--became shrouded in the haze of the warm summer evening, as the frigates, keeping straight in the fair way, rounded Tentsmuir-point, the sands of Abertay, and then bore away a point or two towards the south, with the western wind upon the quarter, when the sun's rays were fading behind the undulating coast of Forgan, or, as it then was named, St. Fillan. People supped early in those days; thus, an hour after sunset, the bell in the great cabin announced that the evening meal was ready. "By Heaven! admiral, I have an appetite for the first time since my father's death!" said Barton, as he took his seat with a flushed brow. "Gadzooks, Robbie, if Cuddie descries those Englishmen----" "I will add two hundred angels to thine, admiral, and rig him a crayer of his own--and she shall be the best that ever was launched on the Forth or the Tay!"