"The second night," said an elderly man, who sat beside me, and whose countenance had struck me as highly expressive of serious thought, "is fast wearing out of this part of the country. Nor should we much regret it, perhaps. It seemed, if I may so speak, as something outside the ordinary dispositions of Providence, and, with all the horror and unhappiness that attended it, served no apparent good end. I have been a traveller in my youth, masters. About thirty years ago, I served for some time in the navy. I entered on the first breaking out of the Revolutionary War, and was discharged during the short peace of 1801. One of my chief companions on shipboard, for the first few years, was a young man, a native of Sutherland, named Donald Gair. Donald, like most of his countrymen was a staid, decent lad, of a rather melancholy cast; and yet there was occasions when he could be quite gay enough too. We sailed together in the Bedford, under Sir Thomas Baird; and, after witnessing the mutiny at the Nore--neither of us did much more than witness it, for in our case it merely transferred the command of the vessel from a very excellent captain to a set of low Irish doctor's-list men--we joined Admiral Duncan, then on the Dutch station. We were barely in time to take part in the great action. Donald had been unusually gay all the previous evening. We knew the Dutch had come out, and that there was to be an engagement on the morrow; and, though I felt no fear, the thought that I might have to stand in a few brief hours before my Maker and my Judge, had the effect of rendering me serious. But my companion seemed to have lost all command of himself; he sang, and leaped, and shouted--not like one intoxicated--there was nothing of intoxication about him--but under the influence of a wild irrepressible flow of spirits. I took him seriously to task, and reminded him that we might both at that moment be standing on the verge of death and judgment. But he seemed more impressed by my remarking, that were his mother to see him, she would say he was _fey_. "We had never been in action before with our captain, Sir Thomas. He was a grave, and, I believe, God-fearing man, and much a favourite with, at least, all the better seamen. But we had not yet made up our minds on his character--indeed, no sailor ever does, with regard to his officers, till he knows how they fight; and we were all curious to see how the parson, as we used to call him, would behave himself among the shot. But truly we might have had little fear for him. I have sailed with Nelson, and not Nelson himself ever showed more courage or conduct than Sir Thomas in that action. He made us all lie down beside our guns, and steered us, without firing a shot, into the very thickest of the fight; and, when we did open, masters, every broadside told with fearful effect. I never saw a man issue his commands with more coolness or self-possession.