Col called me up, with intelligence that it was a good day for a passage
to Mull; and just as we rose, a sailor from the vessel arrived for us.
We got all ready with dispatch. Dr. Johnson was displeased at my
bustling, and walking quickly up and down. He said, 'It does not hasten
us a bit. It is getting on horseback in a ship[831]. All boys do it; and
you are longer a boy than others.' He himself has no alertness, or
whatever it may be called; so he may dislike it, as _Oderunt hilarem
tristes[832]._
Before we reached the harbour, the wind grew high again. However, the
small boat was waiting and took us on board. We remained for some time
in uncertainty what to do: at last it was determined, that, as a good
part of the day was over, and it was dangerous to be at sea at night, in
such a vessel, and such weather, we should not sail till the morning
tide, when the wind would probably be more gentle. We resolved not to go
ashore again, but lie here in readiness. Dr. Johnson and I had each a
bed in the cabin. Col sat at the fire in the fore-castle, with the
captain, and Joseph, and the rest. I eat some dry oatmeal, of which I
found a barrel in the cabin. I had not done this since I was a boy. Dr.
Johnson owned that he too was fond of it when a boy[833]; a circumstance
which I was highly pleased to hear from him, as it gave me an
opportunity of observing that, notwithstanding his joke on the article
of OATS[834], he was himself a proof that this kind of _food_ was not
peculiar to the people of Scotland.