Four o’clock P.M.
But vain are regrets . The inexorable spirit of progress points onward ; and the beings she chooses to be the parents of a new people , in a new land , must fulfil their destiny . On the 1st of July , 1832 , the Lyndsays embarked on board the brig _ Anne _ , to seek a new home beyond the Atlantic , and friends in a land of strangers . Four o'clock P.M. had been tolled from all the steeples in Edinburgh , when Flora stood upon the pier `` o ' Leith , '' watching the approach of the small boat which was to convey her on board the ugly black vessel which lay at anchor at the Berwick Law . It was a warm , close , hazy afternoon ; distant thunder muttered among the hills , and dense clouds floated around the mountain from base to summit , shrouding its rugged outline in a mysterious robe of mist . Ever and anon , as the electrical breeze sprang up and stirred these grey masses of vapour , they rolled up in black shadowy folds which took all sorts of Ossianic and phantom-like forms -- spirits of bards and warriors , looking from their grey clouds upon the land their songs had immortalised , or their valour saved . Parties of emigrants and their friends were gathered together in small picturesque groups on the pier .