' accident, ma'am." He was
putting on his bonnet and plaid as he spoke, and in five minutes the
men were hastening to the seaside.

It was a deadly coast to be on in a storm with a gale blowing to land.
A long reef of sharp rocks lay all along it, and now the line of
foaming breakers was to any ship a terrible omen of death and
destruction. The packet was almost helpless, and the laird and
Tallisker found a crowd of men waiting the catastrophe that was every
moment imminent.

"She ought to hae gien hersel' plenty o' sea room," said the laird. He
was half angry to see all the interest centred on the packet. The
little fishing cobble was making, in his opinion, a far more sensible
struggle for existence. She was managing her small resources with
desperate skill.

"Tallisker," said the laird, "you stay here with these men. Rory and I
are going half a mile up the coast. If the cobble drives on shore, the
current will take a boat as light as she is over the Bogie Rock and
into the surf yonder. There are doubtless three or four honest men in
her, quite as weel worth the saving as those stranger merchant bodies
that will be in the packet."

So Crawford and Rory hastened to the point they had decided on, and
just as they reached it the boat became unmanageable. The wind took
her in its teeth, shook her a moment or two like a thing of straw and
rags, and then flung her, keel upwards, on the Bogie Rock. Two of the
men were evidently good swimmers; the others were a boy and an old
man. Crawford plunged boldly in after the latter. The waves buffeted
him, and flung him down, and lifted him up, but he was a fine surf
swimmer, and he knew every rock on that dangerous coast. After a hard
struggle, all were brought safe to land.

Then they walked back to where the packet had been last seen. She had
gone to pieces. A few men waited on the beach, picking up the dead,
and such boxes and packages as were dashed on shore. Only three of all
on board had been rescued, and they had been taken to the Keep for
succor and rest.

The laird hastened home. He had not felt as young for many years. The
struggle, though one of life and death, had not wearied him like a
day's toil at the works, for it had been a struggle to which the soul
had girded itself gladly, and helped and borne with it the mortal
body. He came in all glowing and glad; a form lay on his own couch
before the fire. The dominie and Mrs. Hope were bending over it. As he
entere