wind chopped round to
another point, he stepped hastily on the side, his foot slipped on the
wet edge, and he overbalanced and fell into the raging waves. The old
boatman, who was used to mishaps at sea, dropped the tiller, and rushed
to his mate's assistance, and when he came to the surface threw an end
of my rope to him. By the help of this and the oar, he managed with some
difficulty, and after he had swam some time alongside, by my help to
drag him on board again, though with no small danger of upsetting the
frail skiff. They were some time in getting back, for the poor fellow
was rather exhausted by his ducking and long swim in the water, and
could not pull the oar with his usual skill. After that feat, I was
still more valued, and invariably taken out in the boat in case of
future accidents.

"And now the summer came on, and with it the busiest time of the women
of Rocksand, for most of them were hard at work early and late in their
little patches of garden ground. The fishermen generally left all these
matters to their wives, but my master was an industrious young man, and
was not particular what he turned his hand to, so that he might often
have been seen in the potato ground, hoeing and weeding, while his mates
were lying on the shore watching the weather or smoking their pipes at
the cottage doors. Just now, the crop of potatoes was being dug, and so
John Pike and his wife were hard at work on their ridges. It was a long
trudge from the village, and the weather was hot, so Mary had brought
both her children with her. The youngest, about two years old, she had
laid on an old shawl under the hedge, and there he sat propped up, and
mighty busy over a basket of shells she had brought up for him to play
with. The elder boy, about five, was trotting about very soberly, so
that they did not watch him perhaps as keenly as they ought, and so he
scrambled through a hole in the fence to the next field, and somehow
managed to tumble into the old well there. The fright of his parents on
hearing his shrieks may be imagined but not described, and they both
rushed to the direction the sound came from. John soon saw what was the
matter, and running back, snatched me hastily up, and ran to the side of
the well. It was luckily an old one, long unused, and in consequence of
the dry weather had but little water. It took John very few seconds to
throw one end of me hastily but tightly round a tree close by, and let
himself down. H