e
would snuff out a candle, and a' to escape a night's doukin! Get up,
man--get a boat--we maun to sea--we maun meet the lugger, or you and I
are done men--clean ruined a'thegither. I hae risked the better part
o' my bit Fanny's fortune upon this venture, and, Heaven! I'll suffer
death ten thousand-fold afore I see her brought to poverty; sae get a
boat--get it--and if ye daurna gang out, and if nane o' your folk daur
gang, Ned and me will gang our tow sels."

"Surely ye wad be mad, Harry, to attempt such a thing in an open boat
to-night," said the Blyth merchant.

"Mad or no mad," answered Harry, "I hae said it, and I am determined.
There is nae danger yet wi' a man that knaws how to manage a boat. If
ye gang pullin through thick and thin, through main strength and for
bare life, as many of the folk upon our coast dee, then there is
danger--but there is nae use for the like o' that. It isna enough to
manage an oar; you must knaw how to humour the sea, and to manage a
wave. Dinna think I've been at sea mair than thirty years without
knawing something about the matter. But I tell you what it is,
friend--ye knaw what the Bible says--'The race is not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong;' now, the way to face breakers, or a
storm at sea, is not to pull through desperation, as if your life
depended on the pulling; but when you see a wave coming, ye must
backwater and backwater, and not pull again until ye see an
opportunity of gauin forward. It is the trusting to mere pulling, sir,
that makes our life-boats useless. The rowers in a life-boat should
study the sea as well as their oars. They should consider that they
save life by watching the wave that breaks over the vessel, as well as
by straining every nerve to reach her. Now, this is a stormy night,
nae doubt, but we maun just consider ourselves gaun off to the lugger
in the situation o' folk gaun off in a life-boat. We maun work cannily
and warily, and I'll tak the management o' the boat mysel."

"If ye dow that, master," said Ned Thomson, "then I gang wi' ye to a
dead certainty."

"Well, Harry," replied the merchant, "if it maun be sae, it just maun
be sae; but I think it a rash and a dangerous undertaking. I wad
sooner risk a' that I have on board."

"Why, man, I really wonder to hear ye," said Harry; "folk wad say that
ye had been swaddled in lambs' wool a' your life, and nursed on your
mother's knee. Get a boat, and let us off to the lugger, and nae mair