tugging and jibbing on her chain, and
swinging and bobbing upon the top of the froth, like the leaves which
danced upon the eddy. Dreadnought had heard the sound of the river, and
knew what there was at work before us. The boat was moored near the
throat of the pool, in the back-water of a little bay, now entirely
filled with froth and foam up to the gunwale of the coble, which was
defended by a sharp point of rock, from whose breakwater the stream was
thrown off in a wild shooting torrent. Within the bay the reaction of
the tide formed a quick back-water, which raised the stream without
nearly two feet higher than the level within, and at times sucked the
boat on to the point, where she was struck in the stem by the gushing
stream and sent spinning round at the full swing of her 'tether.'

Donald looked at me. There was no alternative but the bridge of
Daltullich, more than four miles about, with two bucks to carry, and
ourselves well run since four o'clock in the morning. I stood for some
moments considering the chances, and the manifest probability of going
down the stream. Immediately after emerging from the little mooring bay
there was a terrific rush of water discharged through the narrow throat
of the pool, and raised to the centre in a white fierce tumbling ridge,
for which the shortness of the pool afforded no allowance for working,
while the little back-water, which, in ordinary cases, caught us on the
opposite side, and took us into the bank, was lost in a flood, which ran
right through the basin like a mill-lead. 'Can you swim, Donald?' said I
mechanically. '_Swim_, Sir!' said he, who knew how often I had seen
him tumbled by the waves both in salt water and fresh. 'Oh yes, I know
you can. But I was thinking of that stream.' 'Ougudearbh!' replied
Donald: 'But it was myself that never tried it yon way!' 'And what do
you think of her?' 'Faith, Thighearna, you know best--but if you try it,
I shall not stay behind.'

We had often ridden the water together by day and night, in flood and
fair; and, narrow as the pool was, I thought we could get through it. We
threw in a broken branch to prove the speed of the current, but it
leaped through the plunging water like a greyhound, and was away in a
moment down to the fierce white battling vortex of the Scuddach, where
there was no salvation for thing alive; a few moments it disappeared in
the wild turmoil, and then came up beyond--white and barked, and
shivered like a