eacon, and the water was
so very calm that day, that they were able to venture to hand the
packet of letters with which they had come off into the beacon, even
although the tide was full.

"Letters," said Swankie, as he reached out his hand with the packet.

"Hurrah!" cried the men, who were all assembled on the
mortar-gallery, looking down at the fishermen, excepting Ruby, Watt,
and Dumsby, who were still on the cross-beams below.

"Mind the boat; keep her aff," said Swankie, stretching out his hand
with the packet to the utmost, while Dumsby descended the ladder and
held out his hand to receive it.

"Take care," cried the men in chorus, for news from shore was always
a very exciting episode in their career, and the idea of the packet
being lost filled them with sudden alarm.

The shout and the anxiety together caused the very result that was
dreaded. The packet fell into the sea and sank, amid a volley of
yells.

It went down slowly. Before it had descended a fathom, Ruby's head
cleft the water, and in a moment he returned to the surface with the
packet in his hand amid a wild cheer of joy; but this was turned into
a cry of alarm, as Ruby was carried away by the tide, despite his
utmost efforts to regain the beacon.

The boat was at once pushed off, but so strong was the current there,
that Ruby was carried past the rock, and a hundred yards away to sea,
before the boat overtook him.

The moment he was pulled into her he shook himself, and then tore off
the outer covering of the packet in order to save the letters from
being wetted. He had the great satisfaction of finding them almost
uninjured. He had the greater satisfaction, thereafter, of feeling
that he had done a deed which induced every man in the beacon that
night to thank him half a dozen times over; and he had the greatest
possible satisfaction in finding that among the rest he had saved two
letters addressed to himself, one from Minnie Gray, and the other
from his uncle.

The scene in the beacon when the contents of the packet were
delivered was interesting. Those who had letters devoured them, and
in many cases read them (unwittingly) half-aloud. Those who had none
read the newspapers, and those who had neither papers nor letters
listened.

Ruby's letter ran as follows (we say his letter, because the other
letter was regarded, comparatively, as nothing):--

"ARBROATH, &c.

"DARLING RUBY,--I have