outed, and two stout
seafaring-looking men employed on his farm came running up. "There's a
ship ashore, or likely soon to be, and you'll be ready to follow me, not
to wreck and to plunder, but to save life, if so we can."

Both Sandy and Davie agreed to do whatever the captain wished, and
Morton's own crew were also quickly collected. Before setting out they
provided themselves with such coils of rope and long spars as the
captain's store could provide. Morton and his friend, armed with stout
sticks and coats buttoned up, followed by their men, set out with the
fierce gale blowing in their teeth, on their errand of mercy.

CHAPTER NINE.

NAVIE GRIND DESCRIBED--THE WRECK ON SHORE--THE SHIP DASHED TO PIECES--
THE RESCUED.

Navis Grind, or Navie Grind, the point towards which Morton and his
friend directed their steps, is a high cliff forming the extreme western
point of that part of Shetland called North Maven, and thus stands out
prominently into the Atlantic Ocean, some way to the south of Ronas
Hill. A short way off from it, due west, like the advanced sentry of an
outpost, is the small rocky islet of Ossa Skerry, but this in no way
breaks the force of the seas as they rush impetuously onward from far
far away across the ocean. It seems, on the contrary, to have the
effect of uniting the strength of two seas in one, and of impelling them
with double vehemence against the bold cliff which confronts their fury.
Solid as is the rock of which the cliff is composed, it has in the
course of ages been rent away, quarried out as it were; huge blocks,
many of several tons weight, being cast far away inland, while the whole
ground, for two or three hundred yards from the edge of the cliff, is
strewed with fragments of lesser size, so that the rocks present more
the appearance of the ruins of some vast edifice, than, as they really
are, masses hove there by the operation of one of nature's most potent
agents. At length the sea has worked a deep chasm in the cliff, and
each successive storm seems to dig out and force upward a fresh layer of
rock. As the party approached this spot, so wild and desolate at all
times, but doubly so now, the seas, dark, towering, and topped with
crests of foam, came rolling onward in quick succession, with a
fierceness which seemed irresistible, till, meeting the cliff, they
rushed upwards in dense masses, making the very ground shake with the
concussion. Now a sea, fiercer than its f