ing from the mouth, and his front teeth were gone--dashed out
by one stroke which had met him as he tried to climb and catch hold of
the deep iron keel in the fore part of the coble. The other man said
suddenly, "I have got a broken arm, Tommy." A few minutes went by,
during which the men dared not speak--only Tommy was perfectly safe. The
others were slipping and writhing in their efforts to hang on to the
smooth planks. The man with the broken arm had the nails of his sound
hand torn, and the blood streamed down as he clutched again and again at
the slippery seams. At last he said, "I cannot do it any longer. Tell
Mary the money is under the bed at the right-hand side next the wall,
and ask my grandfather to take little Adam for me and keep him." A
thought came into Hob's Tommy's mind. He cried out, "Don't let yourself
go down. Edge yourself round here to the stern, and you shall have this
rope." The maimed man came slowly round, and took the rope as Tommy let
go. For a single minute the bruised giant rested his hands on the
lunging stern of the little vessel. He did not look up, and his face had
no devotional aspect, but the two men who were saved remembered his
words to the end of their lives. He said, "O Lord Jesus, I am even with
you now. I am going to die." The stern of the boat flew up into the air
as a short sea hit her, and Hob's Tommy lost his grip. He lay back
quietly on the water, and the men said that he even smiled. Presently
the foam covered him over.
THE FAILURE.
To the southward of the Chibburn Stream a flat space, covered with
rushes and grey grass, stretches away towards the Border. On the seaward
side it is walled in by low hills, whilst on the landward side a sudden
rise of the ground forms another boundary which makes the waste resemble
the bed of an ancient river. It was a favourite place with me in the
summer time, because the brackens grow here and there, and to one who
wants perfect seclusion nothing can be more delightful than to creep
under the green shade and listen, hour after hour, to the wind flying
over. I had wanted to spend the whole morning in this lazy way, so I put
my Keats in my pocket and walked along the sand until the time came for
me to climb the seaward barrier. I often noticed a deserted cottage
which stood at the northerly end of the great waste, and which was
sometimes used in winter by the rabbit-catchers who had to remain by
their traps all night. Twice or thr
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