the first thing seen, was a long fringe of tangle and grain along
the line of the highwater mark, and every one strained with greedy
and grieved eyes, as the daylight brightened, to discover which had
suffered. But I can proceed no further with the dismal recital of
that doleful morning. Let it suffice here to be known, that,
through the haze, we at last saw three of the vessels lying on their
beam-ends with their masts broken, and the waves riding like the
furious horses of destruction over them. What had become of the
other two was never known; but it was supposed that they had
foundered at their anchors, and that all on board perished.

The day being now Sabbath, and the whole town idle, every body in a
manner was down on the beach, to help and mourn as the bodies, one
after another, were cast out by the waves. Alas! few were the
better of my provident preparation, and it was a thing not to be
described, to see, for more than a mile along the coast, the new-
made widows and fatherless bairns, mourning and weeping over the
corpses of those they loved. Seventeen bodies were, before ten
o'clock, carried to the desolated dwelling of their families; and
when old Thomas Pull, the betheral, went to ring the bell for public
worship, such was the universal sorrow of the town, that Nanse
Donsie, an idiot natural, ran up the street to stop him, crying, in
the voice of a pardonable desperation, "Wha, in sic a time, can
praise the Lord?"



CHAPTER XXV--THE SUBSCRIPTION