to rin for Kyle Dona. The gate they're gaun the noo, they couldnae
win through an the muckle deil were there to pilot them. Eh, man,'
he continued, touching me on the sleeve, 'it's a braw nicht for a
shipwreck! Twa in ae twalmonth! Eh, but the Merry Men'll dance
bonny!'

I looked at him, and it was then that I began to fancy him no
longer in his right mind. He was peering up to me, as if for
sympathy, a timid joy in his eyes. All that had passed between us
was already forgotten in the prospect of this fresh disaster.

'If it were not too late,' I cried with indignation, 'I would take
the coble and go out to warn them.'

'Na, na,' he protested, 'ye maunnae interfere; ye maunnae meddle
wi' the like o' that. It's His' - doffing his bonnet - 'His wull.
And, eh, man! but it's a braw nicht for't!'

Something like fear began to creep into my soul and, reminding him
that I had not yet dined, I proposed we should return to the house.
But no; nothing would tear him from his place of outlook.

'I maun see the hail thing, man, Cherlie,' he explained - and then
as the schooner went about a second time, 'Eh, but they han'le her
bonny!' he cried. 'The CHRIST-ANNA was naething to this.'

Already the men on board the schooner must have begun to realise
some part, but not yet the twentieth, of the dangers that environed
their doomed ship. At every lull of the capricious wind they must
have seen how fast the current swept them back. Each tack was made