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of the real nature of our situation at length crossed my mind. It was not imprisonment for a tide, to which we had consigned ourselves; it was imprisonment for a week. There was little comfort in the thought, arising, as it did, amid the chills and terrors of a dreary midnight, and I looked wistfully on the sea as our only path of escape. There was a vessel crossing the wake of

the moon at the time, scarce half a mile from the shore, and assisted by my companion, I began to shout at the top of my lungs, in the hope of being heard by the sailors. We saw her dim bulk falling slowly athwart the red glittering belt of light that had rendered her visible, and then disappearing in the murky blackness; and just as we lost sight of her for ever, we could hear an indistinct sound mingling with the dash of the waves-the shout, in reply, of the startled helmsman. The vessel, as we afterwards learned, was a large stone-lighter, deeply laden, and unfurnished with a boat; nor were her crew at all sure that it would have been safe to attend to the midnight voice from amid the rocks, even had they the means of communication with the shore. We waited on and on, however, now shouting by turns, and now shouting together, but there was no second reply; and at length losing hope, we groped our way back to our comfortless bed, just as the tide had again turned on the beach, and the waves began to roll upwards, higher and higher at every dash.

As the moon rose and brightened, the dead seaman became less troublesome, and I had succeeded in dropping as soundly asleep as my companion, when we were both aroused by a loud shout. We started up, and

again crept downwards among the crags to the shore,

and as we reached the sea, the shout was repeated. It was that of at least a dozen harsh voices united. There was a brief pause, followed by another shout, and then two boats, strongly manned, shot round the western promontory, and shouted yet again. The whole town had been alarmed by the intelligence that two little boys had straggled away in the morning to the rocks of the southern Sutor, and had not found their way back. The precipices had been a scene of frightful accidents from time immemorial, and it was at once inferred that one other sad accident had been added to the number. True, there were cases remembered of people having been tide-bound, in the Doocot caves, and not much worse in consequence, but as the caves were inaccessible even during neaps, we could not, it was said, possibly be in them; and the sole remaining ground of hope was, that as had happened once before, only one of the two had been killed, and that the survivor was lingering among the rocks, afraid to come home. And in this belief, when the moon rose, and the surf fell, the two boats had been fitted out. It was late in the morning ere we reached Cromarty, but a crowd on the beach awaited our arrival; and there were anxious-looking lights glancing in the windows, thick and manifold; nay, such was the interest elicited, that some enormously bad verse, in which the writer described the incident a few days after, became popular enough to be handed about in manuscript, and read at tea-parties by the élite of the town.

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How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs !

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

3.

The sick man from his chamber looks

At the twisted brooks;

He can feel the cool

Breath of each little pool;

His fevered brain

Grows calm again,

And he breathes a blessing on the rain.

4.

From the neighbouring school

Come the boys,

With more than their wonted noise

And commotion;

And down the wet streets

Sail their mimic fleets,

Till the treacherous pool

Engulfs them in its whirling

And turbulent ocean.

5.

In the country on every side,

Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide

Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain

How welcome is the rain!

6.

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapours that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil.

For this rest in the furrow after toil

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man's spoken word.

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