ropping 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
the men, resting on their oars, turned towards the rock, 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 the worse in consequence; but as the
caves were inaccessible 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 verses, 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 _elite_ of
the town. Poor old Miss Bond, who kept the town boarding-school, got the
piece nicely dressed up, somewhat on the principle upon which Macpherson
translated Ossian; and at our first school-examination--proud and happy
day for the author!--it was recited with vast applause, by one of her
prettiest young ladies, before the assembled taste and fashion of
Cromarty.

FOOTNOTE:

[3]

"The beautiful blue damsel flies,
That fluttered round the jasmine steins,
Like winged flowers or flying gems."

PARADISE AND THE PEEL.

CHAPTER V.

"The wise
Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said.
Of Such materials wretched men were made."--BYRON.