.

"Lord-a-massy, it's the Carick," screamed Davy.

"Let go the anchor," roared the skipper.

But it was too late even for that last refuge. At the next moment the
schooner struck heavily; she was on the reef in Ramsey Bay, and
pitching miserably with every heave of the sea.

The two bright lights that led the vessel to her ruin came from
the two little bays that lie under Maughold Head. The light in
Port-y-Vullin was in the hut of Stephen Orry, who had lit his lamp
and placed it in the window when he went out to bid farewell to
Michael Sunlocks, thinking no evil thereby to any man but only that
it would guide him home again when he should return in the boat. The
light in Port Lague was from the cottage of three old net weavers,
who had lived there without woman or girl, or chick or child, through
more than forty years. Two or three were brothers, Danny and Jemmy
Kewley, both over seventy years old, and their housemate, who was
ninety, and had been a companion of their father, was known as Juan
McLady. Danny and Jemmy still worked at the looms year in and year
out, every working hour of the day and night, and Juan, long past
other labor, cooked and sewed and cleaned for them. All three had
grown dim of sight, and now groped about like three old earthworms.
Every year for five years past they had needed an extra candle to
work by, so that eight tallow dips, made in their own iron mould,
swung from the open roof rafters over the meshes on that night when
the Peveril struck on the Carick.

It was supper-time, though old Danny and old Jemmy were still at the
looms. Old Juan had washed out a bowl of potatoes, filled the pot
with them, hung them on the chimney hook and stirred the peats. Then
to make them boil the quicker he had gone out with the tongs to the
side of the house for some dry gorse from the gorse heap. While there
he had peered through the darkness of the bay for the light on the
Point of Ayre, and had missed it, and on going back he had said:

"It's out again. That's the third time inside a month. I'll go bail
something will happen yet."

He had got no answer, and so sat down on the three-legged stool to
feed the fire with gorse lifted on the tongs. When the potatoes had
boiled he had carried them to the door to drain them, and then, with
the click-clack of the levers behind him, he had thought he heard,
over the deep boom and plash of the sea in front, a voice like a
cry. Going indoors he had said, "P