broken limbs, or joints out o' place, or
trouble o' some sort."

"I'm very sorry, Mother. If I could do any good to the general ill, I
would do it, but if I ruined all my future life I do not see that I
could help anyone. I must be just, before I am generous."

"To be sure. I hope you'll try to be just, for I am vera certain
you'll ne'er be generous; and if you are just, you'll pay your sister
back her ninety pounds."

"I will have a conversation with Christine, at once. Where is she?"

"The Domine sent for her early, she has been helping him wi' the hurt
folk, all day long. What hae you been doing?"

"I went down to the pier, to look after the boat. I knew father would
be anxious about it. Then I had to go into the town. I was expecting
an important letter, and the doctor was needing some medicines, and I
brought them home with me. In one way, or another, the miserable day
has gone. I hope Father is not much hurt."

"It's hard to hurt your feyther. His head keeps steady, and a steady
head keeps the body as it should be--but he's strained, and kind o'
shocked. The Domine gied him a powder, and he's sleeping like a baby.
He'll be a' right in a day or twa."

"I would like to sit by him tonight, and do all I can, Mother."

"You may well do that, Neil; but first go and bring your sister hame.
I wouldn't wonder if you might find her in Fae's cottage. His puir,
silly wife let the baby fa', when she heard that her man and his boat
was lost; and I heard tell Christine had ta'en the bairn in charge. It
would be just like her. Weel, it's growing to candle lighting, and
I'll put a crusie fu' o' oil in feyther's room, and that will light
you through the night."

Neil found his sister sitting with Judith Macpherson and her grandson,
Cluny. Cluny was not seriously hurt, but no man comes out of a
life-and-death fight with the sea, and feels physically the better for
it. Such tragic encounters do finally lift the soul into the region of
Fearlessness, or into the still higher condition of Trustfulness, but
such an education--like that of Godliness--requires line upon line,
precept upon precept.

James Ruleson had been perfectly calm, even when for a few minutes it
seemed as if men, as well as nets, must go to death and destruction;
but James had been meeting the God "whose path is on the Great
Waters," for more than forty years, and had seen there, not only His
wonders, but His mercies, and he had learned to say with David,