on to thunder and blow
like this, ye guess I did not look to see him to-night. Well, my wife
was just lightin' a pig-tail--tho' light enough and to spare there was
in the lift already--when who should come clatterin' at the latch-pin in
the blow o' thunder and wind but Philip, poor lad, himself; and an ill
hour for him it was. He's been some time in ill fettle, though he was
never frowsy, not he, but always kind and dooce, and canty once, like
anither; and he asked me to tak the boat across the lake at once to the
Clough o' Cloostedd at t'other side. The woman took the pet and wodn't
hear o't; and, 'Dall me, if I go to-night,' quoth I. But he would not be
put off so, not he; and dingdrive he went to it, cryin' and putrein'
ye'd a-said, poor fellow, he was wrang i' his garrets a'most. So at long
last I bethought me, there's nout o' a sea to the north o' Snakes
Island, so I'll pull him by that side--for the storm is blowin' right up
by Golden Friars, ye mind--and when we get near the point, thinks I,
he'll see wi' his een how the lake is, and gie it up. For I liked him,
poor lad; and seein' he'd set his heart on't, I wouldn't vex nor frump
him wi' a no. So down we three--myself, and Bill there, and Philip
Feltram--come to the boat; and we pulled out, keeping Snakes Island
atwixt us and the wind. 'Twas smooth water wi' us, for 'twas a scug
there, but white enough was all beyont the point; and passing the
finger-stone, not forty fathom from the shore o' the island, Bill and me
pullin' and he sittin' in the stern, poor lad, up he rises, a bit
rabblin' to himself, wi' his hands lifted so.

"'Look a-head!' says I, thinkin' something wos comin' atort us.

"But 'twasn't that. The boat was quiet, for while we looked, oo'er our
shouthers, oo'er her bows, we didn't pull, so she lay still; and lookin'
back again on Philip, he was rabblin' on all the same.

"'It's nobbut a prass wi' himsel", poor lad,' thinks I.

"But that wasn't it neither; for I sid something white come out o' t'
water, by the gunwale, like a hand. By Jen! and he leans oo'er and tuk
it; and he sagged like, and so it drew him in, under the mere, before I
cud du nout. There was nout to thraa tu him, and no time; down he went,
and I followed; and thrice I dived before I found him, and brought him
up by the hair at last; and there he is, poor lad! and all one if he lay
at the bottom o' t' mere."

As Tom Marlin ended his narrative--often interrupted by the noise of