the gleam
of torches mingled with those lights of evening which still remained
amidst the darkness of the storm. Some attempt was made to hold
communication between the assistants above and the sufferers beneath,
who were still clinging to their precarious place of safety; but
the howling of the tempest limited their intercourse to cries as
inarticulate as those of the winged denizens of the crag, which shrieked
in chorus, alarmed by the reiterated sound of human voices, where they
had seldom been heard.

On the verge of the precipice an anxious group had now assembled.
Oldbuck was the foremost and most earnest, pressing forward with
unwonted desperation to the very brink of the crag, and extending his
head (his hat and wig secured by a handkerchief under his chin) over the
dizzy height, with an air of determination which made his more timorous
assistants tremble.

"Haud a care, haud a care, Monkbarns!" cried Caxon, clinging to the
skirts of his patron, and withholding him from danger as far as his
strength permitted--"God's sake, haud a care!--Sir Arthur's drowned
already, and an ye fa' over the cleugh too, there will be but ae wig
left in the parish, and that's the minister's."

"Mind the peak there," cried Mucklebackit, an old fisherman and
smuggler--"mind the peak--Steenie, Steenie Wilks, bring up the tackle--I'se
warrant we'll sune heave them on board, Monkbarns, wad ye but stand out
o' the gate."

"I see them," said Oldbuck--"I see them low down on that flat
stone--Hilli-hilloa, hilli-ho-a!"

"I see them mysell weel eneugh," said Mucklebackit; "they are sitting
down yonder like hoodie-craws in a mist; but d'yo think ye'll help
them wi' skirling that gate like an auld skart before a flaw o'
weather?--Steenie, lad, bring up the mast--Od, I'se hae them up as we used
to bouse up the kegs o' gin and brandy lang syne--Get up the pickaxe,
make a step for the mast--make the chair fast with the rattlin--haul
taught and belay!"

The fishers had brought with them the mast of a boat, and as half of the
country fellows about had now appeared, either out of zeal or curiosity,
it was soon sunk in the ground, and sufficiently secured. A yard across
the upright mast, and a rope stretched along it, and reeved through a
block at each end, formed an extempore crane, which afforded the means
of lowering an arm-chair, well secured and fastened, down to the flat
shelf on which the sufferers had roosted. Their joy at hearing the