for the islet, keeping
his course well to windward, to allow for the tide sweeping him down. To
use a nautical phrase, he "held his own" extremely well, until he
reached the centre of the channel, where the water ran with great
velocity, and bore him down rapidly with the stream. Newton struggled
hard; for he was aware that the strength of the current once passed, his
labour would be comparatively easy; and so it proved: as he neared the
shore of the islet, he made good way; but he had been carried down so
far when in the centre of the stream that it became a nice point, even
to the calculation of hope, whether he would fetch the extreme point of
the islet. Newton redoubled his exertions, when, within thirty yards of
the shore, an eddy assisted him, and he made sure of success; but when
within ten yards, a counter current again caught him, and swept him
down. He was now abreast of the very extreme point of the islet; a bush
that hung over the water was his only hope; with three or four desperate
strokes he exhausted his remaining strength, at the same time that he
seized hold of a small bough. It was decayed--snapped asunder, and
Newton was whirled away by the current into the broad ocean.

How constantly do we find people running into real danger to avoid
imaginary evil! A mother will not permit her child to go to sea, lest it
should be drowned, and a few days afterwards it is kicked to death by a
horse. Had the child been permitted to go afloat, he might have lived
and run through the usual term of existence. Wherever we are, or
wherever we may go, there is death awaiting us in some shape or another,
sooner or later; and there is as much danger in walking through the
streets of London as in ploughing the foaming ocean. Every tile over our
heads contains a death within it as certain, if it were to fall upon
us, as that occasioned by the angry surge which swallows us up in its
wrath. I believe, after all, that as many sailors, in proportion, run
out their allotted span as the rest of the world that are engaged in
other apparently less dangerous professions; although it must be
acknowledged that occasionally we do become food for fishes. "There is a
tide in the affairs of men," says Shakespeare; but, certainly, of all
the tides that ever interfered in a man's prospects, that which swept
away Newton Forster appeared to be the least likely to "lead to
fortune." Such, however, was the case. Had Newton gained the islet which