the ballicaters.

"There was always a boat hauled up on t' cape for men gunning to get
birds or swiles, and t' only chance was to get there and launch her
before t' ice passed out. T' rise and fall of t' tide had piled up t'
ballicaters at t' foot of t' cliffs like young mountains, and it was
already dark, too, while my wet clothes froze on me like a box. I
reckon that saved my legs from being broken more'n once, for I fell
into holes and slid down precipices, and, anyhow, next day I was black
and blue from head to toe--though for that matter I'd have been green
and pink glad enough to have t' chance it gave me.

"Anyhow, I got t' boat in t' water at last, and pulled out toward t'
floe, but ne'er a sign could I make out of Uncle Johnnie. There
weren't a moment for waste, for spray was drifting over t' punt, and
she was icing up that fast that if we lost much time I knew that it
was good-bye to home for both of us. So I had to risk hauling her up
on t' ice, while I ran along t' edge, shouting for all I knew. I
hadn't gone many yards before I stumbled right over t' old man. In t'
dark he had slipped into a lake of water that had gathered on t' ice,
and was about half-dead already. For I had been moving and hadn't
noticed t' time, and Uncle Johnnie had given out quickly, thinking I
were lost, anyhow. Well, in t' dark it was not an easy job to
half-carry t' old man back to where I'd left t' boat. But when you
must 'tis wonderful what you can do; and even dragging him weren't as
hard as rowing ashore against t' wind.

"T' men thought us would never reach land, for t' ice made so fast on
t' punt and oars, and us were carried well outside t' bill while I was
getting Uncle Johnnie. When we did at last make t' standing ice edge,
it would have been t' end again if Marie hadn't been clever enough to
go and rouse out t' boys, and come with them right to t' very edge of
t' ice looking for us. And she hadn't forgotten some hot stuff nor a
blanket neither. She told us afterwards that she saw Uncle Johnnie
perishing of cold away out off t' cape before she left t' cottage,
just as clear as she did when t' boys hauled us out of t' punt.

"Uncle Johnnie pulled round in a day or so, but I pulled round early
next morning, and those two days gave me t' first chance I'd had to
get to windward of t' old man, and have Marie for an hour or two by
herself.

"T' business soon blew over, as I knew it would, and what's more,
Uncle Johnnie wer