cept the Squire's ground-game.

When the two men were growing grizzled with advancing years the coble
which belonged to them had gone away from the fishing-ground one black
night, before a strong north-easterly gale: she shot between the Great
Farne Island and the Bird's Rock. The tide was going like a millrace,
and the solemn roar of the vast stream made very terrible music in the
dark. The men might have got into their own haven by an easy passage,
despite the gale. But both of them seemed to be always possessed by a
gloomy kind of recklessness, and when they made the village lights they
determined upon trying an entrance which was desperately difficult. In
the centre of a gap which was twenty feet wide stood a rock which was
known as "The Tailor's Needle." It stood 400 yards south of "The
Cobbler." This rock was clad in sea-weed around its base; but eight feet
of the upper part of it was bare of weeds and covered only with tiny
shells which tore the hands. On the top of the rock was a very small
platform of about one foot square, and in fine weather daring boys would
stand upright on this summit and wave to the people ashore. The rock was
covered two feet by an ordinary spring tide; but on the night when
Roughit and Lance decided to try and pass it, about a foot was above
water. There was not a great deal of sea on; indeed, there was hardly
more than what the fishermen call a "northerly lipper;" but the tide was
running with extraordinary swiftness. Roughit put the helm down and
guessed at his bearings. The boat lay hard down and tore in through the
gap. There was a long grinding crash; the weather-side lifted clean out
of the water; she dropped off the rock, and the two men were pitched
overboard. Roughit scrambled to the top, at the expense of torn hands.
He hung on as well as he could; but the spray from the combings of the
seas cut his face and blinded him. Still, he could easily have held on
till dawn, because the tide had no further to rise. He, like too many of
the fishermen, could not swim. He got hold of the edge of the rock.
There was not room for him on the ledge; so presently he said, "I am
going." Roughit answered: "No, don't do that; let me give you a haul up
here." As Lance went up on one side Roughit went off on the other. The
waves buffeted him away towards the shore, and he cried out
"Good-night!" when he had swum a few yards westward.

At dawn Lance was picked off "The Tailor's Needle," but Roughit