Short as was the interval, the sea already ran vastly higher than
when I had stood there last; already it had begun to break over

some of the outward reefs, and already it moaned aloud in the sea-
caves of Aros. I looked, at first, in vain for the schooner.

'There she is,' I said at last. But her new position, and the
course she was now lying, puzzled me. 'They cannot mean to beat to

sea,' I cried.
'That's what they mean,' said my uncle, with something like joy;

and just then the schooner went about and stood upon another tack,
which put the question beyond the reach of doubt. These strangers,

seeing a gale on hand, had thought first of sea-room. With the
wind that threatened, in these reef-sown waters and contending

against so violent a stream of tide, their course was certain
death.

'Good God!' said I, 'they are all lost.'
'Ay,' returned my uncle, 'a' - a' lost. They hadnae a chance but

to rin for Kyle Dona. The gate they're gaun the noo, they couldnae
win through an the muckle deil were there to pilot them. Eh, man,'

he continued, touching me on the sleeve, 'it's a braw nicht for a
shipwreck! Twa in ae twalmonth! Eh, but the Merry Men'll dance

bonny!'
I looked at him, and it was then that I began to fancy him no

longer in his right mind. He was peering up to me, as if for
sympathy, a timid joy in his eyes. All that had passed between us

was already forgotten in the prospect of this fresh disaster.
'If it were not too late,' I cried with indignation, 'I would take

the coble and go out to warn them.'
'Na, na,' he protested, 'ye maunnae interfere; ye maunnae meddle

wi' the like o' that. It's His' - doffing his bonnet - 'His wull.
And, eh, man! but it's a braw nicht for't!'

Something like fear began to creep into my soul and, reminding him
that I had not yet dined, I proposed we should return to the house.

But no; nothing would tear him from his place of outlook.
'I maun see the hail thing, man, Cherlie,' he explained - and then

as the schooner went about a second time, 'Eh, but they han'le her
bonny!' he cried. 'The CHRIST-ANNA was naething to this.'

Already the men on board the schooner must have begun to realise
some part, but not yet the twentieth, of the dangers that environed

their doomed ship. At every lull of the capricious wind they must
have seen how fast the current swept them back. Each tack was made

shorter, as they saw how little it prevailed. Every moment the
rising swell began to boom and foam upon another sunken reef; and

ever and again a breaker would fall in sounding ruin under the very
bows of her, and the brown reef and streaming tangle appear in the

hollow of the wave. I tell you, they had to stand to their tackle:
there was no idle men aboard that ship, God knows. It was upon the

progress of a scene so horrible to any human-hearted man that my
misguided uncle now pored and gloated like a connoisseur. As I

turned to go down the hill, he was lying on his belly on the
summit, with his hands stretched forth and clutching in the

heather. He seemed rejuvenated, mind and body.
When I got back to the house already dismally affected, I was still

more sadly downcast at the sight of Mary. She had her sleeves
rolled up over her strong arms, and was quietly making bread. I

got a bannock from the dresser and sat down to eat it in silence.
'Are ye wearied, lad?' she asked after a while.

'I am not so much wearied, Mary,' I replied, getting on my feet,
'as I am weary of delay, and perhaps of Aros too. You know me well

enough to judge me fairly, say what I like. Well, Mary, you may be
sure of this: you had better be anywhere but here.'

'I'll be sure of one thing,' she returned: 'I'll be where my duty
is.'

'You forget, you have a duty to yourself,' I said.
'Ay, man?' she replied, pounding at the dough; 'will you have found

that in the Bible, now?'
'Mary,' I said solemnly, 'you must not laugh at me just now. God

knows I am in no heart for laughing. If we could get your father
with us, it would be best; but with him or without him, I want you

far away from here, my girl; for your own sake, and for mine, ay,
and for your father's too, I want you far - far away from here. I

came with other thoughts; I came here as a man comes home; now it
is all changed, and I have no desire nor hope but to flee - for

that's the word - flee, like a bird out of the fowler's snare, from
this accursed island.'

She had stopped her work by this time.
'And do you think, now,' said she, 'do you think, now, I have

neither eyes nor ears? Do ye think I havenae broken my heart to
have these braws (as he calls them, God forgive him!) thrown into

the sea? Do ye think I have lived with him, day in, day out, and
not seen what you saw in an hour or two? No,' she said, 'I know

there's wrong in it; what wrong, I neither know nor want to know.
There was never an ill thing made better by meddling, that I could

hear of. But, my lad, you must never ask me to leave my father.
While the breath is in his body, I'll be with him. And he's not

long for here, either: that I can tell you, Charlie - he's not long
for here. The mark is on his brow; and better so - maybe better

so.'
I was a while silent, not knowing what to say; and when I roused my

head at last to speak, she got before me.
'Charlie,' she said, 'what's right for me, neednae be right for

you. There's sin upon this house and trouble; you are a stranger;
take your things upon your back and go your ways to better places

and to better folk, and if you were ever minded to come back,
though it were twenty years syne, you would find me aye waiting.'

'Mary Ellen,' I said, 'I asked you to be my wife, and you said as
good as yes. That's done for good. Wherever you are, I am; as I

shall answer to my God.'
As I said the words, the wind suddenly burst out raving, and then

seemed to stand still and shudder round the house of Aros. It was
the first squall, or prologue, of the coming tempest, and as we

started and looked about us, we found that a gloom, like the
approach of evening, had settled round the house.

'God pity all poor folks at sea!' she said. 'We'll see no more of
my father till the morrow's morning.'

And then she told me, as we sat by the fire and hearkened to the
rising gusts, of how this change had fallen upon my uncle. All

last winter he had been dark and fitful in his mind. Whenever the
Roost ran high, or, as Mary said, whenever the Merry Men were

dancing, he would lie out for hours together on the Head, if it
were at night, or on the top of Aros by day, watching the tumult of

the sea, and sweeping the horizon for a sail. After February the
tenth, when the wealth-bringing wreck was cast ashore at Sandag, he

had been at first unnaturally gay, and his excitement had never
fallen in degree, but only changed in kind from dark to darker. He

neglected his work, and kept Rorie idle. They two would speak
together by the hour at the gable end, in guarded tones and with an

air of secrecy and almost of guilt; and if she questioned either,
as at first she sometimes did, her inquiries were put aside with

confusion. Since Rorie had first remarked the fish that hung about
the ferry, his master had never set foot but once upon the mainland

of the Ross. That once - it was in the height of the springs - he
had passed dryshod while the tide was out; but, having lingered

overlong on the far side, found himself cut off from Aros by the
returning waters. It was with a shriek of agony that he had leaped

across the gut, and he had reached home thereafter in a fever-fit
of fear. A fear of the sea, a constant haunting thought of the

sea, appeared in his talk and devotions, and even in his looks when
he was silent.