Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/205

Rh now little more than a cable-length distant from the land, the peril of their situation seemed little lessened. The winds had greatly abated; but the sea, with that impulse communicated by the storm, threw itself against the rocks, elevating its waters high over the summits of the highest cliffs, and leaping and foaming around the bark, with a force that made her reel and quiver, and threatened to stave her to pieces. The old and skilful mariner himself was observed amid the confusion and danger, as collected and self-possessed as if he had been entering the bay in the tranquillity of a summer evening, with a hundred hands waving and welcoming his return. His spirit and deliberation seemed more or less communicated to his little crew; but chiefly to Frank Forster, who, in the ardent buoyancy of youth, moved as he moved, thought as he thought, and acted from his looks alone, as if they had been both in formed with one soul. In those times, the benevolence of individuals had not been turned to multiply the means of preserving seamen's lives; and the mariner, in the hour of peril, owed his life to chance, his own endeavours, or the intrepid exertions of the humane peasantry.

The extreme agitation of the sea rendered it difficult to moor or abandon the bark with safety; and several young men ventured fearlessly into the flood on horseback, but could not reach the rope which the crew threw out to form a communication with the land. Young Forster, whose eye seemed to have singled out some object of regard on shore, seized the rope; then leaping with a plunge into the sea, he made the waters flash! Though for a moment he seemed swallowed up, he emerged from the billows like a waterfowl, and swam shoreward with unexpected agility and strength. The old mariner gazed after him with a look of deep concern; but none seemed more alarmed than the maiden with many keepsakes. As he seized the rope, the lily suddenly chased the rose from her cheek, and uttering a loud scream, and crying out, "Oh, help him, save him!" she flew down to the shore, and plunged into the water, holding out her arms, while the flood burst against her, breast high.

"God guide me, Maud Marchbank," cried William Dacre, "ye'll drown the poor lad out of pure love. I think," continued he, stepping back, and shaking the brine from his clothes, "I am the mad person myself—a caress and a kiss