“God be thankit, I’m nae too late!” and a fisherman with great thigh-boots came hurriedly climbing over the rock. In an instant he recognised the gravity of the danger, and with a cheering “Haud fast, mon! I’m comin’!” scrambled down till he found a firm foothold. Then with one strong hand holding the rock above, he leaned down, and catching Markam’s wrist, called out to him, “Haud to me, mon! Haud to me wi’ ither hond!”
Then he lent his great strength, and with a steady, sturdy pull, dragged him out of the hungry quicksand and placed him safe upon the rock. Hardly giving him time to draw breath, he pulled and pushed him—never letting him go for an instant—over the rock into the firm sand beyond it, and finally deposited him, still shaking from the magnitude of his danger, high upon the beach. Then he began to speak:
“Mon! but I was just in time. If I had no laucht at yon foolish lads and begun to rin at the first you’d a bin sinkin’ doon to the bowels o’ the airth be the noo! Wully Beagrie thocht you was a ghaist, and Tom MacPhail swore ye was only like a goblin on a puddick-steel! ‘Na!’ said I. ‘Yon’s but the daft Englishman—the loony that had escapit frae the waxwarks.’ I was thinkin’ that bein’ strange and silly—if not a whole-made feel—ye’d no ken the ways o’ the quicksan’! I shouted till warn ye, and then ran to drag ye aff, if need be. But God be thankit, be ye fule or only half-daft wi’ yer vanity, that I was no that late!” and he reverently lifted his cap as he spoke.
Mr. Markam was deeply touched and thankful for his escape from a horrible death; but the sting of the charge of vanity thus made once more against him came through his humility. He was about to reply angrily, when suddenly a great awe fell upon him as he remembered the warning words of the half-crazy letter-carrier: “Meet thyself face to face, and repent ere the quicksand shall swallow thee!”
Here, too, he remembered the image of himself that he had seen and the sudden danger from the deadly quicksand that had followed. He was silent a full minute, and then said:
“My good fellow, I owe you my life!”
The answer came with reverence from the hardy fisherman, “Na! Na! Ye owe that to God; but, as for me, I’m only too glad till be the humble instrument o’ His mercy.”
“But you will let me thank you,” said Mr. Markam, taking both the great hands of his deliverer in his and holding them tight. “My heart is too full as yet, and my nerves are too much shaken to let me say much; but, believe me, I am very, very grateful!” It was quite evident that the poor old fellow was deeply touched, for the tears were running down his cheeks.
The fisherman said, with a rough but true courtesy:
“Ay, sir! thank me and ye will—if it’ll do yer poor heart good. An’ I’m thinking that if it were me I’d be thankful too. But, sir, as for me I need no thanks. I am glad, so I am!”