“That is why the brig wants us,” was the reply.
“My lord, I beg your lordship's pardon,” whimpered Saunders. “But, oh! my lord, don't go; it's all very well for fishermen to be drowned; it is their business, but not yours, my lord.”
“Saunders, help me on with this coat.”
Christie had brought it.
“Yes, my lord,” said Saunders, briskly, his second nature reviving.
His lordship, while putting on the coat and hat, undertook to cool Mr. Saunders's aristocratic prejudices.
“Should Alexander Liston and I be drowned,” said he, coolly, “when our bones come ashore, you will not know which are the fisherman's and which the viscount's.” So saying, he joined the enterprise.
“I shall pray for ye, lad,” said Christie Johnstone, and she retired for that purpose.
Saunders, with a heavy heart, to the nearest tavern, to prepare an account of what he called “Heroism in High Life,” large letters, and the usual signs of great astonishment!!!!! for the Polytechnic Magazine.
The commander of the distressed vessel had been penny-wise. He had declined a pilot off the Isle of May, trusting to fall in with one close to the port of Leith; but a heavy gale and fog had come on; he knew himself in the vicinity of dangerous rocks; and, to make matters worse, his ship, old and sore battered by a long and stormy voyage, was leaky; and unless a pilot came alongside, his fate would be, either to founder, or run upon the rocks, where he must expect to go to pieces in a quarter of an hour.