And it went to Sandie’s inmost heart to hear them wail, “O my daddie! O my daddie! I’ll never never see my daddie mair.”
A kindly, old white-haired man met Sandie and shook him by the hand.
“Ye did your duty nobly, lad,” he said, “and the Lord will reward you.”
“But oh,” he continued, “it was an awfu’ nicht. Black Tuesday, Black Tuesday, and by that name it will go down to posterity.”
“I hardly like to ask,” said Sandie, “how many boats have been lost.”
“The loss is appallin’, young sir. Boat after boat was seen to founder, some o’ them within sicht o’ land, some o’ them near the harbour mouth. Fifty-and-five bonnie boats in all set sail the’streen (last night), three-and-twenty have gone down wi’ every soul on board. A black Tuesday—a terrible Tuesday! And,” he added, with a pathos that was touching, “I hae lost a bonnie son!”
His eyes were turned for just a moment meekly heavenwards.
“Heaven help me,” he said; “Thy will be done, but oh! it is hard, hard. It is our duty to submit to His will. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be His name.”
Every now and then all that day swollen corpses came floating in, and were speedily dragged on shore, and identified amid such wild manifestations of grief as Sandie had never seen or heard before, and prayed Heaven he never might see or hear again.
. . . . . .