Night came on, and to prevent any chance of their being run down, each boat's crew lit their dim horn lantern; then a quaighful of whiskey went round; and still the darkness deepened on the silent sea; still the boats drifted by their heavy nets, and still the breeze was freshening from afar.
Midnight came.
Black, dense, and furious, a gust came with it—a fierce and heavy squall, sheer from the icy north, that scattered all the little fleet and nearly swamped the boat of Gair.
It was the turn of the tide now, and from their fishing ground a strong current runs from the north-north-east towards St. Andrew's stormy bay, and all along that bleak and iron shore.
"Awa' wi' the net, Jamie!" cried old John o' the Buddon-ness, furiously, through the roaring wind and hissing sea; and he held up a hand to the side of his mouth.
Jamie lingered, for the sacrifice was great.
"Awa' wi't!" cried John; "awa' wi't, or the boat is swamped in a minnit mair!"
Jamie sprang to the leeward gunnel, knife in hand, and a sore pang shot through his heart, as he thought of the unpaid twine bill—for he yet owed the price of the net to the rope-makers in Tindall's Wynd; but go it must. One slash of the knife, and net and floats, with all their scaly cargo, were swept away like a gossamer web. Half the boat-lanterns around them were tumbling hither and thither on the crests of the waves, or deep in the trough of the sea; the other half had vanished, for many a boat had gone down with all her hands on board!
And now nothing can save their frail shallop but running before the wind, and the close-reefed foresail strains on the mast of tough Scottish larch as it lifts the boat of the bold fisherman over each hoarse wave of that black and gurly sea.
Nor kith nor kin has poor John o' the Buddon-ness to weep for him, if his corpslicht dances on the waves to-morrow night; for his father and seven brethren had all perished at sea.