“You fool! take in the sail,” he shouted, putting both his hands to his mouth, forgetting how impossible it was that the sound could reach; and then scarcely knowing what he was about, the boy rushed down to the beach, and jumped into the nearest boat. The sound of his oars furiously plashing through the silence was the first indication to his companions of what he had done. And he did not even see nor hear the calls and gestures with which he was summoned back again. His oars, and how to get there at a flight like a bird, occupied his mind entirely. Yet even in his anxiety he scorned to ask for help which would have carried him so much sooner to the spot he aimed at. As this sudden sound echoed through the profound silence, various outcries came from the group on the bank. “It’s tempting Providence,” cried Eben Campbell. “Yon’s a judgment on the Sabbath-breaker,--and what can the laddie do? Come back, sir, this moment, come back! Ye’ll never win there in time.” As for the boy’s mother, after his first start she clasped her hands together, and watched the boat with an interest too intense for words. “He’s in nae danger,” she said to herself softly; and it would have been hard to tell whether she was sorry or glad that her boy’s enterprise was attended by no personal peril. “Let him be,” said the farmer of Ramore, pushing aside his anxious neighbour, who was calling Colin ineffectually but without intermission. Colin Campbell’s face had taken a sudden crimson flush which nobody could account for. He went off up the beach with heavy rapid steps, scattering the shingle round his feet, to a spot exactly opposite the struggling boat, and stood there watching with wonderful eagerness. The little white sail was still fluttering and struggling like a distressed bird upon the black overclouded water. Now it lurched over till the very mast seemed to touch the loch--now recovered itself for a tremulous moment--and finally, shivering like a living creature, gave one wild sudden stagger, and disappeared. When the speck of white vanished out of the black landscape, a cry came out of all their hearts; and hopeless as it was, the very man who had been calling Colin back, rushed in his turn to a boat, and pushed off violently into the loch. The women stood huddled together, helpless with terror and grief. “The bit laddie! the bit laddie!” cried one of them--“some poor woman’s bairn.” As for Mrs. Campbell, the world grew dark round her as she strained her eyes after Colin’s boat. She did not faint, for such was not the habit of the Holy Loch; but she sank down suddenly on the wet green bank, and put up her hand over her eyes as if to shade them from some imaginary sunshine, and gazed, not seeing anything, after her boy. To see her, delicate as she was, with the woman weakness which they all understood, seating herself in this wild way on the wet bank, distracted the attention of her kindly female neighbours, even from the terrible event which had just taken