The sight of the dear girl in safety only stimulated them to greater exertions; the old fisherman and one of his boys departed to their house to procure a long plank, while Kelson and the other young man returned to the top of the hill, and, by sliding and supporting themselves by the bushes, safely descended to the spot where stood the lovely wanderer. She was so overjoyed to see them, and so completely chilled through, that she could scarcely speak. Kelson immediately stripped off his coat, and insisted upon wrapping her in it; and the young Triton, following the brilliant example of one whom he respected so much as Captain Kelson, doffed his "monkey-jacket," and with hearty but rough kindness forcibly enveloped her feet and ancles in its fearnought folds. In a short time the other two fishermen arrived, bearing on their shoulders a long plank. An end of a rope was then thrown to Kelson, by which one end of the plank was hauled across, and firmly bedded in the bank. Its passage was then rendered secure by double "life-lines" on each side; and Mary, supported by her lover and the young fisherman, safely reached the other side, and was pressed, sobbing with joy, to her fond father's bosom. The whole party then returned towards Captain Bowline's house, where the old fisherman and his two sons were liberally rewarded, and treated with a good supper. The next morning a messenger arrived from the village, bearing a note from Mr. George, &c. Millinet, in which he attempted to excuse his behavior the preceding evening. Mary declined opening it, however, and contented herself with sending word by the bearer that the writer need not give himself any further trouble on her account, an answer that was sufficiently intelligible. But the old commander shouted after the messenger, "Tell that lubberly _yoho_[2] that if I catch him within a cable's length of my house, I'll break every d--d bone in his tailor-built body." This threat was duly reported to the crest-fallen vender of pins and bobbin, who settled his bills, and accomplished his escape, with as little parade and as much expedition as possible; a movement that excited full as much conversation as his first appearance and intimacy in Captain Bowline's family; and while one party were confident that he had only gone to New York to make preparations for his marriage, and another were equally sure that Mary had, in nautical parlance, "given him his walking ticket," the story of the accident and Mary Bowline's narrow escape at the Devil's Gap came out, with suitable additions and embellishments, and of course the whole affair wore a different face at once. Old Haddock, the fisherman, was seized upon one evening in a ship-chandlery and grocery store, that was the usual Rialto of the loungers in B----, and rigorously cross-questioned. The man of hooks and lines hitched up his trowsers, and proceeded to enlighten his audience as follows:--