"I never heard of an instance of this," said he; "have you?" "I shall tell you," replied Morrison; "but, perhaps, you won't believe me?" "Why?" "Because you English are so sceptical about the mystic, generally." "I shall try, however." "When I was third mate of the _Queen of Scots_, a clipper ship of Aberdeen, on a voyage home from Memel, we encountered in the North Sea a dreadful gale from the westward. We stripped the ship of everything, until at length we hove her to under a close-reefed main-topsail. "The night was dark--black as pitch, as the saying is; the sea white as snow with foam, and the wind blew as if the clerk of the weather was determined to blow his last. "The captain was on deck, holding on by the weather mizzen rattlings by one hand, while the other held his speaking trumpet. "'Away! forward! Morrison,' he shouted to me, 'and see the flying-jib stowed,' for somehow it had got loose. "It was a perilous duty to perform at such a time, and in such a wild night. So, being loth to order a man for it, I undertook the task myself. "I _felt_ my way, like a man in the dark, along the wet and slippery bowsprit, which one moment seemed tilted up in the air, and the next went surging, cap under, in the seething trough of the sea, when the bows of the _Queen_ plunged down. Then I felt as if my heart was in my mouth, for I was but a young sailor, and thought of what would come of poor old mother and dad at home, if I should perish, and there would be no share of my wages to get monthly from our owners. "At that moment I planted my feet on the leeward foot-rope, and nearly fell into the world of waters that yawned and whirled below. "In my fall I caught a rope, and swung at the end of it, like a salmon grilse at the end of a line. "None spoke to me, lest even to suggest anything might cost me my life, and none could aid me, for I was beyond the ship altogether. My shipmates seemed paralysed by the same peril that filled my own heart with despair and dread of death. I was but a youth; so the exclamation, 'God help me, mother!' escaped me, and was swept away by the howling wind. "At length, favoured by a lurch of the ship, I somehow regained my footing on the bowsprit, stowed the jib in its netting, crept along the dripping spar, and regained the deck, where the men crowded round me with congratulations on my escape; for, had I remained even one moment longer among the foot-ropes, I should never have been seen again, as thrice in succession, with awful rapidity, the ship went forward, plunging bows and bowsprit under the sea with such force, that the starboard cathead and all our headrails were swept away. "Well, sir, at that very hour--aye, at that very moment--my poor old mother, who was a-bed and asleep in her cottage by the Don, was awakened by a voice, which, with true maternal instinct and terror, she knew to be mine, crying as if in agony, and from a vast distance--'God help me, mother!'