"She will be foul o' the Partan Craig, so sure as my name is John Girvan!" exclaimed the Quartermaster. "There is death in the air, Girvanmains," added Lady Rohallion, in a low voice that was full of deep emotion; "I heard the moan of the sea and wind--the deep sough of coming trouble--in the coves below the house this morning, and I never knew the omen fail--oh, look there--_all is over!_" she exclaimed with a shudder, as the drifting vessel struck with a crash, they seemed to hear, on the long white ridge of the Partan Craig. For a moment her masts were seen to sway from port to starboard, then away they went to leeward, a mass of entangled ruin, rigging, yards, and sails, as she became a complete wreck bulged upon the reef, with the roaring sea making tremendous breaches over her, washing boats, booms, bulwarks, and everything from her deck; and thus she lay, helpless and abandoned to the elemental war, within a mile of the shore. By the naked eye, but more particularly by means of a telescope, the crew could be seen making frantic signals to those on shore, or lashing themselves to the timber heads and the stumps of the masts; and near her bows there was a man bearing in his arms a child, whom he sought to shield from the waves that every moment swept over the whole ship. "A father and his child," exclaimed Lady Rohallion, in deep commiseration; "oh, my God, the poor things will perish! I will give a hundred guineas to have them saved." "The national debt wouldn't do it," replied the old quartermaster, grimly, with something in his throat between a sob and a sigh. In those days there were no lifeboats, no rocket apparatus to succour the shipwrecked, and in such a wild night of storm and tempest--for now the chill November eve had deepened into night--the hardy fishermen, who alone could have ventured forth to aid the drowning crew, thought and spoke of their wives and little ones, whose bread depended on their exertions and on the safety of their clinker-built boats, now drawn high and dry upon the beach; and thus compelled by prudence to remain inactive, they remained with their weather-beaten faces turned stolidly seaward to watch the helpless wreck. That those who were thereon did not despair of succour from the shore was evident, for on the stump of their mainmast the red glaring light of a tar-barrel was soon seen burning to indicate where they were, for as the darkness increased, even the snow-white foam that boiled over the Partan Craig became invisible. Then the fishermen's wives wrung their hands, and exclaimed in chorus-- "The puir man wi' his bairn--oh the puir man wi' his bairn! God save and sain them!"