Having secured the small boat, they attempted to drag the large one through the gateway against the stream; but it soon filled with water and swamped, and, in spite of all their exertions, they found it impossible to get it up. The small boat was now all they had to trust to, and this was next caught by the strong stream and overwhelmed in a moment; and had not the men, most providentially, caught and clung to a haycock that happened to be floating past, they must have been lost. They were carried along till it stuck on some young alder trees, when each of them grasped a bough, and the haycock sailed away, leaving them among the weak and brittle branches. They had been here about two hours, when one of the men being unable to hold on longer by the boughs, let himself gently down into the water with the hope of finding bottom; when, to his surprise, he found that the small boat had actually drifted to the root of the very tree to which they had been carried. Some salmon nets and ropes had also, by the strangest accident, been lodged there. The man contrived to pull up one of these with his foot, and making a noose, and slipping it on his great toe, he descended once more, and managed to fix the rope round the stern of the boat, which was then safely hauled up, the oars, being fixed to the side, being also saved. The boat was returned to Mr. Suter’s and fresh manned, when it proceeded to a house occupied by a family of the name of Cumin, consisting of an old couple, their daughter, and grandson. By the time they reached the cottage, its western side was entirely gone, and the boat was pushed in at the gap. Not a sound was heard within, and they suspected that all were drowned; but, on looking through a hole in a partition, they discovered the unhappy inmates roosted, like fowls, on the beams of the roof. They were, one by one, transferred safely to the boat, half dead with cold; and melancholy to relate, the old man’s mind, being too much enfeebled to withstand the agonizing apprehensions he had suffered, was now utterly deranged. [Picture: Rescuing cottagers]