own dear boy!” I tried to soothe him, but in vain: the only theme to which he could be brought to listen was the chance—and I confess it seemed to my own secret mind a hopeless thought—that it might be possible at the next ebb tide, by skill and strength combined, to move, if ever so little, the monstrous rock, and so recover the corpse. It was low water at evening tide, and there was a bright November moon. We gathered in numbers; for among my parishioners there were kind and gentle-hearted men, such as had “pity, tenderness and tears”; and all were moved by the tale of the sailor hurled and buried beneath a rock by the strong and cruel sea. The scene of our first nightly assemblage was a weird and striking sight. Far, far above, loomed the tall and gloomy headlands of the coast; around us foamed and raged the boiling waves; the moon cast her massive lowering shadows on rock and sea; And the long moonbeam on the cold, wet sand Lay, like a jasper column, half-upreared. Stout and stalwart forms surrounded me, wielding their iron bars, pickaxes and ropes. Their efforts were strenuous but unavailing. The tide soon returned in its strength, and drove us, baffled from the spot, before we had been able to grasp or shake the ponderous mass. It was calculated by competent judges that its weight was full fifteen tons: neither could there be a more graphic image of the resistless strength of the wrathful sea, than the aspect of this and similar blocks of rifted stone, that were raised and rolled perpetually by the power of the billows, and hurled, as in some pastime of the giants, along the shuddering shore! Deep and bitter was the grief of the sailor at our failure and retreat. His piteous wail over the dead recalled the agony of those who are recorded in Holy Writ—they who grieved for their lost ones, and would not be comforted, because they were not! That night an inspiration visited me in my wakeful bed. At a neighbouring harbour dwelt a relative of mine, who was an engineer, in charge of the machinery on a breakwater and canal. To him, at morning light, I sent an appeal for succour; and he immediately responded with aid and advice. Two strong windlasses, worked by iron chains, and three or four skilful men, were sent up by him next day with instructions for their work. Again at evening ebb we were all on the spot. One of our new assistants, a very Tubal Cain in aspect and stature, and of the same craft with that smith before the flood, plunged upon the rock as the water reluctantly revealed its upper side, and drilled a couple of holes in the surface with rapid energy, to receive, each of them, that which he called a Lewis-wedge and a ring.