328 THE FISHERS OF STOTFIEI.D. 



spectators of £o mournful a catastrophe. When his body was placed 

 in the cottage which had so lately been his happy home, the interest- 

 ing woman who immediately on his perishing, on the preceding day, 

 had only been prevented by the timely interference of a stranger 

 I'roin voluntarily plunging into the sea and sharing the same fate, 

 pressed through those who had carried it thither, took it in their arms, 

 and embraced it. And what, reader, think you was the reason of 

 this young girl's feeling a peculiarly deep interest in the unhappy 

 fate of " the lost.'' Why, she was his betrothed — nay she was his 

 bride — nay, more still, she was on the afternoon of this very day to 

 have been his wife. How painful the contemplation, that he, 

 whom she was that evening to have called by the endearing appella- 

 tion of husband, and whom in that character she would have clasped 

 that night in her affectionate embrace, was now lying before her a 

 lifeless corpse, alike insensible of her ardent affection and her illimit- 

 able sorrow ! What an affecting sequel did this prove to the bright 

 anticipation of many a year of future bliss, which but so late as 

 yesterday morning her young heart had so fondly cherished, from the 

 apparently close approach of the hymeneal union together ! The 

 preparations for the marriage had been completed ; and the cheer- 

 consisting, as usual in similar cases, of a large bride cake, bread, and 

 spirits — provided for those invited to the wedding, was made to 

 answer the purposes of the bridegroom's funeral ! The duties, too, of 

 the worthy clergyman of the parish were on tliis occasion, strangely 

 metamorphosed : instead of being present in the bridegroom's apart- 

 ment that afternoon, agreeably to a request made to him some days 

 before, to pronounce in the hearing of the light-hearted and joyous 

 spectators that benediction which would at once have sealed the 

 earthly union of the betrothed pair, and expressed his holy wish and 

 uttered his fervent prayer for their future felicity, — he had to stand 

 up in a company of heart-felt mourners, and, in that dignified and 

 almost heavenly attitude which he so well knew how to assume, pour 

 into the hearts of the numerous bereaved and sorrowing individuals 

 who surrounded him, the balm of Christian consolation. 



But the death of her apparent husband was not the only bereave- 

 ment which this young woman sustained by the loss of the Stotfield 

 boats. Along with him,andin the same boat, perished her father and 

 only brother. The consequence of these accumulated bereavements 

 was an extremity of sorrow which engendered consumption, of which 

 she expired in the space of a few months afterwards. 



While in the act oT interring in the churchyard of Dranie the last 



body, which was that of an old man, John , which had 



been washed ashore, an apparently middle-aged man, dressed in the 

 habiliments of a soldier, came up to those who were present on the oc- 

 casion, as if just come from Elgin. Not one of those at the funeral had 

 any idea of who or what he was ; and he looked about among the per- 

 sons beside him as if they had been all equally strangers to him. At 

 last he enquired the name of the person to whom they were per- 

 forming the last offices of humanity. He was informed that the 

 deceased's name was John , a fisherman of Stotfield, 



who was drowned on this 25th instant. This simple annunciation 



