128 STUDIES OF NATURE 



How strangely such a scene as this contrasts 

 with that upon which, in the same place, we are 

 now gazing ! And what must it be in the 

 winter ! The good wife of the house here tells 

 us, with graphic touches of her own, and not 

 without some pride in her achievement, how one 

 Christmas night when a gale was raging from 

 the east and the air was thick with falling flakes 

 of snow, she heard, sitting late by the fire, the 

 fog-horn sounding in the channel. She listened. 

 It came nearer. Again, nearer, and nearer 

 still. Once more, so near that it seemed as if it 

 had been blown upon the beach below. Then 

 she sprang to her feet, and called to her father, 

 who was asleep, ' John Campbell, there is a ship 

 drifting on the rocks, God help us ! ' Quickly 

 she lighted the old lantern, and, throwing a 

 blanket over her shoulders, she rushed out into 

 the storm. There was not a moment to lose ; 

 and, at the peril of her own life, she ran along 

 the narrow and slippery ledge of rock which 



