DUCK-SHOOTING. 205 



distant to admit of his shouts being heard, and it 

 was equally vain to hope, that any looker-out could 

 descry such a speck upon the waves as the head of 

 a human being. In this awful moment of sus- 

 pense, on looking downwards, he though he saw the 

 uppermost button of his waistcoat beginning to 

 appear. Intensely he watched it, but for some time 

 without any well-founded assurance that he was 

 right. At length, however, hope increased to cer- 

 tainty, as he saw button after button rising slowly 

 into view, an infallible sign that the height of the 

 tide was over, and that it was now upon the ebb. 

 Though chilled with cold, and almost fainting, this 

 welcome prospect raised his spirits, and, acting 

 like a cordial, enabled him to endure the remain- 

 ing hours of his fearful imprisonment. This man 

 escaped; but we well remember a case very similar, 

 in which the poor sufferer had to endure an equal 

 horror though not spared to tell the tale. 



Off the north-west point of the hundred of 

 Wirral, in Cheshire, extends a wide tract of sand, 

 forming a dangerous shoal, called Hoylebank^ which 

 has proved the grave of many a shipwrecked mariner. 

 To this bank, always dry at low water, the fisher- 

 men of the neighbourhood are in the frequent 

 habit of going to collect muscles. One evening, 

 a party having ventured as usual, before separating, 

 agreed upon a particular point where they were 

 to meet again when the tide began to come in. 

 Dusk came on, and those who first returned to 

 the boat rowed to the appointed rendezvous, there 

 to await the arrival of their comrades; but hour 

 after hour passed, and some were yet missing. 



