“Mon! but I was just in time. If I had no laucht at yon foolish lads and begun to rin at the first you’d a bin sinkin’ doon to the bowels o’ the airth be the noo! Wully Beagrie thocht you was a ghaist, and Tom MacPhail swore ye was only like a goblin on a puddick-steel! ‘Na!’ said I. ‘Yon’s but the daft Englishman—the loony that has escapit frae the wax-warks.’ I was thinkin’ that bein’ strange and silly—if not a whole-made feel—ye’d no ken the ways o’ the quicksan’! I shouted till warn ye, and then ran to drag ye aff, if need be. But God be thankit, be ye fule or only half-daft wi’ yer vanity, that I was no that late!” and he reverently lifted his cap as he spoke.

Mr. Markam was deeply touched and thankful for his escape from a horrible death; but the sting of the charge of vanity thus made once more against him came through his humility. He was about to reply angrily, when suddenly a great awe fell upon him as he remembered the warning words of the half-crazy letter-carrier: “Meet thyself face to face, and repent ere the quicksand shall swallow thee!”

Here, too, he remembered the image of himself that he had seen and the sudden danger from the deadly quicksand that had followed. He was silent a full minute, and then said:

“My good fellow, I owe you my life!”

The answer came with reverence from the hardy fisherman, “Na! Na! Ye owe that to God; but, as for me, I’m only too glad till be the humble instrument o’ His mercy.”

“But you will let me thank you,” said Mr. Markam, taking both the great hands of his deliverer in his and holding them tight. “My heart is too full as yet, and my nerves are too much shaken to let me say much; but, believe me, I am very, very grateful!” It was quite evident that the poor old fellow was deeply touched, for the tears were running down his cheeks.

The fisherman said, with a rough but true courtesy:

“Ay, sir! thank me and ye will—if it’ll do yer poor heart good. An’ I’m thinking that if it were me I’d like to be thankful too. But, sir, as for me I need no thanks. I am glad, so I am!”

That Arthur Fernlee Markam was really thankful and grateful was shown practically later on. Within a week’s time there sailed into Port Crooken the finest fishing smack that had ever been seen in the harbour of Peterhead. She was fully found with sails and gear of all kinds, and with nets of the best. Her master and men went away by the coach, after having left with the salmon-fisher’s wife the papers which made her over to him.

As Mr. Markam and the salmon-fisher walked together along the shore the former asked his companion not to mention the fact that he had been in such imminent danger, for that it would only distress his dear wife and children. He said that he would warn them all of the quicksand, and for that purpose he, then and there, asked questions about it till he felt that his information on the subject was complete. Before they parted he asked his companion if he had happened to see a second figure, dressed like himself, on the other rock as he had approached to succour him.