stick her; she is away from us.’” Father Blakhal does not pretend that with his own ears he heard the Holy Islanders so pray.  It was told to him by the Governor of the island.  But, then, this Governor, Robin Rugg by name, was “a notable good fellow, as his great read nose, full of pimples, did give testimony.”  Perhaps he exaggerated, or it was but one of his “merry discourses.”  Yet I think he told the truth in this instance.  To “wreck” was the habit of the day, and by all coastal peoples the spoil of wrecks was regarded as not less their just due than was the actual food obtained by them from the sea.  On our own coasts and in our islands until quite recent times such was undoubtedly the case, just as in savage lands it continues to be the case to this day; and the distinction is a fine-drawn one between doing nothing to prevent a vessel from running into danger which would result in profit to the spectators, and the doing of a something, greater or less—­say the showing of a light, or the burning of a beacon—­which may make it certain that the same vessel shall go where she may be of “the greatest good to the greatest number”—­the “greatest number” in such instances being always, of course, the wreckers.  A wrecked vessel was their legitimate prey, and the inhabitants of many coastal parts are known to have deeply resented the building of lighthouses where wrecks were frequent.  In his notes to The Pirate, Sir Walter Scott mentions that the rent of several of the islands in Shetland had greatly fallen since the Commissioners of Lighthouses ordered lights to be established on the Isle of Sanda and the Pentland Skerries.  And he tells of the reflection cast upon Providence by a certain pious island farmer, the sails of whose boat were frail from age and greatly patched:  “Had it been His will that a light hadna been placed yonder,” said he, with pious fervour, “I wad have had enough of new sails last winter.”

Then as to the saving of life—­in those days, and well on into the eighteenth century, it was believed to be a most unlucky thing to save a drowning person; he was sure eventually to do his rescuer some deadly injury.  A similar belief, as regards the ill luck, prevails in China to this day; nothing will induce a Chinaman to help a drowning man from the water.  In our own case, probably this superstition as to ill luck originated in the obvious fact that if there were no survivor from a wreck, there could be no one to interfere with the claim made by the finders to what they considered their lawful due.  If a vessel drove ashore on their coast, that surely was the act and the will of God, and it was not for them to question His decrees or to thwart His intentions.