He met his end like a brave man in the great October gale which all of us remember.  He was down on the pier smoking with his friends in the watch-house and looking out occasionally for distressed vessels.  The great seas were hurling themselves over the stone-work and shattering into wild wreaths of foam on the sand.  Strong men who showed themselves outside full in the face of the wind were blown down flat as if they had been tottering children.  The wind sounded as though it were blown through a huge trumpet, and the sea was running nine feet on the bar.  A small vessel fought through, and appeared likely to get into the fairway.  She showed her port light for a time, and all seemed going well.  Suddenly she opened both her red and her green lights, and it was seen that she was coming dead on for the pier.  Presently she struck hard, within thirty yards of the stone-work.  There was wild excitement amongst the brigade men, for they saw that she must be smashed into matchwood in five minutes.  The rockets were got ready; but before a shot could be fired the ill-fated vessel gave way totally.  A great sea rushed along the side of the pier, and the pilot saw something black amongst the travelling water.  “There’s a man!” he shouted; and without a moment’s thought plunged in, calling on the other fellows to pitch him a rope.  Had he tied a line around his waist before he jumped he would have been all right.  As it was, the Dutchman whom he tried to save was washed clean on to the pier and put safely to bed in the brigade-house.  The pilot was not found until two days afterwards.

AN UGLY CONTRAST.

The steam-tug “Alice,” laden with excursionists from several Tyneside towns, struck in the autumn of 1882 on the Bondicar Rocks, sixteen miles north of Blyth.  The boat was not much damaged, and could easily have been run into the Coquet River within a very few minutes if the passengers had only kept steady.  But the modern English spirit came upon the men, and a rush was made for the boat.  Women and children were hustled aside; and the captain of the tug had to threaten certain persons of his own sex with violence before he could keep the crowd back.  Some twenty-seven people clambered into the boat, and then a man of genius cut away the head-rope, and flung the helpless screaming company into the sea.  Twenty-five of them were drowned.  It will be a relief if time reveals any ground of hope that the men of our manufacturing towns will lose no more of the virtues which we used to think a part of the English character—­coolness and steadiness and unselfishness in times of danger, for example.  The Englishmen who live in quiet places have not become cowardly, so far as is ascertained; nor are they liable to womanish panic.  In the dales and in the fishing-villages along our north-east coast may still be found plenty of brave men.  Where such disgraceful scenes as that rush to the “Alice’s” boat are witnessed, or selfishness like that of the men who got away in the boats of the “Northfleet,” there we generally find that the civilization of towns has proved fatal to coolness and courage.