He himself raised the tune and so long as they heard Ms voice they sang—­

  “The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want;
    He makes me down to lie
   In pastures green; He leadeth me
    The quiet waters by.

  “My soul He doth restore again;
    And me to walk doth make
   Within the paths of righteousness
    Ev’n for His own name’s sake.

  “Yea, though I walk in Death’s dark vale,
    Yet will I fear none ill;
   For Thou art with me; and Thy rod
    And staff—­”

But some had lost the power to sing in the first verse, and others at “Death’s dark vale,” and when one man found himself singing alone he stopped abruptly.  This was because they no longer heard the minister.

“O Lord!” Peter Tosh cried, “lift the mist, for it’s mair than we can bear.”

The mist rose slowly, and those who had courage to look saw Gavin praying with the earl.  Many could not look, and some of them did not even see Rob Dow jump.

For it was Dow, the man with the crushed leg, who saved Gavin’s life, and flung away his own for it.  Suddenly he was seen on the edge of the bank, holding one end of the improvised rope in his hand.  As Tosh says—­

“It all happened in the opening and shutting o’ an eye.  It’s a queer thing to say, but though I prayed to God to take awa the mist, when He did raise it I couldna look.  I shut my een tight, and held my arm afore my face, like ane feared o’ being struck.  Even when I daured to look, my arm was shaking so that I could see Rob both above it and below it.  He was on the edge, crouching to leap.  I didna see wha had haud o’ the other end o’ the rope.  I heard the minister cry, ‘No, Dow, no!’ and it gae through me as quick as a stab that if Rob jumped he would knock them both into the water.  But he did jump, and you ken how it was that he didna knock them off.”

It was because he had no thought of saving his own life.  He jumped, not at the island, now little bigger than the seat of a chair, but at the edge of it, into the foam, and with his arm outstretched.  For a second the hand holding the rope was on the dot of land.  Gavin tried to seize the hand; Rintoul clutched the rope.  The earl and the minister were dragged together into safety, and both left the water senseless.  Gavin was never again able to lift his left hand higher than his head.  Dow’s body was found next day near the school-house.

 Talk of A little maid since grown tall,

My scholars have a game they call “The Little Minister,” in which the boys allow the girls as a treat to join.  Some of the characters in the real drama are omitted as of no importance—­the dominie, for instance—­and the two best fighters insist on being Dow and Gavin.  I notice that the game is finished when Dow dives from a haystack, and Gavin and the earl are dragged to the top of it by a rope.  Though there should be another scene,