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It is rather an unusual combination of disasters for a ship to be so totally wrecked, as to be actually obliterated from the face of the waters, in the course of a quarter of an hour, in fine weather, in the day-time, on well-known rocks, and close to a light-house; but without the loss of a single man, or the smallest accident to any person on board.1

In the next place, it is highly important to observe, that the lives of the crew, in all probability, would not, and perhaps could not, have been saved, had the discipline been, in the smallest degree, less exactly maintained. Had any impatience been manifested by the people to rush into the boats, or had the captain not possessed sufficient authority to reduce the numbers which had crowded into the pinnace, when she was still resting on the booms, at least half of the crew must have lost their lives.3

It was chiefly, therefore, if not entirely, to the personal influence which Captain Hickey possessed over the minds of all on board, that their safety was owing. Their habitual confidence in his fortitude, talents, and professional knowledge, had, from long experience, become so great, that every man in the ship, in this extremity of danger, instinctively turned to him for assistance; and seeing him so cheerfully and so completely master of himself, they relinquished to his well-known and often-tried sagacity the formidable task of extricating them from the impending peril. It is at such moments as these, indeed, that the grand distinction between man and man is developed, and the full ascendancy of a powerful and well-regulated mind makes itself felt. The slightest hesitation on the captain's part, the smallest want of decision, or any uncertainty as to what was the very best thing to be done, if betrayed by a word or look of his, would have shot, like an electric spark, through the whole ship's company-a tumultuous rush would have been made to the boats-and two out of the three, if not all, must have been swamped, and every man in them drowned.

1 Turn, for any of those who are on board.'

2the number of those who.' 3 eût péri.

Captain Hickey and his crew had been serving together in the same ship for many years before, in the course of which period they had acquired so thorough an acquaintance with one another, that this great trial, instead of loosening the discipline, only augmented its compactness,1 and thus enabled the commander to bring all his knowledge, and all the resources of his vigorous understanding, to bear at once, with such admirable effect, upon 2 the difficulties by which he was surrounded.

There are some men who actually derive more credit from their deportment under the severest losses, than others can manage to earn by brilliant success; and it may certainly be said that Captain Hickey is one of these; for, although he had the great misfortune to lose his ship, he must ever enjoy the noble satisfaction of knowing, that his skill and firmness, rendered effective by the discipline he had been so many years in perfecting, enabled him to save the lives of more than a hundred persons, who, but for3 him, in all human probability, must have perished with their hapless chief.-(Capt. BASIL HALL, Fragments of Travels and Voyages.)

A HIGHLAND REVENGE.4

MESSENGERS were despatched in great haste, to concentrate the MacGregor's forces,5 with a view to the proposed attack on the Lowlanders; and the dejection and despair, at first visible on each countenance, gave place to the hope of rescuing their leader, and to the thirst of vengeance. It was under the burning influence of the latter passion that the wife of MacGregor commanded that the hostage exchanged for his safety should be brought into

1 ne fit que (page 184, note 7) resserrer les liens de la discipline au lieu de les relâcher.

2 et le commandant, obéi au premier signal, eut toutes ses ressources naturelles à sa disposition pour lutter contre.

3 but for,' sans.

4 Une vengeance dans les hautes terres (or, les Highlands) de l'Écosse. 5 les forces des Mac-Gregors. 6 Use faire.

7 'the.'

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her presence. I believe her sons had kept this unfortunate wretch out of her sight, for fear of the consequences;2 but if it was so, their humane precaution only postponed his fate. They dragged forward at her summons a wretch already half dead with terror, in whose agonized 5 features I recognised, to my horror and astonishment, my old acquaintance Morris.

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He fell prostrate before the female Chief with an effort to clasp her knees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution, so that all he could do in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was to kiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forth with such agony of spirit.9 The ecstasy of fear was such 10 that instead of paralysing his tongue, as on ordinary occasions, it even rendered him eloquent; and, with cheeks pale as ashes, 12 hands compressed 13 in agony, eyes that seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, he protested, with the deepest 14 oaths, his total ignorance of any design on the person of Rob Roy, whom he swore he loved and honoured as his own soul.15 In the inconsistency of his terror,16 he said he was but the agent of others, and he muttered the name of Rashleigh. prayed but for life-for life he would give all he had in the 17 world: it was but life he asked-life, if it were to be 18 prolonged under tortures and privations: he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in 19 the damps of the lowest caverns of their hills.

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par humanité.

3 quoi qu'il en soit, cette.

4 See page 184, note 7.

5 pâles et défigurés; and see page 134, note 13.

with as much . . . : as.'

7 He threw himself at the feet of the chief's wife;' see page 145, note 8.

& les pans (lit., 'the skirts') de son plaid (manteau écossais). 9 avec autant de désespoir.

10 Fear acted on his mind with such strength;' see page 25, note 16. comme cela arrive.

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It is impossible to describe the scorn, the loathing, and contempt, with which the wife of MacGregor regarded this wretched petitioner for the poor boon of existence.

"I could have bid ye live," 2 she said, "had life been to you the same weary and wasting burden that it is to me that it is to every noble and generous mind. But you

-wretch! you could creep through the world unaffected by its various disgraces, its ineffable miseries, its constantly accumulating masses of crime and sorrow: you could live and enjoy yourself, while the noble-minded are betrayed -while nameless and birthless villains tread on the neck of the brave and the long-descended: you could enjoy yourself, like a butcher's dog in the shambles, battening on garbage, while the slaughter of the oldest and best went on around you !5 This enjoyment you shall not live to partake of !-you shall die, base dog!6 and that before yon cloud has passed over the sun."

She gave a brief command in Gaelic to her attendants, two of whom seized upon the prostrate suppliant, and hurried him to the brink of a cliff which overhung the flood. He set up the most piercing and dreadful cries that fear ever uttered—I may well term them9 dreadful, for they haunted my sleep for years afterwards.10

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late, were he to breathe no longer (plus) any (de) other air than that of.'

1 'the scorn,' &c.; simply, l'air de mépris et de dégoût.

2 Je t'accorderais la vie.

3 'to enjoy oneself,' here, se trouver heureux.

4 tandis que des gens sans naissance et sans courage foulent aux pieds des hommes illustrés par leur bravoure et par une longue suite d'aïeux. Put a full stop here.

56 you could,' &c.; Au milieu du carnage général, tu serais aussi heureux que le chien du boucher, qui lèche le sang des bestiaux qu'on égorge.

6 lâche, chien!

7 ce.

8 qui surplombait le lac. 9 Simply, 'I may say,'-'I may,' je puis, which is more quaint than

je peux.

As

10 Turn, for during some (quelques) years I often started up out of my sleep (je m'éveillai souvent en sursaut), thinking still I heard them (page 7, note 7).' We had better use here the preterite (je m'éveillai) than the imperfect (page 1, note 3, and page 55, note), although the action was repeated, -and this is often done when it is intended to point to each time the action took place, as separate and distinct from the others. By thus striking the mind with the idea of a fact which happened at oncethough repeatedly so-instead of letting it dwell on that secondary consideration, namely, that of a repetition of the fact mentioned, we give to our narration both more vivacity and more rapidity.

the murderers, or executioners, call them as you will,1 dragged him along, he recognised me in that moment of horror, and exclaimed, in the last articulate words I ever heard him utter, "O Mr. Osbaldistone, save me!—save me!"

2

I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentary expectation of sharing his fate, I did attempt to speak in his behalf, but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternly disregarded. The victim was held fast by some, while others, binding a large heavy stone,3 in a plaid, tied it round his neck, and others again eagerly stript him of some part of his dress.* Half-naked, and thus manacled, they hurled him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep, with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph,-above which, however, his last deathshriek, the yell of mortal agony, was distinctly heard. The heavy burden splashed in the dark-blue waters, and the Highlanders, with their pole-axes and swords, watched an instant, to guard, lest,5 extricating himself from the load to which he was attached, the victim might have struggled to regain the shore. But the knot had been securely bound-the wretched man sunk without effort;6 the waters, which his fall had disturbed, settled calmly over him, and the unit of that life for which he had pleaded so strongly, was for ever withdrawn from the sum of human existence. (SIR WALTER SCOTT, Rob Roy.)

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gnit à jamais (see page 194, note 18) dans cet abîme.-'for ever,' is, in French, à jamais, and pour jamais; the former expression is stronger than the latter: "un homme est perdu à jamais" (says very appositely Dr. Dubuc, in his valuable notes to Picciola), "when it is absolutely impossible for him to rise from his abjectness; il est perdu pour jamais, if it is only believed that he will not rise again.” -Picciola, page 8, note 6.

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