The outlook was certainly sufficiently discomforting; yet, as one by one the sleepers awakened, and with many a grunt and shiver crept forth from their lair, it would have been difficult to judge from the expressions upon their weather-beaten countenances how hopeless was the situation that they were in.
For they came of a breed that is strong to endure hardness, that takes its much bitter with little sweet as a matter of course, and, by dint of steady refusal to be dismayed at Fate’s fiercest frowns, has built up for itself a most gallantly earned reputation for pluck, endurance, and success throughout the civilized world. They were Scotch to a man, rugged and stern as the granite of their native Aberdeenshire.
They were the crew of the barque Jeanie Deans, of Peterhead, which, while outward bound from Aberdeen to Otago, New Zealand, had, after long striving against weather extraordinarily severe for the time of year, been hurled against that terrific coast during the previous afternoon. Their escape shoreward had been as miraculous as fifty per cent. of such escapes are, and, beyond their lives, they had saved nothing. So the prospect was unpromising. Nothing could be expected from the break-up of the ship. She was loaded with ironwork of various sorts, and her stores were not in any water-tight cases which might bring them ashore in an eatable condition. But the large-limbed, red-bearded skipper, after a keen look round, said--
“Ou, ay, ther isna ower muckle tae back an’ fill on, but A’am thenkin’ we’ll juist hae to bestir wersells an’ see if we canna get some breakfas’. Has ony ane got ony matches?”
It presently appeared that of these simple yet invaluable little adjuncts to civilization there was not one among the crowd. But even this grim discovery appeared to make no great impression, and presently the mate, a tall man from Auchtermuchty, with an expressionless face and a voice like “a coo’s,” as he was wont to say, remarked casually--
“If ye’ll scatther aboot an’ see fat ye can fine tae cuik, I’se warrant ye Aa’ll get ye some fire tae cuik it wi’.”
No one spoke another word, but silently they separated for their quest, leaving Mr. Lowrie, with his blank face, methodically rummaging among the _débris_. Presently he sat down quietly with a piece of flat board before him about two feet long by six inches wide. In his hand he held a piece of broomstick, which in some mysterious way had got included in the flotsam. This he whittled at one end into a blunt point, carefully saving the cuttings in his trousers pocket. Then with a steady movement of his stick he commenced to chafe a groove lengthways in the board, adding occasionally a pinch of grit from the ground to assist friction.