Head by the aid of the sails, but then drifted southward, driven by the storm, and struck in the early morning, in a dense fog, on the Harcar rocks.  Nine of the people on board managed to escape in a small boat, which was driven in a miraculous manner through the only safe outlet between the rocks.  They were picked up by a passing boat and taken to Shields.  Meanwhile a heavy sea had crashed down upon the Forfarshire, and broken it in half, one portion, with the greater number of crew and passengers, being swept away immediately.  The remaining portion, the fore part of the vessel, was firmly fixed upon the rock.  Here the shivering survivors clung all that stormy day, the waves dashing over them continually.  The captain and his wife were washed overboard, clasped in each others’ arms; and two little children, a boy of eight and a girl of eleven years of age, died from exposure and the relentless buffeting of the waves, their distracted mother clasping them by the hand long after life was extinct.  To a terrible day succeeded a yet more terrible night.

  “Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard
  Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea;
  Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,
  Nor may sight nor fear discern what evil stars may be.”

Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper of the Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter Grace saw them huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept fragments of the wreck.  The girl begged her father to try to save them, and to allow her to help in the task, and after some natural hesitation he consented.  The brave-hearted mother helped them to launch the boat, and they set forth.

[Illustration:  The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”]

“Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night.  Maid and man whose names are beacons ever to the north. ...... all the madness of the stormy surf Hounds and roars them back, but roars and hounds them back in vain.

  Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth. 
  Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth,
  Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north,
  Where the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south.”

  They reached the rock, where nine persons were still
  clinging to the wreck, and

  “Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head,
  While the girl’s hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain.”